The difference in tax evasion amount among various taxpayers’ groups in Russia

Abstract

This paper evaluates tax evasion in Russia through the estimation of individual «income‐consumption» gap. Our analysis is held on the balanced in social‐demographic characteristics subsample of the data of the RLMS of the Higher School of Economics. We reach this by using the combination of propensity score matching and exact matching. Given equal declared income consumption levels of self‐employed and worker from small companies is, on average, higher than for workers from the big ones. This leads to the conclusion that former ones evade 13–31% of their actual income. This result is heterogeneous in year. During the economic slowdown, differences in concealment of income between self‐employed and employees of small and large enterprises become insignificant.