Selection rules for Sales Tax audits

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the relevance of the major results found on theliterature about optimal auditing rules to the case of a commodity tax. Wefound out that literature’s usual recommendations are not applied by taxadministrations. In our understanding, this happens because of: i) there isa key difference between the assumed objective (theoretical) of the taxadministration and the actual objectives, ii) every model assumes that taxpayers know audit rules, when in fact they are kept confidential by thetax administration. iii) most models restrict tax evasion to underreporting,iv) there might be practical or non-economical issues that prevent taxadministrations using optimal auditing rules. We conclude that optimalaudit rules bring in a very important issue usually neglected when taxadministrations design an auditing policy: the impact of the audit policyon the returns of non-audited taxpayers.