The Intergenerational Causal Effect of Tax Evasion: Evidence from the Commuter Tax Allowance in Austria

Journal of the European Economic Association - Tập 17 Số 6 - Trang 1843-1880 - 2019
Wolfgang Frimmel1, Martin Halla2, Jörg Paetzold3
1Johannes Kepler University Linz  Christian Doppler Laboratory Aging, Health and the Labor Market
2Johannes Kepler University Linz, Christian Doppler Laboratory Aging, Health and the Labor Market, Austrian Public Health Institute (GÖG)
3University of Salzburg;

Tóm tắt

Abstract

Does tax evasion run in the family? To answer this question, we study the case of the commuter tax allowance in Austria. This allowance is designed as a step function of the distance between the residence and the workplace, creating sharp discontinuities at each bracket threshold. It turns out that the distance to the next higher bracket is a strong determinant of compliance. The match of different administrative data sources allows us to observe actual compliance behavior with little error at the individual level across two generations. To identify the intergenerational causal effect in tax evasion behavior, we use the paternal distance to next higher bracket as an instrumental variable for paternal compliance. We find that paternal noncompliance increases children’s noncompliance by about 23%.

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