Educating and Training Accountants in Syria in a Transition Context: Perceptions of Accounting Academics and Professional Accountants

This study focuses on accounting education in the Syrian transition context and in the international context of globalization. It offers insights into accounting education and into the interrelationship in this respect between the accountancy profession and academia in this context. We elaborate an historical and contextual analysis of the Syrian context in relation to accounting education. We report on a series of interviews (conducted in 2002 and 2005) of professional accountants and accounting academics in Syria that elaborates the views of these key parties on a number of interrelated matters: the current limitations of tertiary accounting education in Syria; the role of the accountancy profession in providing education and training; and the developing interrelationship between the profession and academia. In concluding, we summarize some key insights and elaborate on the relevance of the study and the future research it suggests.     

《税务代理实务》教学模式改革之探索

《税务代理实务》是一门综合性、应用型课程。本文在分析《税务代理实务》教学现状的基础上,明确提出学以致用是该课程教学目标的根本定位,并结合《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要(2010-2020)》总体战略目标的要求,从引入CDIO教育理念、重构教学模式,重视案例教学法的应用和强化模拟仿真训练三方面提出了教学改革建议,以期不断完善税务本科教学体系建设,为社会培养高层次、应用型税务人才。     

营业税改征增值税的税率评估——基于可计算一般均衡模型的研究

营业税改征增值税是完善我国税制的一个重要举措,确定各个产业部门改征增值税后的税率是其中一个关键的环节。运用可计算一般均衡模型可以评估营业税改征增值税之后不同税率的选择对宏观经济和产业结构的影响。政策模拟的结果显示,目前正在实施的营业税改征增值税的试点方案权衡了对财政收入和经济增长以及经济结构的影响,是对经济运行影响较小的稳健选择。     

对云南省执行企业所得税优惠政策的调查与思考

从云南省执行企业所得税优惠政策的实践可以看出,在经济欠发达区域,税收优惠政策的作用尚未有效发挥,存在着一些影响政策运行的现实问题。据此,本文提出了完善企业所得税优惠政策的思路及建议。     

中日韩非居民企业股息等所得税收政策比较与分析

本文首先比较了中国与日本、韩国对非居民企业在股息、利息和财产收益所得方面的税收政策和税收管理措施,在此基础上分析了当前我国在非居民企业税收政策制定和税收管理中存在的问题,并就进一步完善我国非居民企业税收政策,逐步建立科学、有效的非居民企业税收征管模式提出了建议。     

公共政策视角下的环境税

我国环境税制度设计离不开公共政策视角。与环境收费相比,环境税将更好地发挥环境保护的公共政策功能。环境保护政策体系中的环境税,需要与其他环保政策工具协调配合。环境税需要在分类推进与整体调节中进行权衡取舍。环境税的开征并不意味着仅是增税,需要发挥其双重红利作用,和减税措施相配合,才能摆脱宏观税负悖论。环境税还需要和环境专项支出进行协调,以更好地实现公共政策目标。     

An examination of the political salience of corporate tax avoidance: A case study of the Tax Justice Network

Corporate tax avoidance (CTA) has become a high profile issue despite being a complex area of accounting practice. One reason for this has been the civil society campaign opposing tax avoidance. The paper provides a case study of one key civil society actor: the Tax Justice Network (TJN). Existing accounting analysis offers little to explain how some accounting issues acquire political attention and media coverage. To address this, the concept of political salience is introduced into accounting analysis – understood as the creation of focal points in campaigns – to consider how the TJN contributed to the political profile of CTA.     

企业所得税的劳动需求效应--基于中国工业企业面板数据的研究

本文利用1998~2013年中国工业企业数据库的221万条企业面板数据,采取静态面板模型和动态面板模型,考察了企业所得税对企业劳动需求的影响。在基于生产函数推导出企业所得税对企业劳动需求的影响机理后,以企业职工人数和企业所得税有效税率等变量构建回归模型,用工具变量集解决内生性问题。实证结果表明,降低企业所得税有效税率会增加企业劳动需求,尤其对劳动密集型企业的劳动需求影响最大。因此,为了促进就业,应进一步降低企业所得税税率,并对劳动密集型企业给予特别的企业所得税优惠待遇。     

The Communication Skills of Accountants: What we Know and the Gaps in our Knowledge

