Tax evasion and self-employment in a high-tax country: evidence from Sweden

C-Tier
Journal: Applied Economics
Year: 2009
Volume: 41
Issue: 19
Pages: 2419-2430

Authors (2)

Per Engstrom (not in RePEc) Bertil Holmlund

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Self-employed individuals have arguably greater opportunities than wage earners to underreport their incomes. This article uses recent Swedish income and expenditure data to examine the extent of underreporting of income among self-employed individuals. A key hypothesis is that underreporting of incomes among the self-employed would be visible in the data as 'excess food consumption', for a given level of observed income. Our results confirm the underreporting hypothesis. In particular, we estimate that households with at least one self-employed member underreport their total incomes by around 30%. Under-reporting appears to be much more prevalent among self-employed people with unincorporated businesses as among those with incorporated businesses.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:taf:applec:v:41:y:2009:i:19:p:2419-2430
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-02-02