Income Tax Administration Research Articles

A Study of the Factors Affecting Rental Income Tax Administration Effectiveness in Zambia

Even the largest tax plan in the world is useless if it is not implemented well. Efficient tax administration ensures a high level of tax compliance. However, measuring the effectiveness of tax administration based solely on the amount of taxes collected is overly simplistic. Instead, a much stronger criterion for assessing the effectiveness of tax administration is taking into account the size of the compliance gap. The goal of this study is to determine the effectiveness of rental income tax administration by examining the characteristics of the tax system that influence it, such as diversity, equality, convenience, simplicity, and security. Both primary and secondary data were used in this study. Primary data was collected from taxpayers in Kabulonga Main, Lusaka, while secondary data was collected from various sources including the Zambia Revenue Authority, State Valuation Department, Lusaka City Council, and selected real estate agencies. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The study aimed to determine whether taxpayers' perceptions of the characteristics of the tax system, as identified in the theoretical and empirical literature, could influence the effectiveness of the administration of the rental income tax. The Zambia Revenue Authority was found to have perpetuated phenomena that encourage non-compliance behavior among aggrieved taxpayers, which was indirectly used as a measure of tax administration effectiveness in this study. The results showed that the characteristics of the tax system, particularly equality, diversity, convenience, simplicity, and security, have a positive impact on the effectiveness of tax administration. Based on these findings, the study recommends that the Zambia Revenue Authority work more closely with all stakeholders, incorporate user-friendly features into its tax filing website to promote inclusivity and compliance, improve the authority's ethical profile, increase taxpayer trust in the system, and reduce the tax rate on rental income to alleviate the tax burden. Additionally, active taxpayer education and enforcement of tax laws and policies should be implemented to reduce tax evasion and improve tax compliance.

Reflections on Doing a Good Job of Individual Income Tax Collection and Administration in Grassroots Tax Departments

With the economic development, the amount of per capita disposable income has increased dramatically, and the income gap between the natural person subjects has become bigger and bigger, while the personal income tax has gradually become one of the important taxes in the tax collection and management after going through seven reforms, playing a more significant role in regulating the distribution of income and promoting the fairness of taxation. In the context of the current individual tax reform, combined with the requirements of deepening the reform of the levy and administration system, four countermeasures are proposed from the situation of individual income tax levy and administration of grass-roots tax departments, such as strengthening the legal protection, enhancing tax compliance, strengthening data sharing, and strengthening the support of talents.

The Impact of State Internally Generated Revenues on Total State Revenues and Financial Viability: A Case Study of Lagos State, Nigeria

Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) has been a focus of attention in public financial management because of its key role to Total State Revenue and Financial Viability (TSR&FV). Constant neglect of IGR in states due to over reliance on federal allocation has led to shortage of TSR&FV for funding and governance. Researches have been conducted on IGR in public sector with focus on transport infrastructures, personal income tax, tax administration and tax evasion but with less emphasis on the impact of IGR on TSR&FV. Therefore, this study examined the probable impact of state IGR on TSR&FV of Lagos State, Nigeria. The study adopts ex-post facto research design. Secondary data were extracted from Nigeria Bureau of Statistics annual report of 2011 to 2021. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics at 5% level of significance. The study revealed that state IGR positively impact TSR&FV (Adj.R2=0.99250, F(5,10)=244.1106, p=0.000). The study concluded that IGR have significant influence on TSR&FV and that IGR contribute maximally to TSR&FV. Moreover, Pay As You Earn tax has the highest contribution (63.9%) to state IGR while direct assessment and road tax have the least contribution of 3.9% and 2.1%, respectively. The study recommends that State government should ensure better revenue management and good governance to boost tax morale and tax compliance. Government should also put more policies on revenue generation, training of revenue officers, and funding of revenue agencies. Similarly, new revenue base should be identified and pursued within the ambit of the law to drive TSR&FV.

