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The present study investigates the role of fiscal illusion on income inequality in 46 selected countries in terms of income and development levels from 2002 to 2017.

The effect of fiscal illusion on income inequality is tested using the two-step system generalized method of moment (SYS-GMM) estimator.

The findings reveal the negative effect of fiscal illusion on income inequality, which means increasing fiscal illusion decreases income inequality in 46 selected countries. As in other countries, income inequality declines when fiscal illusion increases in high-income and developed countries, although the redistributive effect of fiscal illusion is more in high-income and developed countries than in other countries. In addition, the results demonstrate the positive effect of unemployment, urbanization and inflation as well as the negative effect of trade openness on income inequality in all three models.

Previous studies have examined the role of government in controlling income inequality from different perspectives; however, no study has detected the role of government in income distribution regarding fiscal illusion.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2022-0311.

The purpose of the current study is to examine the implications of the implementation of Goods and Service Tax (GST) on the revenue efficiency of the sub-national governments in India. Furthermore, the study aims to compare the revenue efficiency of the Indian states for the pre-GST and post-GST periods in India.

The study has used the annual revenue of value-added tax (VAT)/GST of the Indian states for the period ranging from 2012–2013 to 2020–2021 for the pre- and post-GST periods. The empirical results are based on the panel regression model for examining the implications of GST adoption on the Indian states.

The analysis shows that the implementation of GST in India has negatively impacted the revenue efficiency of the Indian states. Moreover, the results affirm that the contribution of the service sector to the state's Net State Domestic Product (NSDP), credit-deposit ratio (CDR) and outstanding net bank credit (ONBC) ratio of schedule commercial banks (SCBs) positively and states' dependency on central transfers (DCT) negatively impact the tax revenue efforts of the state governments. Furthermore, the GST adoption has a greater impact on the revenue efficiency of the minor states in comparison to major states which may widen the inter-state disparity gap as GST revenue constitutes a major share in the Own Tax Revenue (OTR) of the Indian states in aggregate.

The current study will act as a guide for government, policymakers and for the sitting of the fifteenth finance commission in India for future policy formulation on GST and compensation to the Indian states. Similarly, this study can be used as a base for conducting future studies on the implications of GST at the national, sub-national, and international levels.

Previous studies on the implications of GST are theoretical and conceptual. There is hardly any study at the national or sub-national level that has focused on the implications of GST on the revenue efficiency of the Indian states.

The “metaverse” is the new buzzword. With the phenomenal growth of the metaverse comes accounting, taxation and jurisdictional challenges, which business and governments have yet to fully address. This paper aims to highlight and rationalise the lack of regulatory framework and multiplicity of jurisdictions on metaverse transactions. This paper addresses some of the complications with respect to accounting and taxation in virtual environments.

This study relies on secondary data and emerging literature to understand the multiplicity of jurisdiction and complexity of the accounting transactions. The concept of the metaverse is rapidly evolving, and this study uses extant literature to provide the foundation for understanding the key challenges relating to accounting and taxation.

Concepts of revenue recognition and deferment are challenged by the transactions in the metaverse. There are novel applications, underpinned by emerging technologies and blockchain supporting new crypto assets, such as non-fungible tokens and other decentralised finance (DeFi) tools; however, the caveats of anonymity and jurisdictional issues persist. The paper suggests that the industry must adapt to the unique reporting requirements of these assets and develop new standards for evaluating their value for financial reporting purposes. The paper emphasises the need for a case-based approach in the absence of standardised regulations for the accounting industry in the metaverse.

This paper adds original contributions to extant literature of the metaverse and advances ongoing debates into the accounting and taxation issues pertinent to the metaverse and DeFi.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

The purpose of this paper is to present the perception of the textile industry stakeholders (manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, consumers and tax professionals) on India’s new goods and services tax (GST) system and find whether the introduction of GST has made doing business easier or not.

The researchers used interviews and surveys to capture the perceptions of the textile industry stakeholders at Surat, a major textile hub in India. To econometrically verify the perceptions, the researchers used a logit regression model.

The researchers found that the provision of monthly tax filing has increased textile businesses’ dependency on tax professionals, which increased business costs. Also, the GST system has made tax compliance easier and is user-friendly. However, tax refund-related issues are a significant factor that negatively impacts the ease of doing business post-GST.

The findings of the research shall be helpful for the GST Council of India and policymakers to understand the problems faced by the textile businesses and cater to their problems.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is original as none of the available studies captures the perception of all the textile industry stakeholders, namely, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, consumers and tax professionals, on the GST system applying econometric techniques to validate the perceptions.

This paper aims to develop a compound measure, which is fiscal vulnerability index, provides early warning signals of fiscal sustainability problems for Türkiye's economy.

The index is constructed using twelve distinct fiscal indicators and applying the portfolio method, which considers the time-varying cross-correlation structure between the subindices.

