Advances in Taxation: Volume 29

This research addresses the question of whether market competition influences a firm's implicit tax burden. Implicit taxes are defined as the pretax rate of return disadvantage earned on an investment that is taxed preferentially. The Scholes and Wolfson (1992) model predicts that implicit taxes will fully offset any benefit from preferential tax treatment leading to no benefit from lower explicit taxes; however, their theory assumes perfect market competition. This chapter relaxes the assumption of perfect market competition and finds that firms in industries with lower competition bear lower implicit taxes and firms in industries with higher competition bear higher implicit taxes. These findings are consistent with monopoly and oligopoly behavior predictions where firms in less competitive industries have greater price setting power and can retain more of their tax savings while market forces in competitive industries force companies to pass along any savings to customers (Mason, 1939). Furthermore, these findings answer the call in the literature for more research on determinants of cross-sectional variation in implicit taxes (Shackelford & Shevlin, 2001).

The extent to which firms repatriate indefinitely reinvested foreign earnings (IRFE) has been a major issue in the US tax system. Congress enacted provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) specifically to remove tax barriers to repatriation. However, little is known regarding the repatriation of IRFE outside of the temporary tax incentive provided by the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA). In this chapter, I provide evidence on such repatriations by identifying a sample of 67 firms from 2009 to 2015 that reverse the indefinite reinvestment designation of foreign earnings and announce a repatriation of foreign cash. In contrast to repatriations following the 2004 AJCA, I do not find evidence that a single economic factor, such as share repurchases, motivates the repatriation. Although, in general, I do not find evidence of a significant market response to the announcements, I find evidence of a negative market reaction to announcements by low foreign effective tax rate (ETR) firms without tax offsets, suggesting that the tax may not be fully priced. Overall, I provide insight into the reasons and implications of the announced repatriation of IRFE.

Enhanced revenue mobilization is essential in developing countries such as South Africa. However, it is inevitably a complex process, both from economic and political perspectives. Increasing the rate of value-added tax (VAT) has been identified as one option to increase tax revenue, although the likely effect of VAT rate changes on tax compliance behaviour is undetermined. This study considers the impact of such a change on the tax compliance behaviour of small business entities. In order to address the impact of VAT rate changes on tax compliance behaviour, a between-subjects pre-test/post-test online field experiment was conducted and designed to identify the implications of rate changes of various directions and magnitude.

Statistical analysis of the data obtained from the experiment indicated that small business entities are inclined to reduce the VAT liability when there is an increase in the VAT rate, and to do so by overstating purchases rather than under-declaring sales. This leads to an increase in non-compliance. The greater the magnitude of the VAT rate increase, the greater the level of non-compliance. In contrast, no significant relationships were identified between a decrease in the VAT rate and tax compliance.

The study examines the effects of governance quality and religiosity on tax evasion (TE) in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Further, the study investigates which government qualities and religiosities affect TE significantly. Ordinary least squares has been used to analyze the data gathered from 36 OECD countries covering the period of 2002–2015 based on the latest data of TE. The results show the negative impact of governance quality and religiosity on TE; it implies the higher level of governance quality and religiosity, and the lower level of TE across the countries. Among the governance qualities, the higher the government effectiveness (GE), the rule of law (RL), and regulatory quality (RQ), the lower the level of TE as they have a negatively significant impact on TE. On the contrary, the positive impact of the voice of accountability (VA) and political stability (PS) on TE implies that with increasing the VA and PS, TE also increases. Moreover, during the investigation of religiosities on TE, the study found that Catholics (CATH) have a significant and negative effect on TE, while Muslim (MUSL) is found to be positively significant. Overall findings of the study suggest the government of the OECD countries to emphasize enhancing the governance quality and practicing of peoples' religious activities freely, which demotivates people to evade tax.

Most governments around the world rely heavily on tax revenue to fund not only their recurrent expenditure but also their long-term development goals. There is some evidence suggesting that tax evasion in Vietnam has, over the years, been on the rise in terms of number, scale and degree of sophistication. It may thus be beneficial to understand the extent to which various relevant psychological factors interact to influence the tax compliance of Vietnamese taxpayers. This chapter attempts to quantify the effects of taxpayer's emotion, trust and perception on their tax compliance in Vietnam. It adopts a positivist research framework, a quantitative research method and primary data collection. First, a simple, theoretical model in which emotion and trust affect tax compliance both directly and indirectly through perception as a mediating variable, is constructed. The Baron−Kenny method is then applied to the data collected from an e-survey to test various hypotheses derived from the devised theoretical model. The results show that taxpayer's perception positively and significantly influences tax compliance whereas emotion and trust exert significant and positive effects on tax compliance both directly and indirectly (via perception). The findings suggest that voluntary tax compliance in Vietnam can be improved through better tax administration services, more fiscal policy accountability and pro-active tax socialization.

Married couples receive tax benefits such as favorable tax rates, higher exclusions, higher phase-outs, and combined deductions. However, joint and several tax liability is a major issue facing these taxpayers. The term innocent spouse relief, within the Internal Revenue Code, is a direct result of one spouse failing to satisfy the joint liability for the married couple. Since both individuals are jointly and severally liable for the combined liability, the innocent spouse may be responsible for the liability in whole or in part. Our study examines this highly litigated arena of innocent spouse relief. To assist in this area of taxation, the Internal Revenue Service has provided taxpayers and tax practitioners with guidance. Revenue Procedure 2003-61 (2003-2 CB 296) outlines factors useful in determining whether innocent spouse relief should be granted. Additionally, this study creates a predictive model containing only three significant factors (economic hardship, knowledge/reason, significant benefit) capable of predicting with approximately 89% accuracy. These same three variables are significant after running multiple regression with p-values of 0.002 (economic hardship), 0.000 (knowledge/reason to know), and 0.001 (significant benefit). These factors provide valuable insight to practitioners when advising clients on challenging or accepting the Internal Revenue Service's decision. Additionally, abuse is marginally significant in the regression model. Also, judge gender and political affiliation are analyzed. However, the gender of the judge and political affiliation fail to be statistically significant using the chi-square test and regression model.

When presented with technical topics, undergraduate accounting students can be overwhelmed by information transmitted in a pure lecture format. Further, a lecture format does not allow for much student interaction or enable learning of higher-level skills that could be useful if the underlying content is changed by future regulations. Position paper instructional tools could be a beneficial alternative. A position paper can bring out students' soft skills of communication and critical thinking by making them take a stand, which is key for tax professionals and accountants generally. Since class meeting time is limited and face-to-face interactions are not always possible, a written position paper provides an alternative that can benefit students' understanding of technical information.