Almunia, Miguel;
Hjort, Jonas;
Knebelmann, Justine;
Tian, Lin;
(2022)
Strategic or Confused Firms? Evidence from “Missing” Transactions in Uganda.
The Review of Economics and Statistics
pp. 1-35.
10.1162/rest_a_01180.
(In press).
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Abstract
Are firms sophisticated maximizers, or do they appear to make mistakes? Using transactions data from Ugandan value-added tax returns, we show that sellers and buyers report different amounts 79% of the time, despite invoices being easily cross-checked. Our estimates suggest that most firms are “advantageous misreporters“, but that 25% are “disadvantageous misreporters” who systematically overreport own sales minus purchases such that their tax liability increases. Similarly, many firms—especially disadvantageous misreporters—fail to VAT-report imported inputs they themselves reported at Customs, increasing their liability. On net, unilateral VAT misreporting cost Uganda about US$384 million in foregone 2013-2016 tax revenue.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Strategic or Confused Firms? Evidence from “Missing” Transactions in Uganda |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1162/rest_a_01180 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01180 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | O1, H2, D2, D9 |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10178056 |
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