IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bru/bruppp/96-02.html

Fiscal anarchy in the UK: modelling poll tax noncompliance

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy Besley
  • Ian Preston
  • Michael Ridge

Abstract

The U.K.'s experience with the poll tax reminds us that even in an economy with a relatively well developed detection and legal system, one cannot take tax compliance for granted. The experience of the poll tax provides a unique opportunity to study many dimensions of tax compliance. We model nonpayment rates in a short panel of data on the 366 English local authorities. The transparent observability of individual and aggregate liabilities makes reliable measurement of rates of nonpayment possible. Moreover, these rates rose to unprecedented levels as well as exhibiting considerable variation across authorities. This, together with the variation in local taxes both between districts and over time, creates an ideal opportunity for empirical investigation. Our empirical specification allows us to investigate the determinants of compliance as a function of authority characteristics from census and other geographical data. Moreover, the analysis takes seriously the possibility of neighbourhood influences across authority boundaries. Our empirical results confirm the idea that higher taxes lead to larger compliance problems and that attempts to enforce compliance have a positive effect. Neighbourhood effects on non-compliance were less conspicuous, figuring significantly, if at all, only in the final year.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
(This abstr
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Besley & Ian Preston & Michael Ridge, "undated". "Fiscal anarchy in the UK: modelling poll tax noncompliance," Public Policy Discussion Papers 96-02, Economics and Finance Section, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University.
    • Handle: RePEc:bru:bruppp:96-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Benno Torgler & Friedrich Schneider, 2005. "What Shapes the Attitudes Towards Paying Taxes? Evidence from Switzerland, Belgium and Spain," CREMA Working Paper Series 2005-06, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    3. William Gale, 1997. "What can America learn from the British tax system?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 341-369, November.
    4. Timothy Besley & Anders Jensen & Torsten Persson, 2023. "Norms, Enforcement, and Tax Evasion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 998-1007, July.
    5. Cristian F. Sepúlveda, 2024. "Use and Abuse of the Concept of ‘Excess Burden’ in the Theory of Public Finance," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 248(1), pages 143-166, March.
    6. Papp, Tamás K. & Takáts, Előd, 2024. "Tax rate cuts and tax compliance – the Laffer curve revisited," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 70(4), pages 9-28.
    7. Pablo Serra, 2000. "Fundamentos para una Reforma Tributaria en Chile," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 37(111), pages 299-322.
    8. Werner Güth & Rupert Sausgruber, 2004. "Tax Morale and Optimal Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 1284, CESifo.
    9. Mansour, Sarah & Wallace, Sally & Sadiraj, Vjollca & Hassan, Mazen, 2021. "How do electoral and voice accountability affect corruption? Experimental evidence from Egypt," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Anders Jensen, 2019. "Norms, Enforcement, and Tax Evasion," CID Working Papers 372, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    11. Pezzey, John C.V., 2001. "Distributing the Value of a Country’s Tradeable Carbon Permits," 2001 Conference (45th), January 23-25, 2001, Adelaide, Australia 125832, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    12. Benno Torgler & Friedrich Schneider, 2004. "Does Culture Influence Tax Morale? Evidence from Different European Countries," CREMA Working Paper Series 2004-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    13. William Gale, 1997. "What can America learn from the British tax system?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 341-369, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bru:bruppp:96-02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John.Hunter (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.