Targeting in tax behavior: Evidence from Rwandan firms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Tourek, Gabriel
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102911
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: economic; Trade empirical; FIRMS; Policy reforms; Africa-macro

摘要

This paper describes tax behavior among firms in a low-income country that diverges from traditional models of compliance. Using the universe of administrative filings in Rwanda, I find that many firms consistently pay identical amounts in income tax year after year. Evidence from a survey of filers, matched to administrative filings, suggests that constraints on documenting and verifying earnings motivates a heuristic of targeting past payment amounts. To illustrate the policy relevance of this behavior, I exploit an income tax reform to show that targeting can reconcile perverse responses to tax changes: when taxes are cut, firms relying on this heuristic on average persist in paying as much as they did before.