Chris Evans - Improving Tax Compliance in a Globalized World

Editors:
Chris Evans
Michael Lang
Pasquale Pistone
Alexander Rust
Josef Schuch
Claus Staringer

Assistant Editors:
Alicja Majdanska
Pedro Guilherme Lindenberg Schoueri

Volume 9
WU Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law
European and International Tax Law and Policy Series

IBFD

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ISBN 978-90-8722-452-3 (print)

ISBN 978-90-8722-453-0 (eBook, ePub)

ISBN 978-90-8722-454-7 (eBook, PDF)

ISSN 2451-8360

NUR 826

The last decade has witnessed events with deep structural impacts on the tax arena. The 2008 global financial crisis increased the fiscal pressure for governments across the world. A series of tax scandals (e.g. WikiLeaks and the Panama Papers) only strengthened attempts to eradicate tax evasion, mitigate aggressive tax avoidance and enhance tax compliance. Taken together, these events built momentum for a change in the international tax framework.

At the international level, the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project of the OECD aimed at restoring the coherence of the international tax system and enabling countries to respond to aggressive tax avoidance. However, it is at the domestic level that the greatest potential for resource mobilization lies, by increasing tax compliance and closing the tax gap. These opportunities bring about significant challenges in terms of legislation and administration.

Against this backdrop, this book offers a unique perspective on the approaches to tax compliance of 33 jurisdictions around the world. It enables a comparative glimpse of initiatives that are common to these jurisdictions, such as measuring the tax gap, gathering tax information, improving the collection of taxes and encouraging voluntary tax compliance.

This book brings together the national reports produced by specialists on the topic and discussed at the conference Improving Tax Compliance in a Globalized World, organized by the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law (WU Vienna University of Economics and Business) and held in Rust (Austria) from 30 June to 2 July 2016. We are very grateful to all the national reporters, whose enthusiasm and diligence made this contribution possible. We also thank Jonathan Leigh Pemberton, who contributed to this book and shared his insightful remarks on tax compliance.