Auditing income tax self‐assessment: the hidden cost of compliance Available to Purchase

Virtually all of the completed research to date shows that taxpayer compliance costs are large and generally a multiple of the revenue authority’s administrative costs. Compliance costs have also been found to be capricious in their incidence and generally highly regressive. On the other hand, for some taxes (eg. Employer PAYE deductions), much of the research shows that larger firms derive a net economic benefit from enhanced cash flows. There is also perceived to be a fair correlation between high compliance costs and high non‐compliance. These findings and perceptions have led to government pressure in most developed countries to reduce compliance costs. This paper explores the likely impact of compliance costs in the UK as income tax self‐assessment is introduced, leaning on evidence from Australia, where self‐assessment is the standard.