Challenges and Prospects of Taxation in the Digital Economy: Symposium “Theory and Practice of Tax Reforms” as a Case of Focused Discussion in the Post-Soviet Space

I A Mayburov

doi:10.15826/jtr.2019.5.2.062

Abstract

Economic debates in Europe and America for many decades by now have been dealing with such problems as optimization of tax systems, eco-balance in taxes and ways to maximize the efficiency of tax reforms. Post-Soviet economists of the 1990s did not have an opportunity to participate in such discussions which would have proven useful since there was an urgent need for adequate theoretical justification of the tax reforms in CIS countries and other former Soviet republics. To fill this gap in research, two economists Igor Mayburov from Russia and Yuriy Ivanov from Ukraine organized the first in the post-Soviet space symposium on taxation in 2009. Since then, the symposium has been regularly held in different cities and attracted leading tax specialists from various countries. Each symposium focuses on a specific theme, selected from the most relevant tax problems faced by post-Soviet countries. The theme of the next symposium is announced 1.5 years in advance. Meanwhile, the participants conduct their studies and prepare monographs. The 11 th International Symposium “Theory and Practice of Tax Reforms” was held on 30 June – 6 July 2019 in Tomsk and was hosted by the Institute of Economics and Management of the National Research Tomsk State University. The symposium was devoted to theoretical and practical aspects of the transformations in taxation and tax administration caused by the digital economy. 95 specialists from 40 universities and 26 cities of six countries (Russia, Belarus, Germany, China, Slovenia and Ukraine) took part in the symposium. The symposium was also supported by 35 universities. The symposium provided a platform for discussion of the most relevant and up-to-date issues of tax reforms, enabling its participants to devise new theoretical and methodological approaches to enhancing tax policies and taxation systems, and, last but not least, to form new research collaborations. The symposium included a plenary session, five panels, a round table, administrative practicum, and presentation of journals in the field of taxation. This article aims to inform the reader about the specific characteristics of this symposium, its results and potential role in the improvement of tax systems of different countries. For citation Mayburov I. A. Challenges and Prospects of Taxation in the Digital Economy: Symposium “Theory and Practice of Tax Reforms” as a Case of Focused Discussion in the Post-Soviet Space. Journal of Tax Reform . 2019;5(2):96–106. DOI: 10.15826/jtr.2019.5.2.062 Article info Received July 20, 2019 ; accepted August 20, 2019

Highlights

This symposium was centred around the idea of creating an inventory of terminology in the sphere of taxation with the view to reach some common understanding of the key concepts
Petersburg State University, Financial University, Research Center for Industrial Problems of Development of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Institute of Economic Strategies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This time, the proposed topic was the transformations of taxation and tax administration in the digital economy, which is currently one of the most widely discussed research problems
International symposium “Theory and Practice of Tax Reform” provides an important communicative platform for economists from different post-Soviet countries specializing in the field of taxation

Summary

Symposium background and rationale

As tax reforms in post-Soviet countries have shown, borrowing international experience and transplanting it in another country is not as easy as it may seem (by transplantation we mean the process of borrowing institutions which previously developed in a different institutional environment [1, p. 24]). Due to the lack of these basic prerequisites, in the early 1990s, many post-Soviet countries were tempted to start with those few non-rational forms of taxation they already had. This was the case, for example, with turnover taxes (or deductions from profits) levied from enterprises until the early 2000s. The symposium “Theory and Practice of Tax Reforms” was created in the 2000s and its primary purpose was to address this gap in research and communication It soon turned into a major communication platform for taxation specialists in the postSoviet space. This article aims to inform the reader about the specific characteristics of this symposium, its results and potential role in the improvement of tax systems of different countries

Symposium history

Overview of papers

Round table “Beer Excise Duty Policies

Findings

Conclusion