Alternative Approaches to the Taxation of Heavy Vehicles Applications Manual (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
8.0 Evasion and Avoidance
8.0 Evasion and Avoidance
Pages 69-76
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 69... ...
That section presents brief descnptions of procedures for using reasonably unbiased VMT estimates to estimate evasion of highway taxes, and discusses limitations in the accuracy of the resulting evasion estimate. The revenue estimation procedures presume the use of improved procedures for estimating VMT by vehicle class, such as the procedures discussed In Section 3.~.
|
From page 70... ...
A lack of information on other types of evasion may result in underestimating their extent; and 3. Audited firms frequently have lower-than-average evasion rates.
|
From page 71... ...
7 Evasion Estimates Based on Audit Reports, prepared for the Oregon Legislative Revenue Office, the Oregon Public Utilities Comoussion, and the Oregon Department of Transportation, Salem, Oregon, February 1996. 2 Taxing diesel Fuel at We ~retaildevel~eliminates Me bootlegging problem, but it increases the number of taxpayers and the required enforcement effort.
|
From page 72... ...
The above discussion indicates that both out-of-state carriers and small ~n-state carriers are likeIv to exhibit- higher' rates of detectable Evasion than larger ~n-state carriers. 4 Cambridge Systematics and Sydec win Pacific Rim Resources, Oregon Weight-Mile Tax Study, Final Report, prepared for me Oregon Legislative Revenue Office, Me Oregon Public Utilities Commission, and me Oregon Depallulent of Transportation, Salem, Oregon, February 1996, p.54.
|
From page 73... ...
Thus, if a given tax has a five percent evasion rate and the best available independent estimate of the revenue that should be generated by the tax is only accurate to ~5 percent, then The evasions rate estimated by this procedure may be anywhere between zero and ten percent. The first of these issues is more a near-term caution than an inherent limitation to the approach.
|
From page 74... ...
with taxed fuel and treating the blend as taxed fuel; Purchasing and using untaxed fuel without reporting it; Understating fuel use and overstating fuel economy in fuel-use reports; and · Underreporting mileage In high tax states (possibly combined with overreporting mileage in low tax stateside Also included- in this estimate will be some legal avoidance resulting from out-of-state fuel purchases by vehicles not subject to fuel-use reporting (though, in the case of diesel fuel, legal avoidance is fairly insignificant)
|
From page 75... ...
As observed at the beginning of this section, all of the above estimates of evasion presume He use of estimates of statewide VMT by vehicle class that are reasonably unbiased and Hat are not derived from revenue collection data; and, furthermore, even if such highquality VMT estimates are used, small and unavoidable errors in the VMT arsenates may produce large errors In the evasion estimates. Hence, the resulting arsenates of evasion should be viewed as suggestive rather than definitive.
|
From page 76... ...
, and it can be used by operators of all vehicles to avoid payment of sales taxes on fuel. Rough estimates of the avoidance of sales taxes on fuel can be estimated using the procedures presented previously for estimating evasion of per-gallon fuel taxes and the average price of fuel In the jurisdiction; however, in the case of local taxes, the VMT estimates used in developing these evasion estimates are likely to exhibit relatively large percentage errors when developed for small jurisdictions with relatively low VMT totals.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.