Behavioral Economics and Rationality of Certain Economic Activities: The Case of Intra-Community Supplies

Abstract

Behavioral aspects might be among causes of differences between the value of trade in goods shipped from Poland and acquired from Polish firms by contractors throughout EU that exist in public statistics databases. The need for profit in the short term may result in reporting unreliable data to public statistics entities. The aim of the chapter is to point out some of possible irregularities in economic activities’ evidence of Polish taxpayers whose businesses depend on intra-community trade. These anomalies consist of hiding transactions by avoiding statistical declarations or late declaring which has an immediate impact on aggregated statistical data. As a result, there are huge differences between datasets containing the same data reported by both sides of transactions, i.e., as intra-community supplies (ICS), by Polish businesses and as intra-community acquisitions (ICA) from Polish businesses. At least some of such anomalies can be linked with tax fraud. Another group of anomalies includes specific schemes that can be observed in declared data. The authors have studied the above-mentioned differences and found irregularities within ICS and ICA for Combined Nomenclature chapters and positions. The structures of such differences have been compared for years 2010–2016. In the second part of the chapter, we discuss specific schemes in declared data that may indicate participation in VAT fraud. We explain the outcomes based on behavioral factors.