Optimal Tax Enforcement with Imperfect Tax Payers and Inspectors

A mathematical model of tax enforcement is analyzed for the case when the probability of detecting tax evasion depends on the inspector's efforts. Contrary to the case with fixed inspection costs, the optimal tax enforcement strategy does not fully eliminate tax evasion. We examine how tax payers' random mistakes and the inspectors' corruptibility affect the optimal tax enforcement mechanism. We show that, contrary to the model with fixed inspection costs, corruption among inspectors reduces the optimal tax revenue.     

A mathematical model of optimal tax inspection

A game-theoretical model of tax inspection is considered. Stable forms of behavior of the entrepreneurs and the tax inspectors are identified as a function of the strategy adopted by the central tax service. An optimal central strategy is proposed, which maximizes the average tax revenue for given entrepreneur incomes.Translated from Programmno-apparatnye Sredstva i Matematicheskoe Obespechenie Vychislitel'nykh Sistem, pp. 168–181, 1994.     

Mathematical models for organizing the tax service

Game-theoretical models are proposed for describing the interaction of tax inspectors and taxpayers. A return-auditing probability that maximizes net tax revenue is calculated for a model without corruption. A dynamic audit strategy is described, and it is shown to converge to the optimal model under complete information. For a model with corruption, we also calculate the optimal probability of secondary audit and carry out a comparative analysis of net tax revenue assuming various tax rates and various penalties for evasion and negligent audit. The study was partially supported by the Russian Program for Economic Studies (grant 97-3011) and Russian Foundation of Basic Research (grant 96-01-0999). Useful comments by Mikhail Alekseev, Jim Leitzel, and Francisco Marhuenda are acknowledged. Translated from Chislennye Metody i Vychislitel'nyi Eksperiment, Moscow State University, pp. 64–81, 1998.     

税务稽查委托代理模型

本文在委托—代理理论框架下,讨论税务稽查监督问题.对影响税务稽查人员败德系数的因素进行分析,指出国家税务机关在设计“提高税务稽查人员敬业精神,减少败德行为发生”的激励机制时应首选——减少税务稽查人员的自由裁量权,加强税法刚性原则.     

On the design of lottery games

We describe a model of participation in lottery games designed to address the optimisation of tax revenue in state-sponsored lotteries. The model treats participants dynamically and examines a long-run equilibrium. A novel high frequency approximation is used to turn the problem into a static, state-contingent deterministic programming problem. We demonstrate that the solution of this problem has qualitatively plausible properties and then calibrate the model against the United Kingdom National Lottery (UKNL). The results suggest that the current design of the UKNL may not be maximising tax revenue.     

湖南省税收的误差修正模型（ECM）

在计量经济学中，分析变量间增长率的关系，即它们之间的弹性系数，可以转移为分析变量对数之间的关系。本文将采用协整检验来研究湖南省税收收入对数与GDP对数之间的关系，从而分析税收增长与GDP增长的协调性。在协整分析的基础上，建立了湖南省税收收入的误差修正预测模型。     

The effect of depreciation allowances on the timing of investment and government tax revenue

We develop a model of the behavior of a potential investor (under uncertainty and in a fiscal environment) who wishes to invest into a project in the real sector of an economy and faces a timing problem. We find an optimal solution within this model and examine the dependence of the tax revenue from the newly created firm on the depreciation policy. It is shown that there exists a domain in the space of the parameters of the investment project where both the tax revenue and the incentives can be increased by using the depreciation policy.     

Tax-Adjusted Replacement Models

The 1984 UK Finance Act introduced changes in tax legislation with consequences for both capital and revenue expenditure on plant. The one- and two-cycle rent models for capital equipment replacement and the infinite-cycle discounted-cost model are extended here to incorporate the new tax features. A specific replacement problem is used as the basis of an analyis of the sensitivity of the optimal replacement period to parameters. Whilst all these models are consistently insensitive to the new tax legislation, there is no consistency across models with respect to which parameters dominate choice of optimal replacement period.     