Research on the Fairness of Personal Income Tax Collection and Administration—Take the Star Tax Evasion as the Entry Point

Research on the Fairness of Personal Income Tax Collection and Administration—Take the Star Tax Evasion as the Entry Point

ANALYSIS OF TAX COMPLIANCE OF MSME OWNERS AFTER THE TAX HARMONISATION LAW

Tax is one of the largest sources of state revenue. Tax compliance can increase government revenue and improve the stability of a country’s economy. As one of the driving tools of the country’s economy, MSMEs are also closely related to taxes. To increase tax awareness among MSME owners, the government has provided a small portion of the income tax rate to MSME owners, equivalent to 0.5% of the company’s gross turnover (sales) based on the HPP Law if it exceeds Rp.500,000,000.00. This qualitative study aims to analyze the understanding of MSME tax actors in the South Bangka region by understanding the current tax rates and office of MSME actors. The survey shows that MSME actors’ understanding of the reduction in income tax rates and tax administration is still low. Lower income tax rates and poor tax administration performance lead to low tax compliance among MSME actors.

Effect of Internally Generated Revenue Strategy on Personal Income Tax Administration in Adamawa State, Nigeria

Personal income tax has remained one of the most reliable sources of income generation to government globally. However, there were cases of tax evasion particularly in developing nation, this has remained the major setback in realizing the much anticipated income. This menace can only be minimized through the enforcement of an effective and efficient income generation strategy. The paper assessed the influence of revenue generation strategy of state board of internal revenue service on personal income tax (PITA) administration of Adamawa state. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the research. The study adopted survey research design while questionnaire was used for data collections and data obtained were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The result revealed a positive and significant relationship between all the measures of revenue generation strategy adopted for the study and the administration of PITA in Adamawa. Hence, the study recommended that, the Adamawa state board of internal revenue service should pay more attention to staff development in addition to improving ICT infrastructures, tax education and awareness to enhance effective and efficient administration of personal income tax.

Innovation Scheme Design of Personal Income Tax Collection and Administration Based on Blockchain Technology

This paper sorts out the application status and technical characteristics of blockchain, and aiming at the problems of long and complicated tax payment process, lack of sufficient verification mechanism and serious loss of personal income tax in China's personal income tax collection and management, puts forward the idea of personal income tax collection and management combined with blockchain technology. Then, this paper designs a personal income tax collection and administration scheme based on alliance chain and intelligent contract to assist the tax authorities to conduct efficient, safe and automated tax collection.

Republic of Slovenia

This report presents the estimates of tax gaps for corporate income tax (CIT) for non-financial corporations in Slovenia by applying the methodology of the IMF’s RA-GAP (Revenue Administration – Gap Analysis Program). This work is being undertaken under the context of the larger project designed to strengthen the administration of corporate income tax (CIT) by the Slovenian Financial Administration (SFA). Providing support towards building the capacity of the SFA to estimate and analyze the CIT gap will assist in achieving the overall goals of the project to: (i) strengthen core tax administration functions, and (ii) strengthen revenue administration, management, and governance arrangements.

Taxpayers’ Perceptions Towards Income Tax Administration: A Study from Indian Perspectives

Tax procedures more particularly income tax laws are considered to be more complex and cumbersome by the individual taxpayers. Direct tax constitutes 46.84% of total tax revenue and personal income tax contributes 51.48% of total direct tax in India. Similarly individual taxpayers constitute around 95% of the total taxpayers in India. But individual assesses faces most about compliance challenges and administrative burdens. Governments often introduce new amendments to address these issues and promote economic efficiency. This paper primarily investigates factors influencing tax administration and taxpayer perceptions, particularly in the context of Indian income tax. This analytical study utilizes primary data and focuses exclusively on income taxpayers in Odisha, an Indian state. Despite uniform national tax laws, the study assumes consistency in typical taxpayer behavior across states. To address data collection limitations, nine districts in Odisha with a 2011 census literacy rate above 80% were selected. A structured questionnaire with five-point Likert scale were used to collect responses through random sampling techniques. From the total sample of 1300 respondents, only 1068 provided complete answers. The study’s findings are based on this sample. The research employs Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to identify significant aspects of tax administration. Three factors emerge: tax procedure, tax services, and tax penalty from factor analysis. Notably, all observed variables have positive impacts on these factors, corroborating the hypotheses, except for one. Tax procedure negatively correlates with tax penalty and services, while services positively correlate with the penalty, resulting in a hypothesis rejection. This study confirms that more the simplification of tax procedures, lesser will be the chance of problems in tax services and chances of imposing penalty.

