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The paper deals with the child benefits system in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Sweden.

The authors describe the systems as the key baseline for subsequent qualitative and quantitative comparison. An essential element is the quantitative comparison of child benefits using their statistically stationarised values.

The Czech and Slovak systems provide a comparable rate of coverage as the Swedish system regarding the payment of both types of benefits, i.e. child benefits and tax allowances, for the first and second child; however, from the third child, the individual differences are considerable. Albeit the concepts of Czech and Slovak systems are framed by the same historical origins and conceptual approach, they differ significantly, with Slovakia providing the lowest aggregate level of child benefits.

The paper provides insight into the child benefit systems in the respective countries. These systems are at the centre of attention of policymakers who are attempting to maintain birth rates and reduce child poverty. The Czech Republic has the lowest level of at-risk-of-poverty rates for persons under 16 years of age, while natality rates are comparable.

The America Rescue Plan (ARP) transformed the Child Tax Credit (CTC) into a more generous, inclusive monthly payment from July through December 2021. However, the expansion has been terminated and the annual CTC has been reinstated. The United States is one of the few OECD countries that do not have a child allowance system and South Korea has recently adopted child allowance in 2018. This study aims to comprehensively review the existing literature and evidence on ARP-CTC in the United States and Universal Child Allowance (CA) in Korea.

The researchers completed a database search between July 1, 2022 and July 20, 2022. For the United States, the search keywords were child tax credit OR expanded child tax credit OR CTC OR child allowance. For Korea, the search keyword was child allowance. Searches were conducted using 79 databases. A total of 36 US studies and 7 Korean studies met all the inclusion criteria and proceeded to the extraction process. A narrative thematic synthesis approach was employed to identify themes in the findings. The results were organized based on the characteristics of the studies and the post-intervention outcomes.

Studies in the United States focused primarily on economic outcomes, including poverty and material hardship, reflecting the concern policymakers and researchers have about child poverty. On the other hand, Korean studies examined employment, economic well-being, psychological well-being and expenditures in a relatively balanced share. Overall, studies found that both ARP-Child Tax Credits and Universal Child Allowance reduced child poverty and improved material hardship. Also, studies in both countries suggested that both policies had positive impacts on parental psychological well-being.

To the authors knowledge, this paper is the first to comprehensively review the impact of the US ARP-CTC in comparison with the Korean child allowance. Two studies reviewed and updated the literature on US ARP-CTC as a round-up paper. Moreover, the authors conduct cross-national comparative analyses between the United States and Korea. The contexts of the child allowance system in the two nations have both similarities and differences, thereby offering a unique opportunity for a comparative study.

Business research and development (R&D) is of critical importance for innovation and economic growth. The purpose of this study is to present an application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to select the most appropriate policy measure to support the business expenditure on R&D (BERD).

AHP method adopts a multi-criteria approach that can be used to analyse and prioritize the policy measures based on pairwise comparisons between several attributes that affect the selection of a policy tool. The model formulated in this study is applied to a real case of supporting decision-makers in some high-tech sectors in Iran.

The results highlight the four main financial policy measures implemented in Iran to enhance the BERD; those are, public procurement for R&D, direct subsidies for R&D, grants for R&D and income tax credit for firms have the priority values of 0.280, 0.260, 0.249 and 0.211, respectively.

The findings of this study are based on subjective evaluation of policy measures by experts of designing policy measures. Objective assessment of policy measures is important too because the preferences of policy interventions change during the time. Another significant point is that the priorities of specific policy measures depend on the effectiveness of their implementing arrangement and the previously successful experience of firms in receiving them.

This paper presents an application of the AHP to select the most appropriate policy measure to support the BERD. This method could be used to prioritize the policies and interventions that governments implement to solve different problems, especially at the innovation system level.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between corporate profitability (CP) and effective tax rate (ETR) and to examine whether this relationship is moderated by board gender diversity (BGD).

The multivariate regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship between related variables. This study used sample of 70 Jordanian firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchanges for the period 2013 – 2020.

The results show a negative relationship between CP and ETR. Furthermore, the moderating variable BGD changes the strength and the sign, from a negative to a positive influence, of the relationship between CP and ETR.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is among the first that provides empirical evidence regarding the relationship between CP and ETR in the light of BGD. Further, this study provides new and important insights that are not evident from the previous literature.

Reportedly, green roof (GR) makes a significant contribution towards a truly sustainable-built environment; however, its implementation is yet to hit a sufficient level in developing countries. Thus, this study assesses GR implementation strategies in developing countries by providing a comparative analysis through experts in Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Turkey.

The study adopts a four-step methodological approach to achieve the research aim: literature review, focus group discussion, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) analysis and correlation analyses. First, a literature review followed by a focus group discussion is used to determine 18 (out of 25 initially) strategies for the selected context and these are classified into three categories: governmental and institutional support, knowledge and information and policy and regulation. Afterward, the identified GR strategies are evaluated using the FAHP with the data gathered from the experts in the countries studied. Finally, correlation analyses were used to observe the strength of agreement between the assessments of experts from the included countries.

