Corporate tax evasion with agency costs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Crocker, KJ; Slemrod, J
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.08.003
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 1593-1610
• 关键词: tax evasion; ENFORCEMENT; AGENCY COSTS

摘要

This paper examines corporate tax evasion in the context of the contractual relationship between the shareholders of a firm and a tax manager who possesses private information regarding the extent of legally permissible reductions in taxable income, and who may also undertake illegal tax evasion. Using a costly state falsification framework, we characterize formally the optimal incentive compensation contract for the tax manager and, in particular, how the form of that contract changes in response to alternative enforcement policies imposed by the taxing authority. The optimal contract may adjust to offset, at least partially, the effect of sanctions against illegal evasion, and we find a new and policy-relevant non-equivalence result: penalties imposed on the tax manager are more effective in reducing evasion than are those imposed on shareholders. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.