Formation of local budgets and directions of their improvement under the conditions of decentralization

The article highlights the current state of formation of local budgets in the conditions of decentralization of financial resources, taking into account the changes made to the budget and tax legislation. The purpose of the article is to study the problems of formation and use of funds of local budgets. Development of proposals for improving the existing functioning mechanism and filling local budgets. The state and local self-government share tasks and responsibilities for providing citizens with public services. The effectiveness and scale of activities of local authorities in the field of providing public services depend mainly on the state of finances of local authorities. The system of local budgets exists in all countries of the world. The urgent task of financial decentralization is to ensure the necessary volume of financial resources for the implementation of the specified activity. Studies show that at the moment the system of local budget revenue generation has an insufficient level of own revenue and a large share of transfer payments in the revenue part of local budgets. With the beginning of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, local self-government bodies, like the entire state as a whole, faced new challenges and problems, the solution of which, first of all, requires additional financial resources. According to the results of 10 months of 2022, revenues to local budgets decreased by an average of 16% compared to January-October 2021. Studies have shown that the largest specific weight in the structure of the revenue part of local budgets is occupied by tax revenues, namely personal income tax, a single tax, land tax. Based on this, it is proposed that the leaders of the united territorial communities focus specifically on the administration of personal income tax, cooperation with natural persons entrepreneurs, legalization of labor relations, raising the level of wages at economically active economic entities and on other measures, the purpose of which is to increase revenues from this tax. Today, the issue of increasing the level of financial capacity of communities is solved by developing the economy in their territories, ensuring strategic management of the development of territories, popularizing territories, promoting investment attraction, supporting local business and developing industries. Each of the communities determines the priority industries in its territories. Rural areas give priority to the development of agro-industrial complex branches, farming for the cultivation of those crops that are characteristic of a certain area.

Налогообложение доходов физических лиц: социальный аспект

In modern conditions that are characterized by financial and economic instability the problem of ensuring the balance of funds coming to budgets of all levels is quite acute. One of the key sources of income of the Russian consolidated budget are the tax payments, among which the personal income tax (PIT) plays an important role. In-come tax in Russia has a fairly long history of formation. Its economic content and implemented functions indicate the high importance of income taxation for the life of society, economic and budgetary systems. There have been studied the current trends in development of taxation of personal income in Russia. It has been stated that in modern conditions there appear more challenges from the world economy and currency market, which may result in personal income tax administration becoming more complicated in Russia. Due to the impact of coronavirus pandemic, imposing the economic sanctions and the general unfavourable macroeconomic situation there have been highlighted the increasing PIT arrears, decreasing tax revenues, a low share of PIT in the consolidated budget and GDP of the Russian Federation. Economic and financial potential of PIT is underutilized in Russia. There has been proposed an approach to changing the tax tools including tax mechanisms that form the level of well-being and development of citizens using a progressive scale of taxation. It is recommended to provide for a change in the PIT depending on the level of citizens’ income and their proximity to the subsistence minimum. This approach will contribute to solving the problems of social inequality, redistributing excess incomes in favor of the least affluent segments of the population, improving the effectiveness of Russia’s social policy in the medium term, and increasing budget revenues

User adoption and value of e-government services (Citizen-centric empirical study from Hungary)

AbstractThis paper looks at the adoption of e-government technologies from a citizen-centric, value-based point-of-view. We analyse e-government technology adoption and value creation on a large, representative Hungarian sample, using the data of the Good State Public Administration Opinion Survey. The paper examines the near total spectrum of the Hungarian government-to-citizen administration service areas: 11 e-government services, with a special focus on personal income tax administration and the use of government issued documents. The technology acceptance model and an e-government-specific adaptation of the DeLone – McLean information system (IS) success model are used as the theoretic base. Factor analysis, traditional association metrics and statistical tests are used for the analysis. Results confirm the relevance of the technology adoption factors suggested by the mainstream IS literature, while citizen-level value creation – in the form of cost or time saved, satisfaction level raised – was less demonstrable. Increasing citizens' internet trust or improving facilitating infrastructural conditions, as well as a significant value proposition in terms of time savings and ease of use would help increasing e-government service adoption levels and value creation potential.

