Ανάρτηση Ερευνητικoύ Δοκιμίου no 17/23


    Ερευνητικό Δοκίμιο no 17/23 με τίτλο "A Νetwork and Μachine Learning Approach to Detect Value Added Tax Fraud"
    των Angelos Alexopoulos, Petros Dellaportas,Stanley Gyoshev, Christos Kotsogiannis, Sofia C. Olhede and Trifon Pavkov

    Περίληψη

     

    Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud erodes public revenue and puts legitimate businesses at a disadvantaged position thereby impacting inequality. Identifying and combating VAT fraud before it occurs is therefore important for welfare. This paper proposes flexible machine learning algorithms which detect fraudulent transactions, utilising the information provided by the complex VAT network structure of a large dimension. VAT fraud detection is implemented through a combination of a suitably constructed Laplacian matrix with classification algorithms that rely on scalable machine learning techniques. The method is implemented on the universe of Bulgarian VAT data and detects around 50 percent of the VAT fraud, outperforming well-known techniques that ignore the information provided by the network of VAT transactions. Importantly, the proposed methods are automated, and can be implemented following the taxpayers’ submission of their VAT returns. This allows tax revenue authorities to prevent large losses of tax revenues through performing early identification of fraud between business-to-business transactions within the VAT system.

    Ο  Aλέξης Αγγελόπουλος είναι Επίκουρος Καθηγητής στο τμήμα Οικονομικής Επιστήμης του Οικονομικού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, o Πέτρος Δελλαπόρτας είναι  Καθηγητής στο τμήμα Στατιστικής του Οικονομικού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών και Καθηγητής στο τμήμα Στατιστικής του  University College London, o Stanley Gyoshev είναι Lecturer in Finance στο University of Exeter Business School, o Χρήστος Κοτσόγιαννης είναι Καθηγητής στο τμήμα Οικονομικών του University of Exeter, η Sofia C. Olhede είναι Καθηγήτρια στο Institute of Mathematics, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne και στο Department of Statistical Science του University College London και ο Trifon Pavkov  είναι PhD Candidate στο Department of Finance του University of Exeter Business School και Director Policy Analysis at National Revenue Agency, Sofia, Bulgaria.