[PDF] The Crisis In Tax Administration eBook

Author : Henry Aaron
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 415 pages
File Size : 40,94 MB
Release : 2004-05-20
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0815796560

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People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or imprisonment. The practical questions for tax administration are how to strengthen each of these motives to comply with the law. How much should be spent on enforcement and how should enforcement be organized to promote these objectives and achieve the best results per dollar spent? Over the last few years, the U.S. Congress has restricted spending on tax administration, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to curtail enforcement activities, at the same time, that the number of individual filers has increased, tax rules have become more complex, and more business have become multinational operations. But if too many cases of tax evasion go undetected and unpunished, those who may have grudgingly paid their taxes may soon find it easier to join the scofflaws. These events in combination have created a genuine crisis in tax administration. The chapters in this volume evaluate the capacity of authorities to enforce the tax laws in a modern, global economy and examine the implications of failing to do so. Specific aspects of tax law, including tax shelters, issues relating to small businesses, tax software, role of tax preparers, and the objectives of tax simplification are examined in detail. The volume also builds a conceptual basis for future scholarship, with regard not only to tax administration, but also to such fundamental questions as whether taxpayers respond mostly to economic incentives or are influenced by their experiences with the filing process and what is the proper framework for evaluating the allocation of resources within the IRS.

Author : Henry J. Aaron
Publisher : Brookings Inst Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 23,52 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780815701231

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People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or imprisonment. The practical questions for tax administration are how to strengthen each of these motives to comply with the law. How much should be spent on enforcement and how should enforcement be organized to promote these objectives and achieve the best results per dollar spent?Over the last few years, the U.S. Congress has restricted spending on tax administration, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to curtail enforcement activities, at the same time, that the number of individual filers has increased, tax rules have become more complex, and more business have become multinational operations. But if too many cases of tax evasion go undetected and unpunished, those who may have grudgingly paid their taxes may soon find it easier to join the scofflaws. These events in combination have created a genuine crisis in tax administration.The chapters in this volume evaluate the capacity of authorities to enforce the tax laws in a modern, global economy and examine the implications of failing to do so. Specific aspects of tax law, including tax shelters, issues relating to small businesses, tax software, role of tax preparers, and the objectives of tax simplification are examined in detail.The volume also builds a conceptual basis for future scholarship, with regard not only to tax administration, but also to such fundamental questions as whether taxpayers respond mostly to economic incentives or are influenced by their experiences with the filing process and what is the proper framework for evaluating the allocation of resources within the IRS.

Author : Henry Aaron
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 24,42 MB
Release : 2004-05-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780815796565

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People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or imprisonment. The practical questions for tax administration are how to strengthen each of these motives to comply with the law. How much should be spent on enforcement and how should enforcement be organized to promote these objectives and achieve the best results per dollar spent? Over the last few years, the U.S. Congress has restricted spending on tax administration, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to curtail enforcement activities, at the same time, that the number of individual filers has increased, tax rules have become more complex, and more business have become multinational operations. But if too many cases of tax evasion go undetected and unpunished, those who may have grudgingly paid their taxes may soon find it easier to join the scofflaws. These events in combination have created a genuine crisis in tax administration. The chapters in this volume evaluate the capacity of authorities to enforce the tax laws in a modern, global economy and examine the implications of failing to do so. Specific aspects of tax law, including tax shelters, issues relating to small businesses, tax software, role of tax preparers, and the objectives of tax simplification are examined in detail. The volume also builds a conceptual basis for future scholarship, with regard not only to tax administration, but also to such fundamental questions as whether taxpayers respond mostly to economic incentives or are influenced by their experiences with the filing process and what is the proper framework for evaluating the allocation of resources within the IRS.

Author : Max Sawicky
Publisher :
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 27,28 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :

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Offering thorough understanding of the crisis facing federal tax administration and suggesting practical approach to solving issues that have arisen.

Author : OECD
Publisher : OECD Publishing
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 50,45 MB
Release : 2021-09-15
Category :
ISBN : 9264424083

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This report is the ninth edition of the OECD's Tax Administration Series. It provides internationally comparative data on aspects of tax systems and their administration in 59 advanced and emerging economies.

