Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax

Detecting tax fraud is a top objective for practically all tax agencies in order to maximize revenues and maintain a high level of compliance. Data mining, machine learning, and other approaches such as traditional random auditing have been used in many studies to deal with tax fraud. The goal of th...

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Main Authors: Belle Fille Murorunkwere, Origene Tuyishimire, Dominique Haughton, Joseph Nzabanita
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-05-01
Series:Future Internet
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/6/168
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author Belle Fille Murorunkwere
Origene Tuyishimire
Dominique Haughton
Joseph Nzabanita
author_facet Belle Fille Murorunkwere
Origene Tuyishimire
Dominique Haughton
Joseph Nzabanita
author_sort Belle Fille Murorunkwere
collection DOAJ
description Detecting tax fraud is a top objective for practically all tax agencies in order to maximize revenues and maintain a high level of compliance. Data mining, machine learning, and other approaches such as traditional random auditing have been used in many studies to deal with tax fraud. The goal of this study is to use Artificial Neural Networks to identify factors of tax fraud in income tax data. The results show that Artificial Neural Networks perform well in identifying tax fraud with an accuracy of 92%, a precision of 85%, a recall score of 99%, and an AUC-ROC of 95%. All businesses, either cross-border or domestic, the period of the business, small businesses, and corporate businesses, are among the factors identified by the model to be more relevant to income tax fraud detection. This study is consistent with the previous closely related work in terms of features related to tax fraud where it covered all tax types together using different machine learning models. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to use Artificial Neural Networks to detect income tax fraud in Rwanda by comparing different parameters such as layers, batch size, and epochs and choosing the optimal ones that give better accuracy than others. For this study, a simple model with no hidden layers, softsign activation function performs better. The evidence from this study will help auditors in understanding the factors that contribute to income tax fraud which will reduce the audit time and cost, as well as recover money foregone in income tax fraud.
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spelling doaj.art-15d275f061234929a2c01f78b017d89f2023-11-23T16:43:29ZengMDPI AGFuture Internet1999-59032022-05-0114616810.3390/fi14060168Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income TaxBelle Fille Murorunkwere0Origene Tuyishimire1Dominique Haughton2Joseph Nzabanita3African Center of Excellence in Data Science, University of Rwanda, KK 737 Street, Gikondo, Kigali P.O. Box 4285, RwandaAfrican Institute for Mathematical Sciences, KN 3 Street, Remera, Kigali P.O. Box 7150, RwandaDepartment of Mathematical Sciences and Global Studies, Bentley University, Watham, MA 02452-4705, USADepartment of Mathematics, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, KN 67 Street, Nyarugenge, Kigali P.O. Box 3900, RwandaDetecting tax fraud is a top objective for practically all tax agencies in order to maximize revenues and maintain a high level of compliance. Data mining, machine learning, and other approaches such as traditional random auditing have been used in many studies to deal with tax fraud. The goal of this study is to use Artificial Neural Networks to identify factors of tax fraud in income tax data. The results show that Artificial Neural Networks perform well in identifying tax fraud with an accuracy of 92%, a precision of 85%, a recall score of 99%, and an AUC-ROC of 95%. All businesses, either cross-border or domestic, the period of the business, small businesses, and corporate businesses, are among the factors identified by the model to be more relevant to income tax fraud detection. This study is consistent with the previous closely related work in terms of features related to tax fraud where it covered all tax types together using different machine learning models. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to use Artificial Neural Networks to detect income tax fraud in Rwanda by comparing different parameters such as layers, batch size, and epochs and choosing the optimal ones that give better accuracy than others. For this study, a simple model with no hidden layers, softsign activation function performs better. The evidence from this study will help auditors in understanding the factors that contribute to income tax fraud which will reduce the audit time and cost, as well as recover money foregone in income tax fraud.https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/6/168fraud detectionincome taxmulti-layer perceptronneural networktax fraud
spellingShingle Belle Fille Murorunkwere
Origene Tuyishimire
Dominique Haughton
Joseph Nzabanita
Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
Future Internet
fraud detection
income tax
multi-layer perceptron
neural network
tax fraud
title Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
title_full Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
title_fullStr Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
title_full_unstemmed Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
title_short Fraud Detection Using Neural Networks: A Case Study of Income Tax
title_sort fraud detection using neural networks a case study of income tax
topic fraud detection
income tax
multi-layer perceptron
neural network
tax fraud
url https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/14/6/168
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