The findings indicate that financial incentives, low-cost government loans and subsidies and tax rebates are the essential strategies for the wider adoption of GR. Evaluating the policy and regulations strategies also showed that mandatory GR policies and regulations and better enforcement of the developed GR policies are ranked as the most prominent strategies. The findings show a low level of agreement among respondents from Kazakhstan, while there is a high level of agreement between the experts in Malaysia and Turkey.

The research contribution is twofold. First (research implication), the study identifies the strategies through a complete literature review. Second, the identified strategies are evaluated through the lenses of experts in three developing countries which are hoped to provide (practical contribution) a better understanding of the most effective strategies that require attention and enable the frontline stakeholders (particularly government authorities) to focus on them.

The study findings provide a good point of departure to explore the strategies for broader adoption of GRs in developing economic setting.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the required disclosure and the high frequency of key audit matters (KAMs) are likely to moderate the effect of higher credit risk on earnings quality.

This study uses 15,106 Taiwanese firm-year observations to explore the relationship between earnings quality and credit risk during the 2011 to 2020 period. We use the two-stage least squares method to test whether the presence of KAM disclosures moderated the association between earnings quality and credit risk and also to examine whether higher KAM frequency moderates the association between earnings quality and credit risk.

Our results provide evidence that the presence of a KAM disclosure requirement moderates the impact of firms with higher credit risk on earnings quality. In addition, there is significant evidence that the higher the frequency of KAM disclosures the greater the moderation impact that is found.

This research investigates whether the disclosure and high frequency of KAMs moderates the effect of credit riskiness on earnings quality. This study improves our understanding of whether more KAMs disclosures would improve earnings quality of firms with higher credit risk. In addition, we also use Beneish M-SCORE, as an alternative earnings quality proxy, to reinforce our empirical results. This markedly differentiates this paper from other studies.

This review analyzes the existing theoretical and empirical research on the relation between corporate taxation and corporate social responsibility (CSR). By synthesizing the current literature regarding the directional relation between tax avoidance and CSR, the authors are able to identify areas where further research on this relation should be targeted to maximize the public interest.

The authors conduct a literature review of articles published in leading journals in the fields of accounting, finance and management. Reputable working papers are included to support emerging trends in the research and suggest meaningful paths forward.

The literature reveals a complex relation between corporate tax avoidance and CSR. The published research offers theoretical and empirical support for both a substitutive and a complementary directional relation. An actionable takeaway from this review is that corporate taxation must be considered jointly with CSR when seeking to maximize the public interest.

The authors find a rapid influx of research over the past decade that explores the complex directional relation between corporate tax avoidance and CSR. This review will be useful to researchers that are interested in moving beyond a directional characterization of this relation. By synthesizing both established and emerging literature, the authors provide a foundation and direction for future research to examine issues that may directly inform tax or firm policies to increase overall stakeholder welfare.

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.

The paper aims to examine agrochemical traders’ tax morale in three Ghanaian regions.

Primary data were collected from 92 respondents using structured questionnaires. A multistage sampling technique was employed and used in selecting respondents.. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis and quantile regression analysis were used to analyse data obtained via the questionnaires.

The study found tax reporting knowledge, tax calculating knowledge and tax payment knowledge to be the keen factors influencing agrochemical traders’ tax knowledge. It was also revealed that age, religion and marriage positively influence the tax morale of traders. Inversely, gender, high level of education and monthly sales were found to affect tax morale negatively. Moreover, trust (respect, trustworthiness and expertise knowledge) negatively influenced tax morale. Authorities’ tax knowledge and power (sanction and lockdown) were revealed to impact tax morale positively. However, tax morale decreases amongst agrochemical traders with higher tax morale when sanction increases.

Unlike previous studies which focussed on tax morale amongst individuals and firms outside the agribusiness sector, this study examined the tax morale within the informal agrochemical trading sector, which has recently attracted colossal patronage due to the high usage of agrochemicals amongst farmers in Africa and Ghana. This study also assumed tax morale to be at different levels; hence the factors that affect the morale at different levels differ. Therefore, the study examined the factors influencing tax morale amongst agrochemical traders by segregating tax morale into quartiles. Relating to theory, the economic deterrence theory was used to ground the study, which is not usually used in most tax morale studies.

This study aims to provide a valuable contribution by exploring the moderating effect of women directors on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate tax avoidance of Malaysian listed companies.

The study is based on a sample consisting of 78 Malaysian firms over the 2010–2017 period. A moderation model that specifies the interaction between CSR, women directors and corporate tax avoidance motivates this study.

The results show that a high level of CSR is negatively associated with corporate tax avoidance in firms with a higher percentage of women on the board.

The findings may be of interest to the academic researchers, investors and regulators. For academic researchers, it is interested in discovering the dynamic relation between CSR, woman on the board and tax avoidance. For investors, the results show that the existence of female directors on the board reduces the corporate tax avoidance. For regulators, the results advise the worldwide policy maker to give the importance of female roles to improve the engagement firms in CSR reporting.

This paper extends the existing literature by examining the moderating effect of women directors on the relationship between CSR and corporate tax avoidance in the Malaysian context.