W(H)Ither the Tax Gap?

Professors Jay A. Soled of Rutgers University and James Alm of Tulane University analyze the “tax gap” in their recent abstract, W(H)Ither the Tax Gap?”

 

The paper analyzes whether the “tax gap” or the difference between what taxpayers are legally obligated to pay and what they actually pay is really growing in size or is it diminishing or “withering” away given the new economy. The authors argue that the use of credit cards, debit cards and smartphone payment apps has purged cash from its use in many economic transactions. And that the availability of third-party sources of information and computerized retail processing has curtailed the ability of taxpayers to hide income.  Access to the full abstract can be found here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2978215