The problem of low tax revenues and a large shadow sector is relevant to many countries and industries, and the forestry industry in Russia is no exception. This study examines the forms of tax evasion in various segments of the forestry industry to evaluate the impact of the size of businesses and the level of tax audit risk on the frequency of same-type tax responses. The hypothesis is that same-type tax responses in the form of tax evasion are observed in businesses of all sizes of the forestry industry. The frequency of these tax responses correlates with the level of tax audit risk. The representative sample of micro-, small and mid-sized businesses comprises 7,910 enterprises. For each enterprise included in the sample we calculated the level of tax audit risk for the period of 2017-2020. Audit risk was calculated as a cumulative indicator of the incidence of non-compliance, which was detected by comparing the calculated and normative values of the criteria described in the Federal Tax Service’s Concept of the System of Planning of On-Site Tax Audits. The study found that the businesses of all sizes from all sectors of the forestry industry resorted to tax evasion. The specific forms and structural elements of their responses were described. The correlation and regression analysis has shown that there is a strong direct relationship between the level of tax audit risk and the frequency of same-type tax responses. The occurrence of same-type tax responses points to the weaker impact of economic factors within the traditional model of tax behaviour. These findings can be of interest to the tax authorities and policy-makers seeking to raise tax revenues collected from enterprises of the Russian forestry industry.

The basis for the functioning of any manufacturing enterprise is a property complex, consisting mainly of movable and immovable property as an object of transport tax and corporate property tax. The expansion of this complex and the efficient use of property contributes to the successful development of the enterprise and an increase in tax revenues from property tax to the budget system of the Russian Federation. The article studies the property and technical potential of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in entrepreneurial activities in the field of logging, sawing and planing of wood, wholesale trade in timber, and also establishes the relationship between tax evasion behavior and the efficiency of the use of property assets by forestry enterprises. A representative sample of 4,134 enterprises was formed for the study. From the total set of economic entities engaged in entrepreneurial activities in the branches of the timber industry complex of Russia, only respondents registered before 01 January 2017 were selected. The level of tax risk for each enterprise of the representative sample for the period 2017-2020 is defined as a violation of the normative value of the tax burden criterion. The return on assets is taken as an indicator that characterizes the efficiency of the use of assets and the efficiency of the enterprise as a whole. Indicators of return on assets and tax burden are set in accordance with the provisions of the Concept for Planning Field Tax Audits. Statistical methods (correlation-regression analysis) were used to establish the relationship between the return on assets and the level of tax risk of forestry enterprises. In our research, we proceed from the assumption that the propensity of an enterprise to avoid paying taxes in tax behavior is the main factor that negatively affects the development of its potential and therefore the volume of tax payments transferred to the budget system of the Russian Federation. We determined and analyzed the values of indicators of capital-labor ratio, capital productivity and capital intensity according to the activities of enterprises of the representative sample; established the relationship between the inefficient use by medium, small, micro-enterprises of the forestry complex of their assets and tax evasion in the tax behavior of these enterprises. To solve the problems of tax evasion in order to further increase the property and technical potential of the enterprises of the forestry sector, the main directions of development are proposed, and the optimal of the proposed directions are determined by the method of game theory (games with nature). The Bayes criterion was used to determine the optimal strategy.

The study focuses on the problem of rationality of economic entities, in particular the rationality of their tax and economic behavior in a given period. The data on enterprises in the Russian foreign sector are used to examine the relationship between the levels of rationality observed in their economic and tax behavior. The representative sample includes 1,206 micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises that specialize in logging, wood processing and wholesale timber trade and have forest lease agreements. The study covers the period from 2017 to 2021. Rationality of corporate behavior is understood as profit maximizing behavior or, in other words, as companies’ pursuit of maximum utility. Our theoretical review of the research on rationality in economic and tax behavior has led us to formulate the following assumptions. In economic behavior, rationality manifests itself primarily in companies’ efforts to improve the efficiency of resource use (labor, finance, and tangible assets). Rationality in tax behavior is associated with companies’ efforts to minimize their tax expenditures. Therefore, to assess the rationality of economic behavior, we used such indicators as labor productivity, return on own capital, return on borrowed capital, return on fixed assets, return on operating assets, business profitability, the stage of the lifecycle, and tax risk management. To assess rationality of tax behavior, we estimated the level of audit risk, that is, each company’s chances of being audited. Our study has confirmed the hypothesis that the rationality of tax and economic behavior has an inverse relationship. In other words, the more rational is the economic behavior of a firm, the less rational is its tax behavior. The strength of this relationship is impacted by three main factors: 1) the size of a business; 2) the level of opportunism; and 3) the type of activity. For the enterprises in the forestry sector covered by our analysis, we found that a change in the level of rationality of their tax behavior in 72.9% of cases leads to a change in the level of rationality of their economic behavior.

The tax burden indicator is one of the criteria for tax risk assessment used by tax authorities for making the decision to conduct an on-site tax audit. The dynamics of the tax burden indicator is considered to be a catalyst for the development of positive or negative tax relations between the taxpayer and the tax authority. It is very important to understand the relationship between the tax burden indicator and the firm's size in order to form an objective approach to tax control of micro, small and medium-sized businesses in different industries. The purpose of the research is to define a relationship between the level of tax burden and the firm's size in the Russian timber industry. The hypothesis of the research is that the tax burden increases as the size of the firm grows in the timber industry in Russia. Firms belonging to the categories of micro and small businesses were selected randomly, taking into account the priority characteristics of the firm's size by the average number of employees. The tax burden was calculated using the official methodology of the Federal Tax Service of Russia. The calculation of the tax burden level was performed for each respondent. The average values of tax burden indicators were also calculated by industry and for each category of business activity. We found that the average level of the tax burden increases when the size of businesses increases generally for all branches of the timber industry. At the same time, the researched characteristics of the firm's size (revenue and average number of employees) have a significant impact on changes in the level of the tax burden both in general and individually in such branches of the timber industry as logging, woodworking and furniture production. The tax burden level in the above-mentioned industries increases as the firm's size increases. In the pulp and paper industry, the tax burden level increases as from micro firms to small firms, but the tax burden level decreases as firms continue to grow from small to medium-sized ones.