Good Tax Research Articles

A GOOD TAX: LEGAL AND POLICY ISSUES FOR THE PROPERTY TAX IN THE UNITED STATES. By JOAN YOUNGMAN.

Previous article No AccessBook ReviewA GOOD TAX: LEGAL AND POLICY ISSUES FOR THE PROPERTY TAX IN THE UNITED STATES. By JOAN YOUNGMAN.Justin M. RossJustin M. Ross Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by National Tax Journal Volume 70, Number 1March 2017 Published for: The National Tax Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2017.1.09 Views: 15Total views on this site © 2017 National Tax Association. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

How May the United States Leverage its FATCA IGA Bilateral Process to Incentivize Good Tax Administrations among the World of Black Hat and Grey Hat Governments? A Carrot & Stick Policy Proposal

Professor William Byrnes examines whether it is prudent for taxpayers to trust the governments of the 117 countries that scored a fifty or below on Transparency International’s corruption index. The complete information system invoked by the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) encourages, even prolongs, the bad behavior of black hat governments by providing fuel (financial information) to feed the fire of corruption and suppression of rivals. Professor Byrnes recommends that the United States leverage a “carrot-stick” policy tool to incentivize bad actors to adopt best tax administration practices.

Economic Impact of Digital Taxation: A Case on Information Communication Technology Industry Sri Lanka.

The principle intention of this study is to diagnose the possible impact of digital taxation on the economic factors like, investment, consumption and export related facts. For this purpose researcher has identified the Information Communication Technology sector as the main sector as most of the digital products are created in this sector. Literature review has been used to identify the history and the evolution of the digital goods taxation practices and has identified the policies related to digital taxation in USA and EU. The methodology of the research was emphasized on Qualitative approach. And the induction taken place in the research is mainly supported with qualitative interpretation with data collected through interviews and survey questions. Sri Lanka was diagnosed as a low taxed country in Export oriented ICT industry. Also it was found out that Foreign MNCs investment intentions are encouraged with this approach, increasing investment flow to the country. The related case comparison with USA and EU zones has proven that Sri Lankan demand for digital goods are stimulated with no taxed environment. B2B ICT services like Telecommunication to web design and development are directly benefited from the non-tax environment of the country. Disadvantages like loss of income through digitally imported goods are also discussed in the study. This paper would contribute to the academia of finance through the unique finding on the digital taxation. Further it would identify the necessary policy gaps of digital taxation that would enlighten the policy makers in the country. Lastly this research contributes towards the business fraternity and would throw some light on their future involvement in Digital media in their business activities.

VAT and Agriculture: Lessons from Europe

Little has been written about the treatment of agriculture under the value added tax (VAT). This article attempts to fill the void by surveying and evaluating the situation in the Member States of the European Union (EU) and some other countries. Farmers are often exempted from VAT for administrative and political reasons. But this means that the VAT on their inputs cannot be ‘washed out’ through the tax deduction/credit mechanism. It then has to be borne by the farmers themselves or becomes an indeterminate and capricious element in consumer prices. To compensate farmers for the uncompensated VAT on inputs, the EU has devised a flat-rate scheme that permits them to charge a presumptive rate (approximately equal to the effective VAT rate on sector-wide inputs) on their sales to taxable agro-processing firms which, in turn, are permitted to take a deduction for this flat-rate addition from the VAT on their sales. Obviously, the flat-rate scheme is an arbitrary way of trying to achieve equal treatment between exempt and taxable farmers and between exempt farm products and other taxable goods and services. Full taxation, subject to the general threshold, appears to be the preferred choice.

Implication of GST on Indian agriculture and agricultural marketing

Agriculture is the root of the Indian economy and government has always kept it as its top priority. Good and Services Tax (GST) was envisaged to have a simple harmonized tax structure with operational ease leading to a single unified market at national level for goods and services. It is expected that after the implementation of the GST, the prices of the agricultural products will rise but the products will be able to reach places in a better way. The implementation of GST will also favor the National Agricultural Market on merging all the different taxation on agricultural products. The ease of transportation of the agricultural product will improve the marketing and virtual market growth. The underlying principle in both the initiatives is to have a national market facilitating trade and transparency.

