IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2394.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax evasion, corruption, and the remuneration of heterogeneous inspectors

Author

Listed:
  • Wane, Waly

Abstract

The author develops a general model for addressing the question of how to compensate tax inspectors in an economy where corruption is pervasive - a model that considers the existence of strategic transmission of information. Most of the literature on corruption assumes that the taxpayer and the tax inspector jointly decide on the income to report, which also determines the size of the bribe. In contrast, this model considers the more realistic case in which the taxpayer unilaterally chooses the income to report. The tax inspector cannot change the report and is faced with a binary choice: either he negotiates the bribe on the basis of the income report or he denounces the tax evader and therefore renounces the bribe. In his model, the optimal compensation scheme must take into account the strategic interaction between taxpayers and tax inspectors: a) Pure"tax farming"(paying tax inspectors a share of their tax collections) is optimal only when all tax inspectors are corruptible. b) When there are both honest and corruptible inspectors, the optimal compensation scheme lies between pure tax farming and a pure wage scheme. c) Paradoxically, when inspectors are hired beforehand, it may be optimal to offer contracts that attract corruptible inspectors but not honest ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Wane, Waly, 2000. "Tax evasion, corruption, and the remuneration of heterogeneous inspectors," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2394, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2000/08/26/000094946_00081505321148/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kreps, David M & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Sequential Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 863-894, July.
    2. Hindriks, J., 1994. "Income Tax Compliance: The No-Commitment Game," Papers 149, Notre-Dame de la Paix, Sciences Economiques et Sociales.
    3. Peter Stella, 1993. "Tax Farming: A Radical Solution for Developing Country Tax Problems?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 40(1), pages 217-225, March.
    4. Graetz, Michael J & Reinganum, Jennifer F & Wilde, Louis L, 1986. "The Tax Compliance Game: Toward an Interactive Theory of Law Enforcement," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, Spring.
    5. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    6. Cremer, H. & Marchand, M. & Pestieau, P., 1990. "Evading, auditing and taxing : The equity-compliance tradeoff," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 67-92, October.
    7. Cho, In-Koo & Sobel, Joel, 1990. "Strategic stability and uniqueness in signaling games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 381-413, April.
    8. Hindriks, Jean & Keen, Michael & Muthoo, Abhinay, 1999. "Corruption, extortion and evasion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 395-430, December.
    9. Brian Erard & Jonathan S. Feinstein, 1994. "Honesty and Evasion in the Tax Compliance Game," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(1), pages 1-19, Spring.
    10. Kohlberg, Elon & Mertens, Jean-Francois, 1986. "On the Strategic Stability of Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1003-1037, September.
    11. Reinganum, Jennifer F & Wilde, Louis L, 1986. "Equilibrium Verification and Reporting Policies in a Model of Tax Compliance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(3), pages 739-760, October.
    12. Besley, Timothy & McLaren, John, 1993. "Taxes and Bribery: The Role of Wage Incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(416), pages 119-141, January.
    13. Sanchez, Isabel & Sobel, Joel, 1993. "Hierarchical design and enforcement of income tax policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 345-369, March.
    14. Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1995. "Corruptible Law Enforcers: How Should They Be Compensated?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 145-159, January.
    15. Banks, Jeffrey S., 1990. "A model of electoral competition with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 309-325, April.
    16. Banks, Jeffrey S & Sobel, Joel, 1987. "Equilibrium Selection in Signaling Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 647-661, May.
    17. Mailath, George J, 1987. "Incentive Compatibility in Signaling Games with a Continuum of Types," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1349-1365, November.
    18. Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November.
    19. Chander, Parkash & Wilde, Louis, 1992. "Corruption in tax administration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 333-349, December.
    20. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fadi KANSO, 2008. "Wages and Penalties in Fighting Hierarchical Corruption (Tax Administration Case)," EcoMod2008 23800055, EcoMod.
