How to tax capital in a globalized world? Lessons from population-wide administrative data

There is growing concern about the practicality of taxing capital in a globalized world. Half of the world's foreign direct investments are routed through offshore tax havens.

prosjekt

About/Aims

Background

In April 2016, The Panama Papers showed that rich individuals routinely use shell companies in tax havens to avoid or evade taxes.

More about the project

Still, little is known about who evades capital taxes, why, and to which extent. Current estimates on offshore tax evasion are based on aggregate data.

We combine Scandinavian administrative micro data with information from Swiss Leaks, Panama Papers, voluntary disclosure of hidden offshore wealth, and random audits to provide new insights in the anatomy of capital tax evasion and how tax evasion varies across the wealth distribution. By combining our results with aggregate data, we can construct revised estimates of income and wealth inequality all over the world, when taking into account income and wealth that is unreported to tax authorities. We also aim at providing credible causal es timates of how capital taxation affects international tax evasion.