Essays on Information Technology in Tax Administrations: A Literature Review and Brazilian Evidence on Revenue Impacts
Information technology; Tax administration; Tax revenue; Municipalities.
Information technology (IT) plays an essential role in the reform of any tax administration, enabling better collection and analysis of information, proactive management of workload and resources, promotion of cooperative engagement, and standardization in the treatment of taxpayers, thus facilitating uniformity and application of tax legislation (Jimenez, Mac An tSionnaigh, & Kamenov, 2013). In light of this perspective, this thesis explores the use of IT in tax administrations, initially comprising three essays. The first essay consists of a systematic literature review (SLR) that seeks to understand how researchers analyze the relationship between IT usage and tax revenue. The SLR was conducted following the protocol proposed by Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart (2003) and identified three research clusters: revenue impacts, adoption factors, and IT aspects in tax administration. It was found that research on IT and tax revenue is still in its early stages. In addition to the clusters, the main challenges of IT implementation in governments were identified, and a research map was presented to guide future investigations on the role of IT in tax administration. Among the technologies identified in the SLR, standardized electronic tax systems stand out, which is explored in the second essay of this thesis. The aim of this essay is to analyze the effects of adopting this system on the own revenue collection of Brazilian municipalities. Using a database composed of 146 municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, from 2013 to 2018, the study initially employs a panel with two-way fixed effects and then applies the differences-in-differences approach proposed by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021). The results reveal that the implementation of standardized electronic tax systems resulted in an average increase of approximately 29% in total tax revenue. The tax on urban and territorial property (IPTU) had an average increase of about 61%, while the tax on services of any nature (ISSQN) showed an average increase of approximately 38%. Furthermore, other effects over time and in specific groups were also identified. The third essay addresses the use of another technology, the Electronic Consumer Invoice (NFC-e), and aims to analyze the effects of its adoption by Brazilian states on the allocation of the share of the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) to municipalities. The database used consists of 4,662 municipalities in Brazil from 2013 to 2016, and it also employs the differences-in-differences approach by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021). The results of this essay indicate that the adoption of NFC-e impacts municipalities in different ways depending on their size. Larger municipalities obtained more significant results in increasing the allocation of ICMS share by states. On average, in the simple effects, large municipalities had an increase of approximately 7.7 million reais. In the dynamic effects, large municipalities showed an average increase of approximately 7.85 million reais in the year of implementation and 50.40 million reais two years after the policy adoption by states.