Issues and Challenges Inherent in the Nigerian Tax System

The study examined the issues and challenges inherent in the Nigerian tax system. The theoretical framework approach was adopted in this study. The Nigerian tax system is designed as a means of income generation. The three tiers of government have the responsibility of tax administration in Nigeria. Nigeria tax system is confronted with many issues and challenges such as multiplicity of taxes, bad administration, non-availability of database, tax touting, complex nature of the Nigerian tax laws, minimum tax, commencement, change of accounting date and cessation, and non-payment of tax refunds. The way forward includes streamlining collection mechanism, ensuring good, effective and efficient tax administration, introduction of tax technology, tax awareness and communication, simplifying the tax laws and abolishing some, refund of taxes overpaid, independent of tax authorities (boards of internal revenue), addressing the issue of corruption among tax officials, strengthening of tax audit, establishing special courts to handle tax issues, and stiffer penalty for tax evasion and other tax offences.

International Trade and Goods and Services Tax: A Global Assessment

The paper under review highlights the concept of GST(Goods & Services) Tax, its origin and background from international perspective. The research paper focuses on the significance of GST, its impact on various economies i.e. developed, developing, underdeveloped and undeveloped economies. It dwells into the aspects of impact on purchase of goods under GST, procurement of services, road map and challenges of GST on various economies mentioned above, GST and its operations, behaviour of economies on implementation of GST and linkages arising out of the implementation of GST in these economies. So far as the global economic scenario is concerned, this paper studies the impact and assessment of implementation of GST, challenges and their future consequences and course of action to be taken by certain economies after the implementation of GST. These group of economies are OECD countries, Asian, African and Latin American countries. It is observed that the GST rates vary widely among economies. This is evident from the statistical tools that have been used to calculate the median and modal value of GST rates and the coefficient of variations of the GST rates of various economies. Due to the large variations in the median and modal values of GST rates including the coefficient of variation of the GST rates of these economies, the terms of trade between these countries gets affected to a great extent, thereby affecting international trade among these economies. Certain standard models on GST have also been discussed in the paper. Globally, it is seen that 160 countries have adopted GST in one way or the other. This research paper highlights certain key advantages of implementation of GST by the various economies and they include welfare effects, distributional effects, trade effects and macroeconomic effects.

IN THE GREEN CLASSROOM—TAX POLICY OF ENVIRONMENTAL TAX RULES AND INCENTIVES: NEW DIRECTIONS IN TEACHING AND RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION There is no shortage of tax rules that address energy and natural resources in some manner. There are taxes on most types of fuel, tax credits for energy saving devices, and various tax incentives to encourage specified activities such as use of LED lighting or energy efficient heaters. In addition, numerous proposals are offered annually by lawmakers at the federal, state and local levels that also address conservation, energy and innovation in conservation and energy-efficiencies. How do we know if existing rules and proposals are appropriate for a tax system? Principles of good tax policy can be applied to them to identify strengths, weaknesses and how to improve the rules and proposals. This article explains the principles of good tax policy, provides an example of their application and makes several suggestions of how this type of analysis can be incorporated into any classroom learning on green building topics. This exercise is not only for students with tax knowledge, but also engineers, scientists, architects, environmentalists, as well as everyone in our roles of citizen and voter.

