Revenue approaches to income tax evasion: a comparative study of Ireland and South Africa.

Tax evasion represents a serious loss to the exchequer in most developed and developing economies. Various approaches to combat this problem have been put forward, including increasing penalties for non-compliance, boosting revenue powers of search and discovery, the use of amnesties to bring errant taxpayers into the net, high-profile public prosecutions and other “name and shame” techniques, and appeal to the ethics of taxpayers. This paper looks at the approaches adopted in two contrasting economies, South Africa and Ireland, examines the strategies which were adopted in each case, and concludes that similarities in approach outweigh differences, suggesting some universality in Revenue techniques.