Search results

This paper aims to analyse how constitutional law and corporate income tax (CIT) law, in the Iberian Peninsula, addresses the tax justice principle of generality. Also, it has as an intention to understand the dimension of tax exemptions predicted in the CIT law of both countries.

It analyses several data sources from Spain and Portugal, between them constitutions laws, CIT laws, general tax laws and some constitutional court cases. Furthermore, it uses the content analysis method to identify the level of exemptions and tax benefits present in the CIT law.

The results show that constitutional laws reserve a section to regulate tax issues, that it can present major or minor development. The Spanish article 31 explains the tax system and the Portuguese articles of 103 and 104 explain not only the tax system but also gives instructions about how must occur income, property and consumption taxation. Both jurisdictions, do not refer expressly to the generality principle, nevertheless, it has an implicit presence in the Supreme law and the same happen in the CIT law. They predict that all legal entities, public and private ones, have to contribute to financing the public expenditure. Furthermore, the respect to generality principle implies that tax income exemptions have to be justified, otherwise it can configure a break of the researched fundamental. In researched cases, the Spanish CIT have present more tax exemptions than Portugal, which can lead to consider a relation between the level of corporate contribution to income tax revenues collection and the tax exemptions predicted in the CIT law.

It allows understanding the difference between tax jurisdictions in the tax principles domain.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the issues of simplicity, transparency, equity and effectively administering the United States tax code.

Based upon a literature study and discussions with leading tax professionals.

Tax systems that are difficult to comply with and administer may lack transparency. A nontransparent tax system could be difficult to administer because tax administrators may have difficulty consistently applying the law to taxpayers in similar situations. In this sense, transparency is closely linked to the simplicity and effectively administering the United States tax system.

Provides for a non‐technical read for managers who seek a high level overview of the subject and are non‐tax professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to present Kautilya's principles of taxation during the fourth century BCE.

Modern tools of economic analysis are used to present Kautilya's principles on income taxation.

Kautilya implicitly suggests a linear income tax. He emphasizes fairness, stability of tax structure, fiscal federalism, avoidance of heavy taxation, ensuring of tax compliance and subsidies to encourage capital formation.

According to Kautilya, some linkage between the ability to pay (i.e. provision of a safety net to the poor, old and the sick) and the benefit principle may be better than the current approaches, which treat the ability to pay and the expenditure side of the taxation separately.

Ensuring tax compliance and avoidance of heavy taxation are the most important ingredients of a sound fiscal policy.

The paper presents the very first growth‐oriented fiscal policy along with a provision of a safety net.

This paper evaluates on a comparative basis three different property tax systems, British, French and Swedish. For this purpose an evaluation model, based on two criteria – namely efficiency and fairness – and on a number of sub‐criteria, is used. A comparison of the systems’ efficiency reveals that the French system is the least efficient while the Swedish system is the most efficient. A comparison of the systems’ fairness shows that, despite significant variations in the systems characteristics, all three systems can be evaluated as relatively fair.

The purpose of this paper is to design several methods for enforcing developed countries’ responsibilities under the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF has been one of the core subjects of the world climate summits held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, the development of the GCF has not progressed smoothly, and many concerns remain unresolved.

This paper illustrates three approaches for financing the GCF that vary in terms of the relative weights accorded to environmental responsibility and economic capacity. These three methods include the historical responsibility (HR) principle, the ability to pay (AP) principle and the preference score compromises (PSC) approach (which is a combination of the HR and the AP principles).

The empirical analysis demonstrates that the USA is the largest contributor to the GCF under the HR principle due to the volume of its historical emissions, whereas the European Union bears the greatest financial responsibility under the AP principle, based on its gross domestic product. Under the PSC approach, the European Union and the USA each undertakes a financial burden that approximates 40 per cent of the total financing for the GCF. These nations are followed by Japan, which has a share of almost 9 per cent.

This study is the first attempt to introduce the PSC concept into discussions regarding GCF financing. A scheme of burden sharing that combines environmental responsibility and economic capacity factors is developed and introduced. The respective weights assigned to the two factors are determined based on the Borda rule in voting theory, which avoids the arbitrary allocation of weights between the HR and the AP. These findings will be useful for mobilising the GCF in the Post-Kyoto era.

Reconsiders tax reform and economic emancipation of women with respect to public policy formation in The Netherlands. In particular, investigates the attempts of organised interest groups of the Dutch women′s liberation movement during the 1980s to influence the public policy process on tax form. The theory of public choice is applied as a theoretical framework for this case study of The Netherlands. The analysis starts with an overview of the issues at stake in the tax reform debate in The Netherlands. Organised women′s interest groups have a specific viewpoint on these issues. These viewpoints are expressed in the public policy process by various lobby mechanisms and political arenas in the Dutch political‐economic system. The attempts to influence these mechanisms and arenas in favour of women′s interests appear to have been rather unsuccessful in the 1980s. The Dutch policy process can be characterised by the so‐called “barrier model”. Various barriers in the Dutch policy process offer an explanation for the relative failure of the organised women′s interest groups to influence the tax reform process in The Netherlands. This explanation may also be valid for similar cases in other West European countries, where the same issues of tax reform and women′s emancipation are at stake and where the public policy process has the same characteristics. Finally, formulates some policy recommendations to overcome the barriers in the public policy process on tax reform.

There is a consensus in the general public that income taxes should be everywhere progressive. Starting from the basic properties normally required, we examine the possibilities of designing everywhere progressive income tax schedules. An axiomatic analysis investigates the (in)consistency of these requirements with further restrictions on the degree of progression. It turns out that everywhere progressive tax schedules have to be maximally progressive or almost proportional in some income range.

In the context of the negotiations for apportionment of emission reduction post‐Kyoto regime, issues of equity and fairness have emerged. The purpose of this paper is to generate a model for equitable emission reduction apportionment.

The mathematical model has been designed utilizing mitigation capacity (based on gross domestic product (GDP)) and cumulative excess emissions as the criteria for apportionment. Quantitative results have been arrived at, using cumulative γ and parabolic mitigation emission reduction trajectories to demonstrate the impact on stakeholders.

The apportionment outcomes are independent of the specific trajectory fine‐tuned in the feasibility region. Since the apportionment takes into account entitlements and the mitigation capacity, Africa and India have negligible reduction targets in tune with the development goals in these economies. Substantial reduction commitments would fall on the USA and the EU countries. China gets a moderate target due to higher emissions and GDP.

The approach is in consonance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility enunciated in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The method can easily incorporate emissions trading. The issue of population as a driving factor of emissions has been partially accounted for by considering the entire national GDP as an emission reduction responsibility factor, without considering population based GDP entitlements.

The generalized framework can be extended to situations involving responsibility apportionment in public policies dealing with externalities. The framework is original and will be useful to policymakers and other stakeholders dealing with climate change, as well as researchers looking at externalities of a global or national dimension.