Partnership with the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency

TARC has recently embarked on a partnership with the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency, with the aim of evaluating the effect of audits on firm behaviour.

This project is the second in the successful collaboration between TARC and the BNRA.  It aims to evaluate the effect of audits on taxpayers' behaviour, accounting for both direct and indirect effects of audits and understanding the behavioural responses to tax thresholds.

Better understanding how audits impact firm behaviour helps tax administrators allocate limited resources across compliance activities, and can improve revenue collection. Setting VAT thresholds involves the challenge of balancing administrative costs to taxpayers, with revenue gains.

This collaboration benefits both parties:

For the Bulgarian NRA:

• Evaluation of tax audits - do they boost compliance?
• Identify what can be improved to achieve the aims of audits, including where in the VAT chain the auditing should take place

For TARC:

• Contributes to capacity building and thereby to TARC's key vision to deliver outstanding interdisciplinary research in tax administration and policy, that addresses the major challenges and strategic priorities confronting policymakers and tax authorities today
• Benefits from understanding behaviour through data, and the operational knowledge of the agency

Our current objective is to report on our findings in Autumn 2022.