Offshore tax evasion and wealth inequality: Evidence from a tax amnesty in the Netherlands

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Leenders, Wouter; Lejour, Arjan; Rabate, Simon; van 't Riet, Maarten
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy; Tilburg University; CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy; Leiden University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104785
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: inequality; WEALTH; Tax evasion; Netherlands

摘要

Exploiting unique datasets covering over 29,000 tax evaders in the Netherlands, we investigate the dis-tribution of tax evasion and its implications for the measurement of wealth inequality. Tax evasion is concentrated at the top of the wealth distribution with over 10% of the wealthiest 0.01% of households - the super rich - evading taxes. At the top, households evade around 8% of their true tax liability. The merely rich (P90-P99.9) own 67% of hidden wealth, while the super rich account for only 7%. Consequently, the correction for offshore wealth has a modest effect on top wealth shares. We describe a number of explanations for the distribution of tax evasion by Dutch households: low-cost tax evasion opportunities in neighbouring countries for the merely rich, sophisticated forms of tax evasion for, low effective tax rates on and migration to low tax jurisdictions by the super rich. Taken together, these explanations suggest that the distribution of tax evasion strongly depends on a country's geographical and institutional settings.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.