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This paper explores the value relevant information of future income taxes under The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) handbook section 3465. CICA handbook section 3465 requires Canadian companies to use the asset and liability method to account for income taxes. Consistent with prior studies, this paper shows that future tax assets are positively associated with share prices, suggesting that they are valued as assets. Future tax liabilities are negatively associated with share prices, suggesting that they are valued as liabilities. Future tax value allowance, which is created for future tax assets, is negatively associated with share prices. This study also explores the value relevant information of future tax asset and liability categories. In addition, this paper explores what determines the valuation of future tax assets and liabilities. It is argued that future tax assets are more (less) valuable if (no) sufficient future income will be generated in the near future to utilize these tax assets; future tax liabilities will reduce share prices more (less), if there is a higher (lower) likelihood of reversal in the short run. The results support this argument. It is shown that (1) future tax assets are less valuable if the firm's value allowance is higher (i.e., the management does not expect the firm will generate sufficient taxable income in future years to utilize these tax assets), or the firm's leverage is higher (another proxy for no sufficient future taxable income), and (2) future tax liabilities reduce share prices less if the firm's investment in capital properties is increased.

A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of land rents and values, and several modes of raising revenues from them besides the conventional property tax.

The paper identifies 16 elements of land's taxable capacity that received authorities either trivialize or omit. These 16 elements come in four groups.

In Group A, Elements 1‐4 correct for the downward bias in standard sources. In Group B, Elements 5‐10 broaden the concepts of land and rent beyond the conventional narrow perception, while Elements 11‐12 estimate rents to be gained by abating other kinds of taxes. In Group C, Elements 13‐14 explain how using the land tax, since it has no excess burden, uncaps feasible tax rates. In Group D, Elements 15‐16 define some moot possibilities that may warrant further exploration.

This paper shows how previous estimates of rent and land values have been narrowly limited to a fraction of the whole, thus giving a false impression that the tax capacity is low. The paper adds 14 elements to the traditional narrow “single tax” base, plus two moot elements advanced for future consideration. Any one of these 16 elements indicates a much higher land tax base than economists commonly recognize today. Taken together they are overwhelming, and cast an entirely new light on this subject.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how share buybacks can be, in Portuguese small privately held firms, a source of tax‐based conflicts between shareholders and tax administrations. Two issues are of particular relevance: the favored tax treatment of capital gains relative to dividends, and the use of valuation formulae to compute prices used in such transactions. The paper intends to present some advice to firms and consultants regarding equity valuation in privately held firms, to avoid tax based litigation. An extended analysis of the issue and its relevance to other jurisdictions is also presented.

The paper is based on a conceptual discussion of the usual approach taken by the Portuguese tax authorities to challenge share buybacks in small, privately held, firms. The arm's length principle in transfer pricing rules is the cornerstone of the topic analysed. The paper compares the merits of alternative pricing basis, and shows the economic and legal problems that each alternative presents.

The paper finds that the lack of tax neutrality between dividends and capital gains in Portugal can induce tax motivated transactions in small firms. The tax administration try to challenge these transactions on transfer pricing grounds. The alternative valuation strategy used by tax authorities is flawed, and puts the taxpayers in a good litigation position. However, a sensible valuation put forward by the firm can avoid such legal battles, which consume time and other resources of small owners.

The owners of privately held firms and the tax authorities should use valuation methods in very sensible terms. Cash flow valuation rests on several assumptions. These assumptions should not be used to produce prices that are easily questioned and increase litigation between firms and taxpayers.

The paper can be a source of practical advice for small business owners and advisors, as far as share transactions and share valuation are concerned. It is useful not only for the Portuguese managers and tax authorities, but also for any country where taxation of dividends and capital gains induces tax motivated buybacks.

