What are Effective Measures against Vat Evasion? Evidence from the Czech Republic
What are Effective Measures against Vat Evasion? Evidence from the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: VAT is one of the most important tax revenues of the European states, yet it suffers from excessive tax evasion. Carousel frauds that abuse the current VAT treatment of cross-border supplies of goods in the EU represent the most serious type of VAT evasion. Almost all EU Member States have implemented anti-fraud measures. This paper discusses the effectiveness of such measures as introduced in the Czech Republic. The analysis of quarterly time series of VAT revenues from 1999 to 2016 showed that from all the anti-fraud measures, tightening of the rules for unreliable payers introduced at the beginning of 2013 proves in our models to be the most robust. A significant, positive effect has also been identified for the adoption of the reverse charge mechanism on scrap and emission allowances, as well as for the implementation of the VAT control statement. On the other hand, our analysis did not confirm that the so-called protective orders do increase VAT revenues. The total annual increase in tax collected as a result of implementing the above-mentioned measures was according to the model around CZK 51 billion by the end of 2015. This is 14.5% of the total annual VAT revenues.

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