SOI Tax Stats - 2020 IRS-TPC Research Conference

10th Annual IRS-TPC joint research conference on tax administration

The 2020 IRS Research Bulletin (Publication 1500) features selected papers from the IRS-Tax Policy Center (TPC) Research Conference held remotely, on June 18, 2020. Conference presenters and attendees included researchers from many areas of the IRS, officials from other government agencies, and academic and private sector experts on tax policy, tax administration, and tax compliance.

2020 IRS Research Bulletin (Publication 1500)PDF

2020 IRS-TPC Joint Research Conference AgendaPDF

Session 1: Behavioral responses to audits

• The Specific Deterrence Implications of Increased Reliance on Correspondence AuditsPDF
  Brian Erard (B. Erard & Associates), Erich Kirchler, and Jerome Olsen (University of Vienna)
• The Specific Indirect Effect of Correspondence Audits: Moving from Research to Operational ApplicationPDF
  Leigh Nicholl, Maxwell McGill, Lucia Lykke (MITRE Corporation), and Alan Plumley (IRS, RAAS)
• Audits, Audit Effectiveness, and Postaudit Tax CompliancePDF
  James Alm and Matthias Kasper (Tulane University)

Session 2: New insights on taxpayer behavior

• An Analysis of Self-Employed Income Tax Evasion in Italy With a Consumption-Based MethodologyPDF
  Martina Bazzoli (IRVAPP), Paolo Di Caro and Marco Manzo (Italian Dept. of Finance), Francesco Figari (University of Insubria, University of Essex), and Carlo Fiorio (University of Milan)

Session 3: Advances in taxpayer service

• Filing Season 2019 Outreach Experiments on Paper Filers and NonfilersPDF
  Jacob Goldin (Stanford University), Tatiana Homonoff (New York University), and Rizwan Javaid and Brenda Schafer (IRS, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics)
• Enforcement vs. Outreach: Impacts on Time-To-File, Penalties, and Call VolumePDF
  Anne Herlache, Mark Payne, Ishani Roy, and Alex Turk (IRS Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics), and Stacy Orlett (IRS, Small Business/Self-Employed Division)
• Perspectives on New Forms of Remote Identity Proofing and Authentication for IRS Online ServicesPDF
  Rebecca Scollan and Ronna Ten Brink (MITRE Corporation)

Session 4:  Doing more with less

• Can Machine Learning Improve Correspondence Audit Case Selection? Considerations for Algorithm Selection, Validation, and ExperimentationPDF 
  Ben Howard and Lucia Lykke (MITRE), and Alan Plumley (IRS, RAAS)
• Improving Taxpayer Response to Ineffective Audit Experiences: Service Messages as a SolutionPDF
  Nina Collum (Louisiana Tech University), Susan Jurney (Oklahoma City University), and Mary Marshall (Louisiana Tech University)
• Using the Internal Revenue Service Program Assessment Model Optimizer to Inform Resource Allocation DecisionsPDF
  Rafael Dacal, Chris Lee, Deandra Reinhart, Sarah Shipley, Clay Swanson, and Ariel S. Wooten (IRS, Small Business/Self-Employed Division)

Links to other conferences and resources:

• Tax Stats
• IRS Research Conference