Abstract
An important but poorly understood form of firm tax evasion arises from “ghost firms” - fake firms that issue fraudulent receipts so that their clients can claim false deductions. We provide a unique window into this global phenomenon using transaction-level tax data from Ecuador. Five percent of firms use ghost invoices annually. Among these firms, ghost transactions comprise 14 percent of purchases. Ghost transactions are prevalent among large firms and firms with high-income owners and exhibit suspicious patterns, such as bunching below financial system thresholds. An innovative enforcement intervention targeting ghost clients rather than ghosts themselves led to substantial tax recovery.
| Item Type: | Journal Article, refereed, original work |
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| Communities & Collections: | 03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Economics |
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| Dewey Decimal Classification: | 330 Economics |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Materials chemistry, economics and econometrics, media technology, forestry |
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| Scope: | Discipline-based scholarship (basic research) |
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| Language: | English |
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| Date: | 1 December 2023 |
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| Deposited On: | 06 Feb 2024 10:41 |
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| Last Modified: | 27 Feb 2025 02:40 |
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| Publisher: | American Economic Association |
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| ISSN: | 2640-205X |
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| Additional Information: | Copyright American Economic Association; reproduced with permission; Bereits als Working Paper in URPP Equality of Opportunity Discussion Paper Series No. 12 erschienen: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/252206/ |
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| OA Status: | Green |
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| Publisher DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20220321 |
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| Related URLs: | https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/252206/ |
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| Other Identification Number: | merlin-id:24353 |
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Carrillo, Paul