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It is internationally acknowledged that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in enhancing a country’s economic growth and in creating jobs. It is therefore in the public interest and in the interests of all governments to support SMEs. A study concentrating on the tax function in small and medium manufacturing concerns operating in the Gauteng Province in South Africa was recently undertaken. In this article, which is based on the study, the authors identify the main problem areas that manufacturing SMEs in the Gauteng Province have to cope with in administering government taxes. The article discusses the administration process only, and not the taxes themselves. The authors have identified tax compliance requirements in South Africa as a stumbling block for SMEs. They suggest that the government seriously consider reducing the number of taxes SMEs have to administer, reduce the compliance requirements and make additional tools available to SMEs to assist them in administering taxes.

This chapter investigates the effects of the corporate sector on the effectiveness of selected tax compliance instruments in the context of large corporate taxpayers belonging to the finance, manufacturing, and service sectors. Applying multilevel logit models based on real tax office and survey data from Bangladesh, it is found that the filing compliance of large corporate taxpayers is influenced by penalty, tax audit, and taxpayer services, while reporting compliance is influenced by tax audit, criminal prosecution, and tax simplification. In the case of payment compliance, two coercive instruments – penalty and tax audit – have been found to be statistically significant. However, when sector characteristics are considered, the extent of the influence of these instruments, and, in some cases, their statistical significance changes. This suggests that the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, among other things, largely depends on the sector affiliation of corporate taxpayers. Overall, this study establishes that corporate sector plays an important role in the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, with the caveat that findings might be different if working definitions of the study variables were measured differently.

This study aims to investigate the certainty of small business (SB) taxpayers about the presumptive tax law concerning the assessment of income tax based on gross turnover and how this impacts their income tax compliance.

The study adopted the exploratory research design. The saturation point was attained upon interviewing nine owners of SB enterprises, eight tax officers from the Uganda Revenue Authority and eight tax consultants. Themes were identified and explained using verbatim texts from the various interviews. Data were analyzed using the content analysis technique.

The findings indicate that SB taxpayers are uncertain about the nature of the presumptive tax, that it is assessed based on annual sales, indicators used to determine gross turnover and their actual tax liability. This has occasioned resistance to the tax system and inhibited voluntary compliance. SB taxpayers thus opt to wait for the tax officers to make tax assessments. However, they have used this opportunity to bribe or bargain with tax officers to pay low amounts in tax or no tax at all. Thus, policymakers and revenue authorities ought to concentrate on creating massive sensitization of the law on presumptive tax, in this case, the existing tax base on which the tax is imposed and its elements to improve income tax compliance of SBs.

These results are relevant to policymakers and Revenue authorities in developing countries, especially in Africa, in improving income tax compliance of SBs.

This study examines the contribution of certainty of the income tax law on the tax base (gross turnover) on which presumptive tax is imposed to income tax compliance of SBs, which has hardly been covered in previous studies.

This study aims to explore the evidence of the probability of firms’ tax avoidance and the downward convergence trend of national statutory tax rates and firms’ effective tax rates.

This research employs exploratory data analysis using interactive data manipulation and visualization tools, namely, R with SparkR, dplyr, ggplot2 and googleVis (GeoChart and Motion Chart) packages. This analysis is based on the world-scale accounting data of all listed firms from 148 countries spanning 30 years.

The results reveal the following: three types of evidences on probability of firms’ tax avoidance, showing a non-random distribution of firms’ effective tax rates and return on assets, cross-sectional variation of firms’ effective tax rates in each country, and the trend of difference between effective tax rates and statutory tax rates, and the downward convergence trend of statutory tax rates and firms’ effective tax rates.

The results highlight the prominent issues of world-scale tax avoidance and tax rate competition and facilitate a collaborative discussion between laymen and professionals using objective evidence.

A novel methodology is adopted through the visualization of world-scale accounting data, which can facilitate a new perspective, revealing unexpected patterns and trends in otherwise hidden information. This study also highlights the importance of global consideration of firms’ tax avoidance and tax rate competition, using objective evidence.

In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

The purpose of this study is to assess the suitability of religion and religiosity in small and medium-scale enterprises’ (SMEs) tax compliance in Ghanaian markets. The current research attempts to obtain insights into the advantages of Ghanaian religious notoriety in tax compliance based on the perceptions of entrepreneurs.

A questionnaire survey is the main tool used in this research. A total of 472 questionnaires were distributed to SMEs without Ghana revenue authority. Because of self-administered instrument, all the questionnaires were returned for analysis.

The results suggest that Ghanaian religious notoriety does not explain SMEs’ tax compliance and that tax evasion is seen as ethical. Institutional, firm and entrepreneurs’ characteristics are important determinants of SMEs’ tax compliance.

The results of this research paper will help regulators and Ghana Revenue Authority in developing tax compliance education without compromising on religion.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the suitability of religion and religiosity in emerging markets in general and Ghana in particular and enhances the level of understanding of SMEs’ tax compliance.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the factors once identified through literature and compared to the current situation in South Africa could predict the possibility of a tax revolt in South Africa. South Africans are experiencing frequent increases in taxes on already overburdened taxpayers, corruption, a lack of service delivery by the government and high unemployment rates. South Africa has seen an increased amount of protests relating to taxes, corruption and a lack of basic services.

In total, 12,000 Twitter feeds were collected from 14 February 2017 to 1 March 2017, the period before, during and after the South African National Budget Speech on 22 February 2017. The feeds were analysed using a thematic analysis. The emerging themes were identified as factors present in South Africa that may predict a possible tax revolt.

The factors found to be present in South Africa are: F1-failure of government to address the imminent collapse, F2-significant number of people with substantial debt, F3-onerous tax systems, including many different types of taxes, F4-high number of unemployed people, F5-education frustration, F6-increase in tax rates on citizens already overburdened by current taxes, F7-poor quality of governors, and performance of the country’s leaders and administration, including fraud and F8-wastefulness.

The value of the study is, first to contribute to the existing academic literature examining the factors that are likely to indicate a tax revolts. Second, the study uses an innovative data source, namely, tweets, to examine the climate for a possible tax revolt in South Africa.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.