The Europeanization of Good Tax Governance

This is a unique era where the international tax community, most vocally represented by developed countries mainly through the OECD/G20, is engaged in a global fight against tax evasion and tax avoidance. It is thought that lack of tax cooperation increases the risk of cross-border tax evasion and avoidance. The recalcitrance shown by some countries to engage in deeper cooperation is something that is widely criticized. However, apart from the traditional notions of cooperation/assistance and exchange of information commonly viewed as instrumental in the fight against tax evasion/avoidance, another concept has emerged — that of good tax governance or tax good governance or fiscal good governance. Countries are increasingly being asked to adopt standards of tax good governance either on a stand-alone basis or in the context of the fight against tax avoidance and evasion, without a common understanding of what this concept actually entails. Notwithstanding the uncertainties surrounding good tax governance, it is acquiring increasing importance and institutional backing, both internationally and within the European Union (EU). This paper examines how this concept has been received and developed internationally and especially in the context of the EU. From an international perspective, it is shown that there are many facets of good tax governance and it is not always clear what the term actually covers. For international organizations such as the OECD and the UN, the focus is on developing countries and certain state functions such as domestic resource mobilization and capacity building. In a wider context, the focus also seems to be on the relationship between governments and their ability to (automatically) exchange some types of information and ensure transparency. To a lesser extent, the focus is also on the relationship between governments and taxpayers through regimes of enhanced cooperation between tax authorities and some taxpayers. The author considers the soft law initiatives that have been taken in these areas and examines how some of these initiatives are gradually morphing into hard law. In the second half of this article, the author examines the development of the concept of good tax governance in the EU context. Here, it is shown that although the EU was more precise as regards the definition of this concept (at least in the early stages of its evolution), by linking the concept of good tax governance with fair tax competition this has enabled the Commission to inject a great amount of subjectivity in this area. Furthermore, by including the exchange of information and later on BEPS standards in the definition of this concept, this facilitated the Commission’s more expansionist agenda both internally and externally. The author assesses the implications of what she calls the Europeanization of good tax governance — or good tax governance a la Europeenne — and the problems that this creates in so far as the global development of the concept is concerned.

GOODS AND SERVICE TAX IN INDIA: A SWOT ANALYSIS

Goods and Service Tax (GST) is a Value Added Tax (VAT), which hypothetically to be put into effect from April 2010, but because of conflicting interest of stakeholders and various political controversies it has been passed in both Houses of Parliament on Aug. 3, 2016. It alone indirect tax which influence the whole economy directly. It is aspiring as iron out wrinkles of current indirect taxes and has a far-reaching impact on GDP. India is a centralized constitutional economy. GST is applicable on all States and Union territories, known as CGST (Central Goods & Services Tax) and SGST (State Goods & Services Tax). The ill effects of cascading can be mitigated after tie up the central and states taxes in solitary tax. The economy is expected to pave the way of common national market as it will provide benefits to consumer by reducing overall tax burden of goods, which is currently estimated at 25% to 30%. Thus, introduction of Goods and Service Tax (GST) is a gigantic tax transform in contemporary ancient times. 
 Ignorance of law is no excuse but is liable to panel provisions, hence why not start learning GST and avoid the cost of ignorance. We all need to know, whether GST is willingly or imposed. This paper describes a brief introduction of current indirect tax structure and GST in India. What are challenging factor in implementation and what can be the opportunities of GST in India.

GOODS AND SERVICE TAX IN INDIA: A SWOT ANALYSIS

GOODS AND SERVICE TAX IN INDIA: A SWOT ANALYSIS

HİZMET İHRACATINDA KATMA DEĞER VERGİSİ İSTİSNASININ KATMA DEĞER VERGİSİ GENEL UYGULAMA TEBLİĞİ AÇISINDAN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ

The right of indirect taxation of the goods that are subject to change internationally belongs to the importing country. For this reason, the goods that are subject to export are aimed to be excluded from the indirect tax load by preceding export exception. Export exception, is faced as “Destination Country Taxation Policy” in a life practice. To enable this policy, the taxation of goods and services must be applied in the importing country. In this study, in order to make service exporting tax payers benefit from Value Added Tax (VAT) return required terms have been studied in detail considering the recent changes in the papers. The study also focuses on the legal regulation of VAT down loaded from service export.

Optimal Taxation of Internalities: The Role of Market Incentives

An internality arises whenever a decision maker fails to maximize his own expected utility. This can happen due to imperfect information, cognitive bias, or lack of willpower, among other causes. This paper considers what the implications are for the optimal taxation of goods when consumers suffer from internalities. Prior research on this topic is limited to markets with perfect competition and ignores the incentive that firms have to de-bias consumers. I show that relaxing these assumptions changes the resulting conclusions. First, I analyze a market with imperfect competition, specifically Hotelling's model of monopolistic competition. I find that internality correction, even if costless, is not always desirable in such markets because firms change prices when the demand for their product changes, and these price changes can cause an inefficient reallocation of goods. Second, I analyze optimal taxation of internalities when firms have the ability to de-bias consumers. In such cases, the standard logic, which prescribes taxes equal to marginal internalities, does not apply. I find that, in general, market incentives attenuate the optimal internality tax (or subsidy) relative to a model with no firm de-biasing technology.

