Political competition,tax salience and accountability. Theory and evidence from Italy

This paper argues that electoral competition may hinder rather than foster political accountability, especially when elected officers can choose among a number of tax instruments. We develop a political agency model showing that politicians in more competitive jurisdictions use less salient tax instruments more intensely. Defining salience as visibility or, analogously, as voters' awareness of the costs associated with specific government revenue sources, we argue that voters are less likely to hold politicians to account for the associated tax burden of a less salient instrument. This in turn implies that strategic politicians will more heavily rely on less salient revenue sources when electoral competition is stronger. Using data on Italian municipal elections and taxes over a 10-year period, we determine the degree of salience of various tax instruments, including property taxes (high salience) and government fees for official documents (low salience). We then show that mayors facing stronger competition for re-election use less salient tax instruments more intensely.     

Firm-level determinants of tax evasion in transition economies

Business tax evasion is an important issue for governments. Yet the factors that determine business tax evasion have not been sufficiently examined in the literature in general, and in transition contexts in particular. To address this gap, this study uses the WB/EBRD Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) database with a sample of over 12,692 firms from 26 transition economies. Applying various modelling strategies, we argue that tax evasion is a function of firm-level and institutional-level variables. We contribute to the literature by providing robust evidence showing that the perceived tax burden has a positive impact on tax evasion. We also find that the tax evasive behaviour of firms is positively influenced by low trust in government and in the judicial system as well as by higher perceptions of corruption and higher compliance costs. We find that smaller firms, individual businesses and firms in sectors that are less visible to the tax administration are more likely to get involved in evasive behaviour. Overall, institutional factors play an important role in determining firms’ tax evasion behaviour in transition economies. This finding has important policy implications.     

Stochastic optimization of sustainable hybrid generation bioethanol supply chains

This paper focuses on designing a hybrid generation bioethanol supply chain (HGBSC) that will account for economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability under various uncertainties. A stochastic mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to design an optimal HGBSC. A case study set in the state of North Dakota in the United States is used as an application of the proposed model. The results suggest that the designs of optimal HGBSC change when different sustainability standards are applied. In addition, sensitivity analysis is conducted to provide deeper understanding of the proposed model.     

Mapping tax compliance: Assemblages,distributed action and practices: A new way of doing tax research

Tax compliance denotes the act of reporting and paying taxes in accordance with the tax laws. Current social science scholarship on tax compliance can almost entirely be divided into behavioural psychology analyses and critical tax studies. This article, which presents two cases of how tax compliance is constructed, challenges the explanatory reaches of today's social science approaches, arguing that an alternative approach to understanding tax compliance is worthwhile exploring. This other choice of approach, inspired by actor–network theory (ANT), adopts a more practice-oriented focus that studies tax compliance where it takes place as well as what it is made of. Consequently, this article argues that tax compliance is a socio-material assemblage and that complying is a distributed action. The article concludes by highlighting how an ANT approach contributes to the further theoretical development of social science studies of taxation.     

Integrating corporate ownership and pension fund structures: A general equilibrium approach

This paper studies pension fund design in the context of investment in the debt and equity of a firm. We employ a general equilibrium framework to demonstrate that: (i) the asset location ‘puzzle’ is purely a partial equilibrium phenomenon, conceived in a risk neutral setting, that disappears with the introduction of sufficient risk aversion; (ii) the inability of policy makers to manage an economy with multiple firms yields a mixed equilibrium, where bonds are observed in both taxable and tax-deferred accounts; and (iii) the Pareto-efficient pension plan comprises of a defined benefit plan.     

Viewpoint: Can U.S. local soda taxes continue to spread?

Taxes to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soda drinks have been endorsed by the World Health Organization and are now in place in France, Hungary, and Mexico, and scheduled for Portugal, South Africa, and Great Britain. Such taxes have so far been impossible to enact in the United States at the state or federal level, but since 2014 seven local jurisdictions have put them in place. Three necessary conditions for local political enactment emerge from this recent experience: Democratic Party dominance, external financial support for pro-tax advocates, and a political message appropriate to the process (public health for ballot issues; budget revenue for city council votes). Roughly 40 percent of Americans live within local jurisdictions where the Democratic Party dominates, so room exists for local SSB taxes to continue spreading.     

The effects of location-based tax policies on the distribution of household income: Evidence from the federal Empowerment Zone program

Location-based tax policies are redistributive as evidenced by their placement in distressed areas. However, the previous literature has focused on mean effects which can mask important effects that the program has on the distribution of households. Therefore, we extend the literature by studying changes in the entire household income distribution, in the context of the federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program. We do not find evidence that the impoverished residents benefited from the program. Our findings are consistent with the areas becoming more attractive to high-income households. The improvements in the areas were concentrated in those portions of each zone that were relatively better-off prior to EZ designation. The results confirm the prior literature findings that the areas, on average, became more attractive but also suggest that the benefits of the program likely did not accrue to the lower-income residents of the EZ areas.     

Making tax and social security decisions: lean and deskilling in the UK Civil Service

Lean working has had a significant impact on the work skills of civil servants. This study examines the impact of lean specifically focusing on ‘decision‐makers’, those civil servants engaged in deciding tax and social security claims. Using qualitative data from trade union members and stewards in two major government departments, this study found significant evidence of deskilling often in the face of dealing with potentially complex legal and factual issues. Using Mashaw's framework of administrative justice, the article argues that management's use of lean was evidence of an accelerated shift to a managerial model of administering tax and benefits where the administrative processes of decision‐making become paramount at the expense of the quality of the decisions made.     

论营改增对交通运输企业利润的影响——以中海发展股份公司为例

2016年5月1日,营改增将进行最后四个行业的全面试点,从2012年首先开始于交通运输业等行业的营改增,已经进入了收关之际.从历经4年多的试点结果来看,从2012年试点到2015年底,"营改增"已经累计减税5000多亿元,结构性减税效果明显.交通运输业作为我国重要的行业,又是第一批试点行业,虽然交通运输业营改增后,流转税负呈下降的趋势,但对交通运输行业的利润影响是否是正向的还需要科学的研究,因此,本文以中海发展股份公司为例,分析营改增后影响交通运输业利润的变化及因素,并给出相应的建议.     

Regulatory performance of audit tournaments and compliance observability

This paper examines the effectiveness of traditional regulatory schemes and newly emerging social information schemes for achieving compliance. Our experiment focuses on two stochastic audit schemes for enforcing regulatory compliance. In the Random Audit mechanism firms are randomly chosen for inspection. In the Tournament Audit mechanism the probability of inspection increases with the degree of estimated underreporting. To study the effects of social information, the experiment varies the observability of identity, output, and compliance decisions. Optimal output is theoretically independent of the auditing scheme, but equilibrium reporting is higher under the Tournament mechanism than Random auditing. Experimental findings are broadly consistent with the theoretical predictions for reporting, but deviate modestly for output. In particular, we find that average output is lower and reporting is higher in the Tournament treatment compared to the Random Audit treatment. At the individual level, a majority of participants misreported in most periods. Social observability does not affect output or reporting significantly in either of the audit treatments.