    2. Fadi KANSO, 2007. "Wages and Sanctions against Hierarchical Corruption," CAE Working Papers 51, Aix-Marseille Université, CERGAM.
    3. Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez & Iván Pastor Sanz, 2021. "Mapping the (anti-)corruption field: key topics and changing trends, 1968–2020," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 851-881, November.
    4. Anastasios Xepapadeas & Yannis Petrohilos-Andrianos, 2013. "On the Evolution of Compliance and Regulation with Tax Evading Agents," DEOS Working Papers 1325, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    5. Pamela Jagger & Gerald Shively, 2015. "Taxes and Bribes in Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 66-79, January.
    6. Lipatov, Vilen, 2003. "Evolution of Tax Evasion," MPRA Paper 966, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Dec 2005.
    7. Maxim Bouev, 2005. "State Regulations, Job Search and Wage Bargaining: A Study in the Economics of the Informal Sector," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp764, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    8. Diego Escobari, 2012. "Imperfect Detection of Tax Evasion in a Corrupt Tax Administration," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 317-330, December.
    9. Lipatov, Vilen, 2008. "Social Interaction in Tax Evasion," MPRA Paper 8829, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nir Dagan & Yossi Tobol, 2005. "Tax evasion, informants, and optimal auditing policy," Economic theory and game theory 021, Nir Dagan.
    2. Jellal, Mohamed, 2009. "Bureaucracy and Corruption Taxation Proof," MPRA Paper 17177, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Gauthier, Bernard & Goyette, Jonathan & Kouamé, Wilfried A.K., 2021. "Why do firms pay bribes? Evidence on the demand and supply sides of corruption in developing countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 463-479.
    4. Roy Cerqueti & Raffaella Coppier, 2015. "Corruptibility and tax evasion," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 355-373, April.
    5. Navin Kartik, 2009. "Strategic Communication with Lying Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1359-1395.
    6. Leandro Arozamena & Martin Besfamille & Pablo Sanguinetti, 2010. "Optimal taxes and penalties when the government cannot commit to its audit policy," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-10, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    7. Christos Kotsogiannis & Konstantinos Serfes, 2016. "Optimal performance reward, tax compliance and enforcement," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(2), pages 325-345, October.
    8. Liu, Shuo & Pei, Harry, 2020. "Monotone equilibria in signaling games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    9. Antonio Acconcia & Marcello D'Amato & Riccardo Martina, 2003. "Corruption and Tax Evasion with Competitive Bribes," CSEF Working Papers 112, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    10. Hindriks, Jean & Keen, Michael & Muthoo, Abhinay, 1999. "Corruption, extortion and evasion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 395-430, December.
    11. Dominiak, Adam & Lee, Dongwoo, 2023. "Testing rational hypotheses in signaling games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    12. Dobrin R. Kolev & Thomas J. Prusa, 2021. "Dumping and double crossing: The (in)effectiveness of cost-based trade policy under incomplete information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Thomas J Prusa (ed.), Economic Effects of Antidumping, chapter 7, pages 129-152, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Mishra, Ajit, 2002. "Hierarchies, incentives and collusion in a model of enforcement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 165-178, February.
    14. Cerqueti, Roy & Coppier, Raffaella, 2011. "Economic growth, corruption and tax evasion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 489-500, January.
    15. Hedlund, Jonas, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion by a privately informed sender," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 229-268.
    16. Bernard Gauthier & Jonathan Goyette, 2016. "Fiscal policy and corruption," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 57-79, January.
    17. Daley, Brendan & Green, Brett, 2014. "Market signaling with grades," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 114-145.
    18. Eduardo Zilberman, 2016. "Audits or Distortions: The Optimal Scheme to Enforce Self-Employment Income Taxes," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(4), pages 511-544, August.
    19. Vitaly Pruzhansky, 2004. "Honesty in a Signaling Model of Tax Evasion," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-022/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Manelli, Alejandro M., 1997. "The Never-a-Weak-Best-Response Test in Infinite Signaling Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 152-173, May.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:2394. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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.