The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center invite you to attend the only annual conference focused on tax administration research. Researchers from the IRS, other government agencies, academia, and private organizations will discuss some of the latest analyses seeking to make tax administration as effective as possible.

Opening Remarks

• Robert McClelland, Senior Fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

• Reza Rashidi, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

Session 1: Help Me Help You: Nudging Taxpayers Into Compliance

• Does Taxpayer Assistance Encourage Income Tax Compliance? Evidence From IRS Staffing
  Presenter: Vishal Baloria, Associate Professor of Accounting, University of Connecticut
• Out of Sight, Out of Tax: Strategic Payment Routing and the Limits of Third-Party Reporting
  Presenter: Ali Ekmen, MSc in Taxation, University of Oxford, Former Chief Tax Inspector, Turkish Tax Inspection Board
• Automating Cross-Border Withholding Tax Compliance: A Validation Framework for Patent Royalty
  Presenter: Jiseon Lee, Senior Tax Specialist, Samsung Electronics
• Discussant: Michael Udell, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

• Moderator: Masanue Vah, Social Scientist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

Break: Poster Session

• What Counts as Identity Theft? Adjustments to Pre-Acceptance Submission Methodology for the IMF Identity Theft Taxonomy
  Presenter: Spencer Brien, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

• The Secure Query Service: A Novel Application for Providing Privacy-Preserving Aggregate Statistics on Individual Income Tax Data
  Presenter: Amy O'Hara, Research Professor, Director, Georgetown Federal Statistical Research Data Center, Georgetown University

   

Session 2: From Good to Great: Getting the Most Out of Audits

• A New Approach to Dealing With Imperfect Detection Tax Return Audits: Leave One Out Estimator Income and Self-Employment Tax  
  Presenter: Alex Turk, Supervisory Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service
• Refresh Rate Matters: Monthly Retraining Improves Audit-Selection Under Concept Drift
  Presenter: Brandon Anderson, Technical Advisor, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service
• Rethinking Post-Audit Compliance Heterogenous and Persistent Effects in Experimental Data
  Presenter: Carlos Scartascini, Principal Technical Leader, Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, Leader of Research Department, Behavioral Economics Group
• Discussant: Brian Erard, Principal, B. Erard and Associates, LLC

• Moderator: Valentina Kachanovskaya, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

Keynote

• Janet Holtzblatt, Senior Fellow, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center 

   

Session 3: Indirect Impacts of Enforcement Over Time

• Experimental Evidence on the Specific Indirect Effects of Audits
  Presenter: Justin Nave, Operations Research Analyst, MITRE Corporation
• Long-Distance Deterrence Spillovers from High-Intensity Tax Enforcement: Social Network Evidence from the 2015 New York City Zapper Crackdown
  Presenter: Zizhuo Chen, PhD Student, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• The Specific Indirect Effect of IRS's Automated Underreporting (AUR) Enforcement
  Presenter: Thomas Hertz, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service
• Discussant: William Boning, Financial Economist, Office of Tax Analysis, US Department of the Treasury

• Moderator: Lori Stuntz, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

Session 4: Making Third-Party Data Work Harder

• Unpacking Box 12: Imputing Deferred Compensation Categories on Population-Level Form W-2 Data Using SOI Transcription and Machine Learning
  Presenter: Rachel Geiger, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service
• Wage Misreporting on Individual Income Tax Returns: Evidence from W-2 Mismatches
  Presenter: Lucas Goodman, Economist, Office of Tax Analysis, US Department of the Treasury
• Tracing the Invisible: Tax and Criminal Investigations of Digital Assets in Brazil and the Emergence of a New Asset-Tracing Architecture
  Presenter: Riddha Basu, Assistant Professor of Accountancy, George Washington University School of Business
• Discussant: Jamie McGuire, Senior Economist, Joint Committee on Taxation

• Moderator: Bizuayehu Bedane, Economist, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

Closing Remarks

• Reza Rashidi, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics, Internal Revenue Service

   

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. Please email [email protected] if you require any accommodations or have any questions about this event.

This program was organized in partnership with the IRS Office of Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics.