Discussion paper

DP14463 How Do Taxpayers Respond to Public Disclosure and Social Recognition Programs? Evidence from Pakistan

We examine two Pakistani programs to see if the public disclosure of tax information and social recognition of top taxpayers promote tax compliance. Pakistan began revealing income tax paid by every taxpayer in the country from 2012. Simultaneously, another program began
recognizing and rewarding the top 100 tax paying corporations, partnerships, self-employed individuals, and wage-earners. We find that both programs induced strong compliance responses. The public disclosure caused on average a 9 log-points increase in the tax paid by
individuals exposed to the program. The increase was even larger for the social recognition program, around 17 log-points. Our results suggest that such programs can be important policy levers to mobilize resources, especially in weak-enforcement-capacity economies.

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Citation

Waseem, M, J Slemrod and O Ur Rehman (2020), ‘DP14463 How Do Taxpayers Respond to Public Disclosure and Social Recognition Programs? Evidence from Pakistan‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 14463. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp14463