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Income underreporting among the self-employed: a permanent income approach

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  • Engström, Per

    (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies)

  • Hagen, Johannes

    (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

The consumption based method to estimate underreporting among self-employed, introduced by Pissarides andWeber (1989), is one of the workhorses in the empirical literature on tax evasion/avoidance. We show that failure to account for transitory income fluctuations in current income may overestimate the degree of underreporting by around 40 percent. Previous studies typically use instrumental variable methods to address the issue. In contrast, our access to registry based longitudinal income measures allows a direct approach based on more permanent income measures. This also allows us to evaluate the performance of a list of instruments widely used in the previous literature. Our analysis shows that capital income is the most suitable instrument in our application, while education and housing related measures do not seem to satisfy the exclusion restrictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Engström, Per & Hagen, Johannes, 2015. "Income underreporting among the self-employed: a permanent income approach," Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies 2015:2, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2015_002
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    Cited by:

    1. Gavoille, Nicolas & Zasova, Anna, 2023. "What we pay in the shadows: Labor tax evasion, minimum wage hike and employment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    2. Fauser, Hannes & Godar, Sarah, 2021. "Income tax noncompliance in Germany, 2001-2014," Discussion Papers 2021/17, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    3. Osmani, Ahmad Reshad & Okunade, Albert, 2021. "A Double-Hurdle Model of Healthcare Expenditures across Income Quintiles and Family Size: New Insights from a household Survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(6), pages 246-246.
    4. Barile, Lory & Cullis, John & Philip Jones, 2022. "Aint that a Shame : False Tax Declarations and Fraudulent Benefit Claims," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1435, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Martina Bazzoli & Paolo Di Caro & Franceso Figari & Carlo V. Fiorio & Marco Manzo, 2020. "Size, heterogeneity and distributional effects of self-employment income tax evasion in Italy," Working Papers wp2020-8, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Department of Finance.
    6. Nicolas Gavoille & Anna Zasova, 2021. "What we pay in the shadow: Labor tax evasion, minimum wage hike and employment," Working Papers CEB 21-017, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Odd E Nygård & Joel Slemrod & Thor O Thoresen, 2019. "Distributional Implications of Joint Tax Evasion," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1894-1923.
    8. Ana Cinta G Cabral & Christos Kotsogiannis & Gareth Myles, 2019. "Self-Employment Income Gap in Great Britain: How Much and Who?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 65(1), pages 84-107.
    9. Per Engström & Johannes Hagen & Edvard Johansson, 2023. "Estimating tax noncompliance among the self-employed—evidence from pleasure boat registers," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1747-1771, December.
    10. Figari, Francesco & Bazzoli, Martina & Di Caro, Paolo & V. Fiorio, Carlo & Manzo, Marco, 2020. "Size, heterogeneity and distributional effects of self-employment income tax evasion in Italy," EUROMOD Working Papers EM18/20, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Hai Anh La & Duc Anh Dang, 2018. "Income under-reporting and tax evasion: How they impact inequality in Vietnam," WIDER Working Paper Series 148, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Ana Cinta G. Cabral & Norman Gemmell & Nazila Alinaghi, 2021. "Are survey-based self-employment income underreporting estimates biased? New evidence from matched register and survey data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(2), pages 284-322, April.
    13. Niizeki, Takeshi & Hamaaki, Junya, 2023. "Do the self-employed underreport their income? Evidence from Japanese panel data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Hai Anh La & Duc Anh Dang, 2018. "Income under-reporting and tax evasion: How they impact inequality in Vietnam," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-148, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Aggeborn, Linuz & Öhman, Mattias, 2017. "The Effects of Fluoride in the Drinking Water," Working Paper Series 2017:20, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    16. Merike Kukk & Alari Paulus & Karsten Staehr, 2020. "Cheating in Europe: underreporting of self-employment income in comparative perspective," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(2), pages 363-390, April.
    17. Daniel Jeong-Dae Lee, 2019. "Cheating the government: does taxpayer perception matter?," Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 26(2), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Per Engström & Johannes Hagen & Edvard Johansson, 2021. "Estimating Tax Noncompliance among the Self-Employed – Evidence from Pleasure Boat Registers," Discussion Papers 144, Aboa Centre for Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income underreporting; tax evasion; self-employment; Engel curves; permanent income;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance

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