Tax accounting of government grants

The paper examines the issue of government grants tax accounting. The paper shows analysis of legal acts regulating the spheres of tax and accounting. The study shows that the accounting of grants affects the financial result before taxation according to accounting. However, according to tax accounting this effect is excluded due to the use of tax differences. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the changes to the tax legislation and determine its main impact on the tax accounting of state aid. The study highlights the main features of the relationship between government grants and income tax administration. The results of the analysis show that all taxpayers (regardless of the level of annual income) will adjust the financial result before taxation for tax differences in correspondence to government grants. The paper analyzes the main categories of income tax payers, which must adjust the financial result before taxation for tax differences in relation to state grants. The paper shows conditions for provisions regarding the specifics of budget grants taxation, in particular, for the purposes of corporate income tax. Also, paper highlights peculiarities using of tax differences in income tax reporting. Finally, the study examines key points of accounting for state grants and their relationship with value added tax. Identified the main cases when grants business operation are the object of value added tax. Moreover, business operation with government grants are not object of value added tax, but there are exceptions for operations with non-monetary grants. Changes to the tax legislation caused differences between tax accounting of government grants and accounting. Now economic entities that receive budget grants must adjust the financial result before taxation using taxation differences in income tax report. In general, transactions with state grants are not subject to value added tax, but there are exceptions for grants in the form of property.

العوامل المؤثرة على فاعلية نظام الرقابة الداخلية (دراسة ميدانية على دوائر ضريبة الدخل في فلسطين)

هدفت الدراسة التعرف إلى العوامل المؤثرة على فاعلية نظام الرقابة الداخلية في دوائر ضريبة الدخل في فلسطين، وفحص أثر كل من (البيئة الرقابية، تقييم المخاطر، الأنشطة الرقابية، نظام المعلومات والاتصالات، المتابعة) على فاعلية نظام الرقابة الداخلية في دوائر ضريبة الدخل في فلسطين، ولتحقيق أهداف الدراسة تم استخدام المنهج الوصفي لملاءمته لطبيعة هذه الدراسة، وتصميم استبانة تتناسب مع موضوع الدراسة وأهدافها، وبعد اختبار صدقها وثباتها تم تطبيقها على جميع أفراد العينة التي تكونت من فئتين: الفئة الأولى تكونت من ( 66 ) موظفاً من دوائر ضريبة الدخل الذين تم اختيارهم بطريقة العينة القصدية، والفئة الثانية تكونت من ( 15 ) موظفاً من دائرة التدقيق الداخلي في وزارة المالية والتخطيط الذين جُمعت البيانات منهم باستخدام أسلوب الحصر الشامل، حيث تم استرجاع ( 64 ) استبانة من موظفي دوائر ضريبة الدخل و( 13 ) استبانة من موظفي دائرة التدقيق الداخلي، وتم تجميعها وترميزها وإدخالها إلى الحاسوب ومعالجتها باستخدام برنامج الحزمة الإحصائية للعلوم الاجتماعية ( statistical package for social sciences spss 26.0 ) لتحليل البيانات الميدانية للخروج بالنتائج والتوصيات، أظهرت النتائج أن أكثر العوامل تأثيراً على فاعلية نظام الرقابة الداخلية في دوائر ضريبة الدخل هو(وجود فصل ملائم بالمهام لموظفي الدائرة (مثل، الفصل بين وظائف التقدير والتدقيق))، كما أظهرت أن أقل العوامل تأثيراً على فاعلية نظام الرقابة الداخلية في دوائر ضريبة الدخل هو(توفر إطار مهني معتمد (سياسات، إجراءات، تدريب، دائرة) لتنظيم عملية إدارة المخاطر في دوائر ضريبة الدخل) من وجهة نظر العينة جميعها كوحدة واحدة، وفي ضوء النتائج أوصى الباحثان بضرورة إنشاء دائرة مختصة لإدارة المخاطر في الإدارة العامة لضريبة الدخل؛ لأهميتها بالتحكم بالمخاطر التي قد تواجه دوائر ضريبة الدخل وتخفيضها إلى نسب مقبولة.