Goods and Services Tax Act 2016 and Its Implications on the Revenue Base of the U.T. of Puducherry

The Goods and Services Tax Act, which was passed by Indian parliament and more than 50 percent of the state legislatures, is likely to be implemented from the financial year 2017-18. The GST will replace the existing indirect taxes levied by the Central and State governments. The proposed GST is expected to affect the inter-state relations and central-state relations as well. Puducherry, a tiny Union Territory, which merged with India in 1954, implemented tax systems such as turnover tax, general sales tax, uniform rate of tax, and value added tax respectively. The UT’s business was flourishing due to lesser tax on goods, compared to its neighboring States. As GST aims to transform India into a uniform market by breaking the current fiscal barrier between states and UTs, Puducherry is likely to lose its revenue base leading to adding fire to the existing financial crisis faced by the UT. Therefore, this paper suggests to exempt Puducherry from GST, as in the case of Northeastern States.

The Welfare Impact of Corporate Tax Privacy

Under Internal Revenue Code, Section 6103, most of the information contained in corporate tax returns is not publicly available. This paper investigates what corporations would do if they had access to other corporations’ returns and what investors would do if they had access to corporate returns — the ultimate concern is how these behavioral responses would affect welfare. The analysis suggests that corporate tax preparation and sheltering technology would become more widely available as firms learned from each other’s returns. This would shift investment away from firms that have relatively good tax preparation and sheltering technology and toward firms that are relatively more productive. Socially wasteful expenditure aimed at lowering effective tax rates would also fall. Tax rates would likely need to rise in order to maintain government revenue, but the increase in productivity and decrease in socially wasteful expenditures would be welfare improving. The additional information that investors would gain would improve investors’ estimates of the returns and risks of investing in each corporation, which would also be welfare-improving.

Network effects and environmental externalities: Do clean technologies suffer from excess inertia?

We study the diffusion of a clean substitute to a dirty durable in a dynamic model. Consumer utility of both durables increases in their respective market shares due to network effects.First, we characterize the optimal dirty good tax. The tax should achieve a long run optimal division of the market between the two goods. Along the transition path to this steady state the optimal tax depends on the current and future market shares of the clean durable. Thus, even if the marginal environmental damage from an additional dirty durable is constant, the optimal tax should not be constant.Second, we study whether excess inertia can occur if the emission tax is not optimally set. We then find that a constant tax that only accounts for the environmental damage caused by the dirty good may lead to excess inertia. Excess inertia could happen even if the clean technology is proprietary, and the technology owner has incentives to sponsor the initial market diffusion of the technology.

Issues in Reforms of Union Taxes in India

The correction of fiscal imbalances in India should focus on the root cause of disequilibrium – the government not being able to balance its consumption outlays with revenue receipts. Restructuring of public expenditure seems to be very difficult under the present circumstances. Hence, significant improvement will hinge increasingly on improvement in revenue collection through direct and indirect taxes. There is need for comprehensive reforms in direct and indirect taxes through decisive action in many crucial areas rather than marginal improvement on all fronts. Broadening of the tax base is necessary to ensure growth of revenue. In direct taxes, there is a need to analyse the extent to which taxpayers actually belong to the higher slabs than they reveal in their tax returns and non-filers should be brought into the tax net. In the case of central excise and service tax, there is need to build a strong mechanism to ensure filing of returns by all registered taxpayers. To improve tax collections, it would be desirable to ask firms and companies to pay tax in equal instalments and adopt ‘family’ as a unit of assessment. The exemption/threshold limit should not be raised from the present level and Indian tax system should have smooth progression The Indian tax system incorporates a number of tax preferences/incentives to promote different activities which result in huge tax expenditure in case of both direct and indirect taxes. Tax expenditures, despite their drawbacks, need to be retained in the Indian tax system. However, they should be well targeted and be linked to performances. There is also a need to check the problem of increasing tax avoidance and evasion through stricter imposition of penalties and following of vigorous prosecution policy. Efficient tax administration calls for building up of a professional cadre of administrators who may implement the tax system more equitably and efficiently. It is desirable that voluntary compliance be encouraged and non-compliance be penalized. There is need to minimize arrears of assessment and collection, pendency of appeals, issue quick refunds, and so on. The main challenge at the present juncture is to integrate the large number of Central and State taxes to address the problem of multiplicity of taxes. The introduction of the Goods and Service Tax would be a significant step in the field of indirect tax reform in India and pave the way for a national common market.