Optimal employment and wage policies of a monopolistic firm

This paper deals with the problem of finding optimal hiring/firing and wage policies for a profit-maximizing monopolistic firm. The crucial assumptions of the model are convex shortage costs permitting shortages in output capacity, nonlinear hiring and firing costs, and the wage rate as control variable being restricted by a minimal level. Due to the nonsmoothness of the revenue function occurring in the objective functional, a generalized maximum principle is required to analyze the optimal control problem. The resulting phase-diagram analysis provides an insight into the optimal recruitment, wage, and pricing policies.The authors would like to thank R. Hartl, E. Fehr, F. Hof, S. Jørgensen, R. Leban, N. Van Long, and R. Neck for helpful suggestions and comments to this and earlier versions of the paper.     

Bioeconomic harvesting of a schooling fish species: A dynamic reaction model

This paper develops a mathematical model for growth and exploitation of a schooling fish species, using a realistic catchrate function and imposing a tax on the catch to control harvesting. Fishing effort is assumed to depend on the net revenue. The steady states of the system are determined and their local and global stability are discussed. Taking the tax as a control variable; the optimal harvest policy is formulated and solved as a control problem. The results are illustrated with the help of a numerical example.     

Prescriptive analytics for human resource planning in the professional services industry

In this paper, we examine human resource planning decisions made at firms that sell contract-based consulting projects. High levels of uncertainty in deals and revenue forecasts make it challenging for consulting firms to hire the right people to staff their projects. We present a human resource planning model using concepts from robust optimization to allow companies to dynamically make hiring decisions that maximize profit while remaining as flexible as possible, and demonstrate potential profit improvements through simulation on real data.     

Revenue recycling of a CO2 tax: Results from a general equilibrium model for Switzerland

This paper combines a recent proposal by the Swiss government for a CO₂ tax with a policy that uses the tax revenues to lower the pre-existing marginal labor income tax rates, and examines the efficiency and distribution effects of such a revenue recycling policy. The investigation, based on a large-scale general equilibrium model, contrary to other studies, indicates that an environmental tax reform involves negative gross cost, that is, increases welfare even when environmental benefits are not accounted for. The simulation results further show that the adverse distributional effects of a pure CO₂ tax are neutralized or even reversed when tax revenues finance cuts of existing taxes.We thank Tom Rutherford, Reto Schleiniger and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Financial support by the Federal Agency for Energy under the SOEFF program is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the opinions of the granting agency.     

Systems simulation model for assessing the sustainability and synergistic impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages tax and revenue recycling on childhood obesity prevention

Recent years have witnessed prominent calls to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to prevent obesity in the United States. Despite efforts to evaluate this proposed policy, limited data and no framework exist for evaluating long-term, dynamic, cumulative health impacts of taxing SSBs while recycling revenue to support related interventions. Systems simulation models offer an important new lens for evaluating policy interventions, but such models have traditionally under-conceptualized key implementation science concerns, such as sustainability, revenue recycling, and bringing interventions to scale. Using a system dynamics model representing implementation dynamics, this study contributes a simulation model to inform policymakers’ understanding of how allocating revenue collected by SSB taxation across sustainable implementation strategies might maximize benefits of such taxation for childhood obesity prevention.     