Digitization of Income Tax Administration in India

Several initiatives have been launched by the Income Tax Department in recent years to promote the use of information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services for the efficient and transparent administration of income tax. This paper outlines the importance of the digital economy and knowledge economy in the context of tax administration in India. It outlines the various initiatives taken by the government of India that have simplified tax compliance and eased the compliance burden.

TAXPAYER CHOICES, ITEMIZED DEDUCTIONS, AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FEDERAL & STATE TAX SYSTEMS

Almost 30 million taxpayers who itemized their federal deductions for the 2017 tax year switched to the standard deduction for 2018. The provisions of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (“TCJA”) that led to this shift were intended to simplify the individual income tax system. This Article’s empirical study of federal and state tax filing data, however, demonstrates that the TCJA’s simplifying effect varied state-to-state depending on whether a state obligated its taxpayers to make the same choice for state tax purposes (i.e., to itemize deductions or take the standard deduction) as the taxpayer made for federal purposes. In states that obligated taxpayers to make the same choice, taxpayers experienced at least some simplification, and tax administration by the IRS and state tax authorities became materially easier, although the IRS’s simplification benefit was dampened to some degree. In states that allowed taxpayers to make state tax choices that differed from their federal choices, the TCJA’s simplifying effect for many taxpayers was largely illusory, state income tax administration actually became more complex, and some tax enforcement costs were, in effect, shifted from the IRS to state tax authorities. Thus, this Article’s study reveals that state-level rules about tax choices undermined the federal policy goal motivating the TCJA’s itemization-related changes.
 A taxpayer’s choice whether to itemize is just one of many tax elections explicitly provided to taxpayers. Accordingly, this Article’s study of taxpayers’ itemization choices also serves as an example that illustrates a broader point—state-level rules about whether taxpayers must make uniform federal and state tax elections create important, but previously underappreciated, interactions between the federal and state tax systems. Policymakers cannot fully understand the policy implications of many federal tax law changes unless they appreciate these federal/state interactions. This Article helps policymakers do so.

The role of individual income tax administration in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprisesvv

The subject of research is theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of managing the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, taking into account the administration of personal income tax. The purpose of the article is to determine the role of personal income tax administration in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, identify its problems and justify proposals for their solution. The methodological basis of the article is historical, monographic, system-structural analysis and synthesis, statistical and economic, accounting, problem-target. The results of the article. It is determined that the administration of personal income tax as one of the most important in filling the state budget has a significant impact on the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural enterprises, especially in terms of the tax rate on wages and other personal income; spending time and money on taxation processes. It was found that its rate of 18,0% on the wage bill is quite rational, but it can be optimized to the world average of 16,1% or less in order to stimulate employment and the formation of the middle class in rural areas. Other problems, which concern rather large (almost 2,0 times more than the world average) expenditures of time and money), should be solved by automating accounting processes, online consultations with tax authorities, internal control over timely payment of taxes. Field of application of results. In educational institutions of higher education, in managing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises and corporations. Conclusions. The administration of personal income tax is an important factor in shaping the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises and its management. Its impact is directly through the amount or rate of tax; the procedure for its accrual and payment; time and money costs associated with administration. It should be noted that the share of PIT in relation to wages is quite acceptable and, on average, reaches 18,0% at 16,6% of the world average. However, together with the shares of SDRs and military dues, tax accruals increase significantly and exceed the 30% barrier, which is much higher than in the European Union. In general, high wage accruals do not motivate the work of the rural population. This is especially noticeable when rent for land shares is used as a source of passive income. The next problem that needs to be addressed is the significant cost and time spent on PIT administration. It allows automation to solve. Automation of personal income tax accounting is an important part of the automation of management processes and accounting of agricultural enterprises. It provides an opportunity not only to organize the automated workplace of each accountant, but also to improve the work by creating in the accounting department responsible for keeping records of inventory and other resources; labor and wages, taxes; production; product sales.