This study examines the impact of FASB Interpretation No. 48 (FIN48), Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, on earnings management (EM) activity, by focusing on changes in the deferred tax asset valuation allowance (DTVA). FIN48 was adopted, in part, over concerns that firms were using the reserve for uncertain tax positions (cushion) to manage earnings. However, there are reasons to believe that the adoption of FIN48 may have impacted the extent to which firms utilize DTVA changes as a strategic accounting choice. As the provision for income taxes is one of the final accounts closed prior to an earnings announcement, income tax accounting is generally regarded as a final opportunity to strategically meet earnings goals. To the extent that FIN48 reduced cushion-based EM, firms may have increasingly used DTVA changes as a substitute. Alternatively, the attention that FIN48 brought to firms’ income tax footnotes may have curbed the strategic use of income tax accounting, in general. This study employs a sample of publicly traded US firms over the period of 2003–2010. A regression model and an analysis of the frequency of DTVA-based EM reveal no evidence of a systematic change in behavior attributable to FIN48. However, further analysis reveals that firms identified as managing earnings to meet analyst forecasts increasingly used discretionary DTVA changes relative to changes in tax cushion in the post-FIN48 period. The results have implications for existing research on income tax-based EM.

This study seeks to contrive a sustainable valuation model for developing countries: a model that reasonably combines simplicity with equity, cost effectiveness, transparency, and the peculiarities of the local market place for improved revenue yields.

The study draws from theory, experiences of other nations and international best practices to arrive at what should be the most appropriate tax base, valuation basis, valuation method, and the most expedient valuation approach for developing countries.

Using Lagos State, Nigeria to demonstrate the application of the contrived conceptual framework, the study, among others, recommended for her urban areas, a combination of modified mass appraisal technique, modified UK's “property banding” technique, and discrete valuation to reflect the diverse distribution of her property stock. Others include a ten‐yearly comprehensive revaluation and indexation for the annual or periodic adjustments during the intervening periods.

Property tax remains, among known local taxes today, the most viable, stable, predictable, progressive, and veritable source of own revenue for a truly independent local government administration. However, while developed countries have been able to tap these potentials to a good advantage for both fiscal and non‐fiscal goals; it is regrettable that the experience of most developing countries has not been equally satisfactory. Inappropriate valuation process, among others, remains a component of the tax system that is misguided and surrounded with much misgiving; hence a revisit.

Given the peculiar characteristics of the property valuation environment of developing countries, the highly simplified but pragmatic valuation model proposed is expected to birth a sustainable property tax system anchored on equity, cost effectiveness, ease of administration, and enhanced valuation ratio, with potentials for improved compliance and tax revenue yields.

Buildings contribute significantly to CO₂ production. They are also subject to considerable taxation based on value. Analysis shows that while similar attributes contribute to both value and CO₂ production, there is only a loose relationship between the two. If we wish to use taxation to affect policy change (drive energy efficiency behaviour), we are unlikely to achieve this using only the current tax base (value), or by increasing the tax take off this current tax base (unlike extra taxation of cigarettes to discourage smoking, for example). Taxation of buildings on the basis of energy efficiency is hampered by the lack of current evidence of performance. This paper aims to model the now-obligatory (at sale or letting) energy performance certificate (EPC) data to derive an acceptable appraisal model (marked to market, being the EPC scores) and deploys this to the entire population of properties. This provides an alternative tax base with which to model the effects of a tax base switch to energy efficiency and to understand the tax incidence effects of such a policy.

The research uses a multiplicative hedonic approach to model energy efficiency utilising EPC holding properties in a UK jurisdiction [Northern Ireland (NI)] as the sample. This model is then used to estimate discrete energy assessments for each property in the wider population, using attributes held in the domestic rating (property tax) database for NI (700,000+ properties). This produces a robust estimate of the EPC for every property in its current condition and its cost-effective improved condition. This energy assessment based tax base is further used to estimate a new millage rate and property tax bill (green property tax) which is compared against the existing property tax based on value to allow tax incidence changes to be analysed.

The findings show that such a policy would significantly redistribute the tax burden and would have a variety of expected and some unexpected effects. The results indicate that while assessing the energy performance of houses can be a complex process involving many parameters, much of the explanatory power can be achieved via a relatively small number of input variables, often already held by property tax jurisdictions. This offers the opportunity for useful housing stock modelling – such as the savings possible from power switching. The research also identifies that whilst urban areas display the expected “heat island” effect in terms of energy consumption, urban properties are on average more efficient than suburban/rural properties. This facilitates spatial targeting of policy messages and initiatives.

