This entry describes the key features of tax amnesties and provides an overview of the normative and positive literature that has studied them. Tax amnesties can be useful tools, from the standpoint of equity and efficiency, when exploited in exceptional circumstances. Amnesties may also be used systematically, as a discriminatory mechanism to target specific features or circumstances or taxpayer groups. However, if government commitment to enforcing tax law is not credible, amnesties may undermine future tax revenue. From a psychological perspective, amnesties might breach the implicit psychological contract between taxpayers and the state, thus reducing taxpayers’ internal motivation for compliance. There are also important political implications, because amnesties can signal intertemporal inconsistency in government decision-making. Amnesties respond to externalities among states or layers of government deriving from tax and enforcement policies, and network effects in these fields may trigger waves of amnesties. Amnesties can provide a source of information about taxpayers’ actual income distribution and the relationship between income and tax evasion.