Fifty-six percent of the US taxpaying population uses a paid tax preparer, but the effect of these tax preparation services on tax compliance is not well understood. Although governments conceal the algorithms they use to determine which taxpayers to audit, tax preparation firms with large client bases may be able to infer these algorithms and therefore offer strategic advice to taxpayers. This paper formalizes this role, using a simple asymmetric information model where agents can purchase information about the government’s enforcement rules. In a competitive market for tax preparation services, demand for tax preparers is selective and increases in taxpayer income. Moreover, the presence of tax preparers always reduces compliance when tax preparers have perfect information. Perhaps surprisingly, if the demand for strategic advice is high enough, the government can mitigate evasion by revealing full information about its audit rule. Alternatively, when the tax preparers have imperfect information about the audit rule, if the top income within an audit class is low enough, the government can utilize tax preparer firms to increase compliance by influencing the audit information available to these firms.

56％的美国纳税人口使用有偿税收筹划者，但是这些税收筹划服务对税收合规性的影响尚不为人所知。尽管政府隐瞒了用于确定要审核哪些纳税人的算法，但是拥有大量客户的税务准备公司可能能够推断出这些算法，因此可以为纳税人提供战略建议。本文使用一个简单的非对称信息模型来使这一角色正式化，代理商可以在其中购买有关政府执法规则的信息。在税收准备服务竞争激烈的市场中，对税收准备者的需求是有选择性的，并且会增加纳税人的收入。此外，当税务准备人员掌握完善的信息时，税务准备人员的到来总是会降低合规性。也许令人惊讶的是，如果对战略咨询的需求足够高，政府可以通过披露有关其审计规则的完整信息来减轻逃避。或者，当税务准备者掌握的审计规则信息不完善时，如果审计类别中的最高收入足够低，则政府可以利用税务准备者通过影响这些公司可用的审计信息来提高合规性。