TITLE:
Do Higher Tax Rates Encourage/Discourage Tax Compliance?
AUTHORS:
María Jesús Freire-Serén, Judith Panadés
KEYWORDS:
Tax Evasion; Tax Non-Compliance; Tax Rate
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.4 No.12,
December
13,
2013
ABSTRACT: In this survey, we try to summarize
what economists know about how increasing tax rate affects both tax evasion and the willingness to pay taxes. We
show how this apparently trivial question presents puzzling results. This paper
introduces the main contributions that have attempted to explain the apparent
contradiction between the empirical evidence on the reaction of taxpayers to
changes in tax rate levels and the results obtained by the standard models of tax evasion. In an effort
to shed some light on this issue, the paper primarily concludes that there is
more than enough room for further research on the relationship between tax
evasion and tax rates given the many gaps in the literature concerning on this
topic.