UNIFORM INTERNATIONAL TAX COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT, A UTOPIAN BEPS ALTERNATIVE

Under the guise of compelling multinational enterprises (MNEs) to pay their fair share of income taxes, the OECD and other multinational agencies have introduced proposals to prevent MNEs from eroding the income tax base of developed economies by continuing to shift income artificially to low or zero tax jurisdictions. Some of the proposals have garnered substantial multinational support, including recent support from the new U.S. presidential administration for a global minimum tax. This Article reviews many of those international proposals. The proposals tend to concentrate the incremental tax revenue from the prevention of base erosion into the treasuries of the developed economies although the minimum tax proposal known as GloBE encourages low tax countries to adopt the minimum rate. The likelihood that and zero tax countries will transition successfully to imposing the minimum tax seems uncertain.
 Developed economies lack a compelling moral claim to incremental revenue so this Article argues that collecting a fair tax from MNEs and other taxpayers should be a goal that is independent of claims on that revenue. The Article maintains that to prevent tax base erosion, the income tax base and administration must be uniform across national borders and the Article recommends applying uniform rules administered by international taxing agency. The Article explores the convergence of tax rules under such an international taxing agency.
 Distribution of tax revenue by the international agency should follow contextualized need. In addressing the conundrum of absolute poverty in the undeveloped and developing world vis á vis relative poverty in the developed world, the Article proposes that the taxing agency should distribute all incremental revenue from the uniform tax where the need is greatest to ameliorate absolute poverty and improve living standards without regard to income source. The location of income production, destination of the produced goods and services generating the income, and residence of the income producers should not determine the tax revenue distribution. Rather, the use of contextualized need for distribution determination will enable developed economies to receive sufficient revenue to maintain their existing infrastructures and governmental services. Developed economies should forego new revenue, for which they have not budgeted, in favor of improving worldwide living conditions for all. The proposals for uniform, worldwide taxation and revenue sharing based on contextualized need are admittedly aspirational and utopian but designed to encourage debate on sharing of resources in our increasingly globalized world.

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ФАКТОРОВ ПОВЫШЕНИЯ КАЧЕСТВА АДМИНИСТРИРОВАНИЯ НАЛОГА НА ПРИБЫЛЬ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЙ В ЦЕЛЯХ ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЯ ФИНАНСОВОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ РЕГИОНА

Abstrakt Indicators of corporate income tax administration, its role in ensuring the financial security of the subject of the Russian Federation are considered. Study of indicators of administration of the tax on profit of organizations paid by taxpayers Kursk region, was carried out on the basis of statistical indicators of development of Kursk region, the statistical tax reporting of Management FNS of Russia across Kursk region. The study identified factors that positively influenced the improvement of the quality of tax administration of corporate income tax. It is proposed to use these factors in determining the indicator for assessing the quality of corporate income tax administration. Based on the analysis of the financial results of the enterprises of the Kursk region, proposals have been developed to improve the administration of corporate income tax.

Company Income Tax and Unemployment in Nigeria

This paper focused on the impact of company income tax on unemployment in Nigeria from 1980 to 2019. The data for this study were sourced from the statistical bulletin of Nigeria’s apex bank. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) methods were used as the main analytical tools. The ADF unit test result revealed stationarity of the variables at order zero which satisfied the requirement to employ the OLS method. The OLS regression result revealed that corporate income tax has positive and significant relationship with unemployment rate in Nigeria. Prime lending rate has negative and significant relationship with unemployment rate in Nigeria. Inflation rate has negative and insignificant relationship with unemployment rate in Nigeria. The study therefore concluded that tax revenue from company income has not been efficiently and effectively used to provide infrastructural facilities and social amenities that will help the different sectors of the economy to function very well thereby reducing unemployment in the country. Based on the results, the study suggested that government should ensure that revenue from corporate income tax and other sources are efficiently and effectively used to provide infrastructural facilities and social services that will help the different sectors of the economy to function very well, in so doing unemployment will be reduced. The management, administration and implementation of corporate income tax should be done in such a way that it will not hinder investment and employment in the economy. At the same time, ensure accountability and transparency from government officials on the management of revenue derived from company income tax.