Dynamics of the fiscal vulnerability index indicate that it accurately predicts to the well-known fiscal crisis occurring in Türkiye's recent history. As a result, such a compound measure should be used in the early identification of fiscal vulnerability in Türkiye.

The main contribution of this paper, relative to existing papers, is that a fiscal vulnerability index was constructed by employing the most contemporaneous method and evaluating its performance in terms of capturing historical stress periods.

By a thorough bibliometric examination of the area through time, this paper analyses the research landscape of metaverse in education. It is an effort that is focused on the metaverse research trends, academic production and conceptual focus of scientific publications.

The Web of Science (WoS) database was explored for information containing research articles and associated publications that met the requirements. For a thorough analysis of the trend, thematic focus and scientific output in the subject of metaverse in education, a bibliometric technique was used to analyse the data. The bibliometrix package of R software, specifically the biblioshiny interface of R-studio, was used to conduct the analysis.

The analysis of the metaverse in education spanning from 1995 to the beginning of 2023 reveals a dynamic and evolving landscape. Notably, the field has experienced robust annual growth, with a peak of publications in 2022. Citation analysis highlights seminal works, with Dionisio et al. (2013) leading discussions on the transition of virtual worlds into intricate digital cultures. Thematic mapping identifies dominant themes such as “system,” “augmented reality” and “information technology,” indicating a strong technological focus. Surprisingly, China emerges as a leading contributor with significant citation impact, emphasising the global nature of metaverse research. The thematic map suggests ongoing developments in performance and future aspects, emphasising the essential role of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Overall, the findings depict a vibrant and multidimensional metaverse in education, poised for continued exploration and innovation.

The study is among the pioneers that provide a comprehensive bibliometric analysis in the area of metaverse in education which will guide the novice researchers to identify the unexplored areas.

The growth of both the informal sector and illicit financial outflows necessitated this study, in order to investigate how countries in Africa respond to these realities in terms of mobilization of domestic resources. These are the main motivation for the current study to the extant literature in conjunction with the adoption of employing second-generation econometric techniques which take into account cross-sectional dependence and country-specific heterogeneity.

This study therefore examined the capacity of Africa to mobilize domestic resources amidst rising illicit financial outflows and informal sector size in selected African countries between 2000 and 2018. Second-generation econometric techniques such as cross-sectional dependence tests, slope homogeneity tests, Westerlund (2007) long-run co-integration tests, Eberhardt and Teal (2010) augmented mean group estimations and Kónya (2006) panel causality testing were employed.

Findings revealed the existence of cross-sectional dependence and slope homogeneity in the data series. Findings also supported the existence of depressing long-run impacts of IFOs and ISS on domestic savings. Causality test results were not uniform across variables among countries. Policy recommendations favour formalizing the largely informal African economies through budgetary policy adjustments and commitment to building stronger institutions.

The fragility of the African countries economy and its macroeconomic indicators is suggestive for more policy construction.

This economic reality about the nature of the informal sector is one that has negated the traditional view which holds that economic reforms would make the informal sector shrink as it transits to formal sector. Experiences from Latin America and Africa in fact indicate that the informal sector is actually on an expansionary path in the wake of adjustment and policy reforms. It is often called the unobserved, unorganized or unprotected economy. With this sector growing in size, the possibility of a reverse may not be in sight, owing to the increasing poverty levels and unemployment prevalent in most African countries. Uncertain foreign investment and aid inflows coupled with lower export revenues and high levels of indebtedness have created new impetus to examine the capacity of Africa's fiscal policy regime to mobilise domestic resources for the development of the region. Surprisingly, the last decade witnessed continued rise in Africa's illicit financial outflows amidst large informal sector size (ISS).

Some African policymakers have turned their attention towards electronic transaction levy (e-levy) to maximise tax revenues in recent years due to the inability to meet revenue targets. However, some argue that the implementation of an e-levy will increase the tax burden (TB) and the currency outside banks (COB). Primarily, this paper examined the effects of the TB and COB on economic development as well as the impact of institutional quality on moderating the nexus.

This paper used structural equation modelling (SEM) and maximum likelihood (ML) estimation techniques on quarterised data from 1996 to 2020.

The results show that the TB negatively impacts gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and urbanisation but positively affects the Economic Freedom of the World Index (EFWI). The COB impacts EFWI, GDP per capita and urbanisation positively. Institutional quality moderates the TB and the COB, establishing positive relationships with the economic development indicators.

The findings strongly imply that the arguments that TB and COB are catalysts for tax evasion and corruption lack substantial empirical evidence.

The examination of the econometric impact of the COB on economic development is one of the first studies in the field. The paper recommends that to drive economic development and accelerate sustainable development goals (SDGs) achievement, tax revenues should be channelled into the productive sectors of the Ghanaian economy.