abstract = "We detect tax law abuse by simulating the co-evolution
of tax evasion schemes and their discovery through
audits. Tax evasion accounts for billions of dollars of
lost income each year. When the IRS pursues a tax
evasion scheme and changes the tax law or audit
procedures, the tax evasion schemes evolve and change
into undetectable forms. The arms race between tax
evasion schemes and tax authorities presents a serious
compliance challenge. Tax evasion schemes are sequences
of transactions where each transaction is individually
compliant. However, when all transactions are combined
they have no other purpose than to evade tax and are
thus non-compliant. Our method consists of an ownership
network and a sequence of transactions, which outputs
the likelihood of conducting an audit, and requires no
prior tax return or audit data. We adjust audit
procedures for a new generation of evolved tax evasion
schemes by simulating the gradual change of tax evasion
schemes and audit points, i.e. methods used for
detecting non-compliance. Additionally, we identify,
for a given audit scoring procedure, which tax evasion
schemes will likely escape auditing. The approach is
demonstrated in the context of partnership tax law and
the Installment Bogus Optional Basis tax evasion
scheme. The experiments show the oscillatory behaviour
of a co-adapting system and that it can model the
co-evolution of tax evasion schemes and their
detection.",
notes = "Presented at GI COW45
http://crest.cs.ucl.ac.uk/cow/45/
Also known as \cite{Hemberg:2015:TND:2746090.2746099}",