Alexander Teepe

Corporate Tax Evasion in a Globalized Enivronment Alexander Teepe

Diplomarbeit, die am 11.06.2006 erfolgreich an einer Universität in Deutschland im Fachbereich Volkswirtschaftslehre eingereicht wurde. Abstract: There are only few results of empirical research about corporate tax evasion and avoidance in comparison to individual tax evasion. One reason is a lack of exact data. Moreover, due to the nature of tax non-compliance it is not easy to calculate its volume. There is set of empirical questions on which we can make progress, such as the determinants of corporate evasion, for example the impact of penalties on corporate tax directors in large enterprises or the size of a company and the owner structure. It is material for policymakers to know which characteristic of enterprises let us assume that a firm evades more or less and which circumstances enhance corporate tax evasion. We suggest that the developments in a more globalized world may change incentives for non-compliance of enterprises and change the options to evade taxes, in particular for import or export firms. The growing importance of transfer prices for tax directors of multinational enterprises may emphasize this assumption. But not only large multinational enterprises have options to evade taxes. Also smaller companies controlled by private owners can misstate import and export invoices in order to shift profits into low-tax countries or tax haven countries or build up capital in the informal economy. We analyze the existing basic theory and provide a critical discussion to it. And we survey the existing empirical literature about corporate tax evasion. Furthermore, we present the results of a corporate tax survey in China and Germany. By this survey related to import and export firms of all size, evidence is provided that there are remarkable incentives to evade taxes by manipulation of commercial invoices. We find that this type of tax evasion by importers and exporters is basically determined by the same effects as corporate tax compliance in g...