The international experiences for the tax systems reform

Taxes are the most important matter for any economy, they provide the sustainable funding needed for social programs and public investments to promote economic growth and build a prosperous society. But policy makers face difficult challenges in formulating good tax policies. They need to be guided by the principles of taxation in order to find the right balance between raising revenue and ensuring minimum efficiency and removing distortions in the economy, equitable distribution of tax burdens, and low administrative burden of tax compliance cost. Thereby, levying taxes is not an easy task, especially in the wake of Egyptian revolution, with the big financial deficits. So, government needs to benefit from the international experiences for tax reform, as we see in this study

Good Tax Governance and Transparency: A Matter of Ethical Motivation

Multinationals’ tax practices are the subject of much discussion nowadays. The media has been reporting stories about tax avoidance and/or companies not paying their “fair share” of taxes. Thus, multinational enterprises are currently in the eye of the storm. Their allegedly aggressive tax planning practices have led to public outcry. Politicians have shared this public sentiment, sometimes even accusing these multinationals of “immoral” behaviour. There are no clear signs that the storm will calm soon. What should multinationals do? The current debate clearly calls for ethical reflection. It appears that there is something inherent in tax planning that is not covered by the traditional legal distinction between (illegal) corporate tax evasion and tax avoidance. Aggressive tax planning is not discussed in terms of legal or illegal behaviour, but in moral terms. This development demands that multinational enterprises reflect on their tax planning strategy – not only in economic and legal terms, but also in ethical terms. Therefore, this article addresses the relationship between society, morality and taxes. Morality regards the behaviour of individuals, but does it also concern the behaviour of businesses? Furthermore, the concept of tax planning is elaborated on, and we will show that the concepts “aggressive tax planning”, “tax evasion” and “tax avoidance” represent different relationships between law and morality. Taxes are a cost item, but aggressive tax planning may also imply certain costs. Reputation damage, for example, may involve considerable costs. It will be argued that in order to improve corporate reputation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a helpful tool. Could (moral) leadership be shown by including tax in a business’ CSR strategy? Moreover, does the ethical obligation to go beyond what is required by the law – key to CSR companies – encompass transparency? Good tax governance should enhance accountability and transparency, thus diminishing information asymmetry. In this regard, we propose to make a distinction between an intrinsic motivation to do the right thing (with a favourable reputation as an upshot) and extrinsic motivation (such as concern for favourable reputation in order to boost shareholder value).

The Impact Of Good Governance On The Lasting Peace And Socio Economic Development Of Local People : A Case Study Of Mali.

Wuhan University of Technology (WHUT) Abstract : The analysis indicates a positive correlation between good governance, equitable justice and lasting peace, the Good governance put the citizens in a good disposition, citizens know their revenues is well managed. This provide them happiness, it appeases citizens, the equitable justice satisfies all citizens because it avoids the concept of superman or man above the law. The greatest obstacle to peace is injustice, Because if the citizens know they are all equal under the law, that will reinforces peace feeling, The significant increase of civil servants salary is very important because the public administration reflects the government, the government relies on the public servants staff for the implementation of government policy. The public servants are the backbone of the public administration. if the public servants are put in good work conditions it will turn them away from corruption that plagues the administration of several countries, the increased purchasing power of civil servants will push them to work correctly in all fields: equitable justice, good tax collection, performance of public works contracts, good governance .