Author : Brian D. Galle
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 21,2 MB
Release : 2023
Category :
ISBN :

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The IRS is struggling. Phone calls from confused taxpayers ring unanswered, paper returns pile up, aggressive tax filers are confident they are unlikely to be audited. Congress piles new responsibilities on the agency while (so far) slashing its budget to modern lows. This is a strange time, then, to launch perhaps the largest-ever experiment in tax administration. Yet that is what some courts and the Trump White House, encouraged by some tax law scholarship, have begun. In at least four distinct ways, IRS and its regulatory partner the U.S. Treasury are now facing greater procedural obstacles to their efforts to guide and constrain the taxpaying public. Recent judicial decisions would suggest the IRS must reissue existing administrative guidance, going back for an uncertain period but at least six years, using costly and time-consuming "notice and comment" procedures. A 2021 Supreme Court decision narrowly applied the 100-year old Anti-Injunction Act to allow litigants for the first time to challenge IRS anti-tax shelter guidance on a pre-enforcement basis in court. And in 2018 the White House and Treasury agreed that many more tax rules would be subject to Office of Management and Budget cost-benefit analysis review.Supporters of these changes argue that they simply are bringing tax administration more in line with the admin law governing other agencies, but these claims overlook key ways in which tax administration differs from other rule-making. As other scholars have observed, tax administration must thread the impossible needle of communicating rules that touch every aspect of modern life to an audience of hundreds of millions of individual taxpayers, some of whom do not even speak English, let alone have the capacity to parse legislative text.Our contribution is to identify and explore the implications of another key difference: the systematic "tilt" of administrative law against revenue. IRS and Treasury effectively cannot be challenged in court for an action or decision that favors taxpayers, causing the government to lose money. the agencies' decisions to eschew enforcement against particular taxpayers are invisible to the public. These simple facts have profound implications, particularly when combined with the increasing obstacles to the agencies' action we have just mentioned. As action becomes more costly and more time-consuming, the option to do nothing becomes ever more appealing. We review literature suggesting the power this asymmetric effect has had on tax rule-making. We then examine how the tilt should affect the way that administrative law is applied to tax rule-making.

Author : John Brondolo
Publisher : INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
Page : 39 pages
File Size : 45,31 MB
Release : 2009-07-14
Category :
ISBN : 9781462339440

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The global financial and economic crisis presents major challenges for tax agencies. With the economic downturn, tax agencies are encountering emerging compliance problems and greater demands for taxpayer support in the face of prospective budget cuts. To help address these challenges, this paper encourages tax agencies to develop a tax compliance strategy for the crisis by (1) expanding assistance to taxpayers, (2) refocusing enforcement on emerging compliance risks, (3) enacting legislative reforms that facilitate tax administration, and (4) improving communication programs. In each of these areas, the paper identifies specific measures to underpin the strategy, drawing on practices from leading tax agencies and experiences from IMF technical assistance. The paper also highlights emerging tax compliance issues in the financial sector.

Author :
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,31 MB
Release : 2005
Category :
ISBN :

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According to the latest estimates, as much as $353 billion in taxes--16% of the total owed--went unpaid in 2001. If we ranked states in order of aggregate individual income tax liability, this "tax gap" would far exceed total federal taxes paid by the residents of any single U.S. state and the total taxes paid by all 29 states combined with the lowest total tax liability. More importantly, recovery of unpaid taxes would eliminate the bulk of projected federal budget deficits over the next 10 years. Burgeoning budget problems (Sawicky 2005; Price and Sawicky 2004) and the associated difficulties of enacting tax increases make closing the tax gap a salient political issue and an important policy priority. Indeed, one reason to resist tax increases is the knowledge that many others are escaping their own tax obligations. This Briefing Paper provides an overview of what a former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls "the crisis in tax administration" (Aaron and Slemrod 2004), and it discusses some remedies to address this problem. Because this Briefing Paper aims to provide a non-technical overview of the topic, citations have been kept to a minimum. Data on the tax gap are from the IRS (2005). The benefit/cost ratios of assorted enforcement measures are from Plumley (1996; 2004). Information on the IRS workload, audit rates, and funding is from Rossotti (2004), Burman (2004), and the IRS (2005). Some of the most recent research on tax enforcement can be found in Aaron and Slemrod (2002).

Author : Mr.David C. L. Nellor
Publisher : International Monetary Fund
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 48,80 MB
Release : 1999-02-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1451974450

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This paper focuses on tax policy and the crisis in Asia in the context of globalization and technological change. Two sets of conclusions, specific tax reform measures and general lessons from the crisis, form the tax policy agenda on these issues. The complexity and volume of financial transactions, associated with the opening of emerging markets, have made tax administration a more challenging task. Just as strengthening financial systems must be a precursor to capital account liberalization, tax administrations clearly also require strengthening in such an environment. In many emerging markets the capacity to tax capital returns is limited. Tax administrators need to understand and monitor complex financial transactions that grew rapidly due both to financial sector liberalization and technological innovation. Traditional difficulties for tax administrators, such as transfer pricing, that had often been limited to natural resource sectors in developing economies, took on wider importance as local companies gained sophistication and developed offshore operations.