Analogous with other studies, data deficiencies introduce the risk of omitted variable bias. Modelling of the energy efficiency in the sample is limited to property attributes that are available for the wider population of properties. While this limits the modelling exercise, it is a perennial issue facing mass appraisal worldwide (where knowledge of the transacted sample attributes generally exceeds knowledge of the unsold properties). That said, the research demonstrates the benefits of sharing data and improving knowledge of the housing stock, as taxation databases would be stronger, augmented with EPC-derived property attributes for example.

The EPC lead in time for wide residential coverage is likely to be considerable. The paper contributes to emerging literature and policy debate surrounding the effect, performance measurement and implementation of energy efficiency certification, through a greater understanding of the sectorial and geographical dispersion of energy efficiency. It provides high level research to help guide policy and decision-making, identifying key locales where there is more of a physical problem and locations where there is more to gain in terms of targeting energy improvement and/or encouraging behavioural change. The paper also allows a glimpse of the implications of a change towards a taxation regime based on energy efficiency, which contributes to the debate surrounding the “greening” of property based taxes.

The British government takes equity issues formally into account in its appraisal of social projects and policies. However, evidence on which the measured distributional welfare weights are based is neither broad enough nor sufficiently reliable. This paper seeks to address these issues by considering a wider body of evidence.

An important component of the welfare weight measure advocated by HM Treasury is the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption (e). A critical review of existing evidence on e is provided with a view to establishing priority areas for further research. New measures of e are presented based on revealed social values as indicated in specific government policies relating to both foreign aid and proposed income‐related fines for offences. Behavioural evidence based on demand analysis using a co‐integration approach is also presented.

The results for e are sensitive to the estimation approach adopted. While the evidence based on a revealed social values approach including modified tax‐based results suggests that e is close to unity, the measure currently used by HM Treasury, demand analysis suggests an e value close to 1.5. The evidence based on lifetime consumption behaviour is sensitive to model specification and needs updating.

Modified tax‐based findings on e are presented along with new evidence based on alternative revealed social values approaches. The new evidence from demand analysis is based on an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to co‐integration. This paper will be of interest to academics specialising in welfare economics and to practitioners involved in social project appraisal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether share ownership structure plays a role in determining the ex-day pricing of dividends. If share ownership structure, specifically the proportion of the firm’s stock held by individuals vs institutions, has an effect on the ex-dividend day stock price behavior, the ex-day premium is expected to be different for firms with different ownership structures.

To investigate whether the ex-day pricing of dividends is affected by the proportion of the firm’s stock held by individuals vs institutions, the author look into the ex-day premium. The ex-day premium is calculated by dividing the difference between the closing price on the cum-dividend day and the closing price on the ex-dividend day by the amount of the dividend.

Consistent with both the tax-based theory and the dynamic trading clientele theory, the author find that the ex-day premium decreases with the level of individual ownership. Consistent with the short-term trading theory, the author also find that the ex-day premium increases with the degree of investor heterogeneity, defined as the product of the proportion of the firm’s stock held by individual investors and the proportion held by institutional investors.

The author believe that this study contributes to the literature by providing useful evidence that share ownership structure affects the ex-day pricing of dividends, and thus this study will be of interest to the readers of managerial finance.

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.

Since 1993 the UK has used a “banded” property tax as opposed to discrete values for the assessment of residential property. Explains both the advantages and disadvantages of the system. In addition, summarises the main results of empirical research into the use of banded property values which have been unaltered for ten years. In summary, aims to present findings on the continued operation of this unique system, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and its viability/applicability in other countries and jurisdictions in the light of empirical evidence based on the analysis of open market transactions. Discusses both the assessment and administration process and, with the analysis of sales data, demonstrates the importance of regular and frequent revaluations of the tax base in order to ensure a reasonable level of both vertical and horizontal equity. Speculates on the potential application of a banded system of property values in other countries, in the light of the advantages of the banded system which could lend themselves to jurisdictions where an ad valorem system of land taxation is inappropriate; where resources are limited in terms of experienced valuers, or where the availability of technology to undertake mass appraisal would provide added advantages. Concludes by drawing together recommendations in relation to how the system in the UK can be improved and makes recommendations for policy‐makers in other jurisdictions.