Regional tax evasion and audit enforcement

Regional tax evasion and audit enforcement. Regional Studies. Using an original panel dataset on tax gap and audits, this paper sheds light on the impact of audit and enforcement on the Italian regional tax evasion over the period 2001-11. Spatial econometric models were used to model regional tax gaps and to control for endogeneity issues and spatial patterns. Results provide evidence that greater enforcement increases tax compliance. A higher probability of targeted audits and additional schemes to increase the disclosure of declared income decrease the tax gap. The paper provides a general framework to study determinants of tax evasion at the regional level.