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To promote transparency and provide information, the Federal Planning Bureau regularly publishes the methods and results of its works. The publications are organised in different series, such as Outlooks, Working Papers and Planning Papers. Some reports can be consulted here, along with the Short Term Update newsletters that were published until 2015. You can search our publications by theme, publication type, author and year.
The compliance costs of private taxpayers are not only affected by the tax law itself but also by its implementation through the tax authorities. In the following paper we analyze the effect of administrative actions on the compliance costs of private businesses. We demonstrate in a theoretical model that compliance costs may partially be interpreted as externalities of authority behavior. As a result we expect a "shifting" of administrative cost burdens from the tax administration to private taxpayers, what implies an economically inefficient outcome. Based on Belgian survey data, we find empirical evidence for the elucidated relationship. We give an quantitative estimate for the accordant effects and demonstrate, which activities of the administration are the most important cost drivers. Furthermore, we find empirical support that the effect of administrative issues is independent from the impact of the tax law itself.
The Working Paper presents a study or analysis conducted by the Federal Planning Bureau on its own initiative.
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Themes
Structural studies > Belgian and European Regulation
JEL
Law and Economics > Regulation and Business Law > Other [K29]
Industrial Organization > Regulation and Industrial Policy > Economics of Regulation [L51]
Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting > Business Economics > General [M20]
Keywords