VAT Notches, Voluntary Registration, and Bunching: Theory and U.K. Evidence
利用英国企业行政税务记录，发现年营业额低于增值税登记门槛的企业存在聚集现象，同时近半数企业自愿登记。研究构建理论框架解释这两个看似矛盾的事实，并检验了中间投入份额、市场竞争和消费者销售比例对自愿登记与聚集的影响。
Using administrative tax records for U.K. businesses, we document both bunching in annual turnover below the VAT registration threshold and persistent voluntary registration by almost half of the firms below the threshold. We develop a conceptual framework that can simultaneously explain these two apparently conflicting facts. The framework also predicts that higher intermediate input shares, lower product-market competition, and a lower share of business to consumer sales lead to voluntary registration. The predictions are exactly the opposite for bunching. We test the theory using linked VAT and corporation tax records from 2004 to 2014, finding empirical support for these predictions.