Differentiated products and evasion of import tariffs

Javorcik, Beata Smarzynska; Narciso, Gaia

doi:10.1016/j.jinteco.2008.07.002

Cited by 134 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The most commonly used measure of corruption in the trade literature is the trade gap between declared exports by sending countries and declared imports by receiving countries (Bhagwati 1964;Fisman and Wei 2004;Javorcik and Narciso 2008). In theory, importers have a stronger incentive to misreport values or quantities of imports, widening this trade gap (Bhagwati 1964).…”

Section: A Corruption: Evidence From Trade Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa

Sequeira

2016

American Economic Review

100

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This paper exploits quasi-experimental variation in tariffs inTrade elasticities play a central role in standard models of trade by determining the effects of policy interventions and the calculation of gains from trade (Hillberry and Hummels 2013; Arkolakis, Costinot, and Rodriguez-Clare 2012). Yet in practice, we still lack reliable estimates of this elasticity. Approaches that rely mostly on time-series variation in trade costs tend to estimate elasticities in the range of one or smaller, while cross-sectional analyses estimate elasticities of five or higher (Baier and Bergstrand 2001;Broda and Weinstein 2006;Romalis 2007;Hillberry and Hummels 2013;Caliendo and Parro 2015). The standard explanations for this discrepancy range from attenuation bias due to measurement challenges and the endogeneity of trade costs (Trefler 1993), to the fact that the two approaches exploit different sources of variation: the time-series work exploits short-run adjustments to changes in trade costs, while the cross-sectional studies reflect more long-run effects of differential levels of trade costs across industries or countries (Goldberg

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Section: A Corruption: Evidence From Trade Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa

Sequeira

2016

American Economic Review

100

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“…Stasarage and Daubrée (1998) report that a correct declaration of import's value does not prevent fraud from occurring, since the assessment of tax liabilities by customs officers can be purportedly incorrect; when taxes are correctly assessed commodities can also be released without the importer actually paying these taxes. In most cases, however, a customs duty evasion is rendered possible by false import declarations through four types of methods (Fisman and Wei, 2004;Javorcik andNarciso, 2007, Jean andMitaritonna, 2010). Underreporting of unit value, underreporting of taxable quantities, misclassification or mislabeling imported products from a higher-taxed to a lower-taxed type, and smuggling.…”

Section: Reliability Of Data and Some Measurement Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from Missing Imports in Tanzania

Epaphra¹

2015

Bus Eco J

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Tax evasion is the basic characteristic of many developing countries. De facto tax collections are consequently far below revenue implied by published or de jure tax rates. This paper empirically examines tax rates (tariff plus VAT rates) as the determinants of customs revenue evasion across products, based on a systematic analysis of discrepancies in trade declarations for trading partners, United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of South Africa and China. The results indicate that trade gap is highly correlated with tax rates, that is, much more value is lost for products with higher tax rates. The results also show that the trade gap is correlated with tax rates on closely related products from Republic of South Africa, implying that evasion takes place through misclassification of imports from higher-taxed categories to lower-taxed ones. However, there is no evidence of misclassification of imports from China. The wide divergences between the effective and statutory tax rates in Tanzanian tax system indicate that there is a scope for raising tax revenue without increasing tax rates by reinforcing tax and customs administrations and reducing tax evasion.

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“…No período recente, a partir do estudo de Fisman & Wei (2004), o tema passou a merecer destaque na literatura, sendo seguido pelos estudos de Mishra et al (2007) e Javorcik & Narciso (2008).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…tido por Fisman & Wei (2004) para a China (3,1%) e por Javorcik & Narciso (2008) para a Rússia (3,2%); b) quando os produtos são classificados em dois grupos, segundo a dificuldade na percepção da evasão por parte da aduana, um aumento de um ponto de porcentagem na tarifa proporciona uma elevação de 3,2% na evasão nos bens diferenciados e de 2,2% nos bens homogêneos; c) a mudança na classificação para se beneficiar de uma tarifa menor ocorre somente nos bens diferenciados.…”

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Tarifas de importação e evasão fiscal no Brasil

Kume¹,

Piani²,

Miranda³

2011

Econ. Apl.

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ResumoA evasão de impostos, sobretudo por meio de subfaturamento das importações, sempre foi motivo de preocupação da administração aduaneira. Além da redução de receita tributária, a sonegação impõe perdas de competitividade aos importadores que assumem todos os encargos tributários, e reduz o grau de proteção à produção doméstica. O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar empiricamente a relação entre os níveis de tarifa aduaneira e o subfaturamento das importações no Brasil, e se este resultado é influenciado pelas características específicas de determinados bens (produtos diferenciados), bem como pela presença de produtos similares com tarifas menores. Entre outros fatos, os resultados apontam que o aumento de um ponto de percentagem na alíquota da tarifa implica uma elevação de 3,1% no nível de sonegação. Na comparação entre bens diferenciados e homogêneos, as estimativas indicam uma elasticidade maior para os primeiros.Palavras-chave: tarifa de importação; evasão; arrecadação Abstract Tax evasion in Brazilian imports has been an issue of concern for the customs authorities. This problem is addressed here using the theoretical approach of defining evasion as the difference between the value of exports of other countries to country-regionBrazil and value of imports reported by country-regionplaceBrazil. This makes it possible to quantify the effects of high import tariff rates on tax evasion due mainly to underreporting of value. The main empirical result of the paper is that a one-percentage-point increase in the tariff rate implies a 3.1% increase in evasion. Furthermore, we identify an also robust elasticity of evasion of 3.2% for differentiated products in contrast with a lower value of 2.2% for homogeneous products.Keywords: tariffs; tax evasion; tax collection Os autores agradem os comentários e as sugestões recebidos de Erly Cardoso Teixeira, dos participantes do seminário realizado pela Dimac do IPEA e de um parecerista anônimo. Agradecem também a Milton Pina Júnior pelo fornecimento dos dados.† IPEA e UERJ.

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Differentiated products and evasion of import tariffs

Cited by 134 publications

References 14 publications

Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa

Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa

Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from Missing Imports in Tanzania

Tarifas de importação e evasão fiscal no Brasil

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