基于顾客低碳行为偏好的选址-路径-库存集成优化模型与算法

针对自愿减排驱动下的顾客低碳行为偏好对选址-路径-库存决策的影响进行研究。首先推导了顾客低碳行为偏好下的市场需求函数和价格函数,并构建了考虑单位产品碳排放量和经济成本的多目标选址-路径-库存优化模型,通过对多目标优化模型的求解可得碳排放量和经济成本间的Pareto解集。在此基础上,定义了碳配额税的概念,可得顾客低碳行为偏好和碳配额税下的总收益函数。最后通过数值分析给出了自愿减排和监管减排两种机制共同作用下的企业减排方案和灵敏度分析。     

不确定环境下具有减排配额的PM2.5治理博弈与税收决策

由于雾霾治理遵循浓度控制原则,且跨界传输因子存在异质性,因此,要使各地区在追求减排成本最小化时又达到减排指标,中央政府仅实施税收政策并不能满足其收支平衡条件。基于此,本文将税收与减排配额相结合,以期实现中央政府收支平衡与优化各地区治理成本的双重目标。同时,本文以京津冀地区雾霾治理为实证分析对象,验证了具有减排配额的税收决策具有可实施性。     

Personal income tax reforms: A genetic algorithm approach

Given a settled reduction in the present level of tax revenue, and by exploring a very large combinatorial space of tax structures, in this paper we employ a genetic algorithm in order to determine the ‘best’ structure of a real world personal income tax that allows for the maximisation of the redistributive effect of the tax, while preventing all taxpayers being worse off than with the present tax structure. We take Italy as a case study.     

基于社会福利最大化的油气资源税费研究

合理的油气资源税费能够引导企业优化开发决策,平衡当代与后代利益关系,实现跨期资源有效配置。从跨期油气资源最优分配的角度,通过最优控制理论构建寡头垄断市场中社会福利最大化和企业利润最大化目标下的油气资源开发决策模型,并以社会福利最大化目标下的资源开发决策为基准,研究从价、从量、储量三种不同形式的油气资源税费对资源开发决策的调节作用,研究发现:(1)征收从价税费,最优的从价税率为26.4%,政府既可以保障社会最优,还可以获得较多的税费收入;(2)征收从量税费,从量税率为1.77元/吨,政府可以保证社会福利最大化,但相比从价税费政府的税费收入较少;(3)征收储量税费,社会福利最大化下的储量税费为-0.13元/吨,也就是政府需向企业进行补贴才可以保证社会最优,会形成一定的财政压力。     

出口退税中的博奕

本文初步探讨了现行出口退税中,国家与企业及法人的博奕模型．它给出了对以出口骗取退税的企业的几个罚款系数（下限）公式,使企业在博奕中只能采取不骗税的策略,从而使国家税收不受损失     

Environmental tax policy,habit formation and nonlinear dynamics

In this paper, we study the impact of environmental tax policy on the dynamic property in an environment-growth model (John and Pecchenino 1994) [3]. We assume that the government levies consumption tax and uses the tax revenue to improve environmental quality. We show that the economic dynamics can be represented by a first-order difference equation in environmental quality when there is no habit formation of environmental quality. If agents have habit formation of environmental quality, the economic dynamics will be represented by a second-order difference equation in environmental quality. In both cases, chaotic and cyclical fluctuations may exist if agents’ preference towards environmental quality, the maintenance efficiency relative to degradation and the tax rate are sufficiently low. However, the economy undergoes transformation from complex dynamics to simple dynamics as the tax rate increases. Furthermore, in the presence of habit formation of environmental quality, an increase in the degree of habit formation lowers the possibility of complex dynamics.     

Fiscal policy lags and income adjustment processes

The interest in the impact of fiscal policy lags on economic stability increased in the last decade. Several studies have been made on delays either in the government expenditure or in the tax system, where lags exist between the accrual and the payment of taxes. Nevertheless there is in the literature no model where time delays in government expenditures and in tax revenues are considered together as it happens in the real world. In this paper we remedied this defect and proposed a macro-dynamic model where two delays appear: the first pertains to the public expenditure, the second, to the tax revenue. The resulting system of delayed differential equations is studied qualitatively and numerically. The analysis suggests that only particular combinations of the two delays make the system stable. Prevalently the system is unstable and chaotic motions may arise. This implies that the economy may need appropriate structural changes in the public sector to improve fiscal policy outcomes in such a way they may really be consistent with their stabilization purposes.