Abstract

This paper critically reviews 19 studies published between 1972 and 2012 that investigated the written and/or oral communication skills of practicing accountants. The core aim of the review was to identify skills considered important and highlight gaps regarding what is known about existing and desired communication skills in the accounting profession. Key findings include that most studies did not detail the basis used to select the skills examined, used very broad skill-set categories and/or did not sufficiently incorporate information already established in the literature. Differing views on the importance of communication skills were found between educators and accountants. Knowledge gaps identified relate to the communication skills considered most important at varying career stages and different career paths, the specific types of oral and written communication skills needed and the role and importance of oral versus written and informal versus formal communication skills. A fundamental concern is that much of the existing communication skills research is crucially out of date. Of the 19 studies reviewed, only three have been published in the past decade. This suggests that further research is needed in the area.     

现代管理理论在纳税服务中的运用

随着现代管理理论的兴起和被认知,为纳税人服务的理念越来越多地被世界各个国家广泛提倡和推广。我国随着市场经济的建立,也充分认识到纳税服务的重要作用,纳税服务体系正在逐步建立并取得了一定的成效。许多西方经济管理理论—契约理论、税收遵从理论、流程再造理论的引进和应用,为我们进一步提高纳税服务质量开拓了新的思路。     

Making Sense of Social Practice: Theoretical Pluralism in Public Sector Accounting Research: A Comment

This paper offers a comment on Jacobs (2012) published previously in this journal. Particular attention is paid to how theoretical pluralism may be defended on paradigmatic grounds whilst being mobilised as a vehicle of generating practice‐relevant insights. My critique of Jacobs focuses on his ambiguous positioning of multi‐paradigm research and the possibilities of developing some ‘indigenous’ accounting theory to render research relevant for practice. As an alternative mode of addressing these issues I propose a position based on critical realism and elaborate on how it may be used to stimulate and defend theoretical pluralism in public sector accounting research.     

The Role of the Personal Tax System in Old‐Age Support: A Survey of 15 Countries

This paper examines the tax treatment of pensioners in 15 industrialised countries. Using a standard methodology, it calculates the average and marginal tax rates of older people and compares them with those of people of working age. These are then combined with a model of pension entitlements in different countries. This shows that tax differentials play an important role in old‐age support. We discuss the appropriate way for the tax system to support pensioners and the implications for the tax treatment of private pensions.     

Cost of capital and valuation in the public and private sectors: Tax,risk and debt capacity

Cost of capital and valuation differ in the private and public sectors, because taxes are a cost to the private sector but are only a transfer to the public sector. We show how to transform the after-tax private sector cost of capital into its pre-tax equivalent, for comparison with the public sector cost of capital. We establish the existence of a tax induced wedge between these two costs of capital. The wedge introduces a preference on the part of the private sector for assets with rapid tax depreciation, high debt capacity and low risk. We show that, in circumstances where an asset has identical public and private sector valuation in the absence of taxes, the tax induced difference in valuation is identical to the change in government tax receipts that results from having the asset owned by the private rather than the public sector. We provide some examples of distortions that result from failure to adjust for changes in tax revenues, and show how to effect such adjustment.     

The Evolution of Client‐Consultant Relationships: A Situational Analysis of IT Consultancy in the Public Sector

This research proposes a situational understanding of the role of con‐sultants. The analysis is grounded on a case from Italian local government over a ten year period. The case is one of the earliest adopters of an ERP system in the public sector. The paper extends current understanding of client‐consultant relationships by developing a specific picture of changes in the role of consultants over time. In the case analysed, multiple changes in client‐consultant relationships occurred. They were due to particular historical contingencies in the evolution of the structure of expertise in the field. The case contributes to knowledge on consultants by contrasting bilateral and instantaneous accounts of client‐consultant relationship with a perspective that overcomes the distinction between context and individual action.     

How numbers of the future are shaping today: The role of forecasts and calculations in public sector strategic thinking

This article examines the role of numbers in forming a city strategy in the case of Gothenburg, Sweden. The article illustrates how numbers make people act and react and shape the strategy process. The study is situated between the theoretical fields of accounting and strategy processes in cities. By relating them to the concept of ‘governmentality’, numbers are seen as helping render the city governable. Because strategizing is seen as concerning the future, the actors involved in drafting the strategy feel free to challenge historically institutionalized practices. The effect is paradoxical: the future‐looking strategy process becomes a forum for solving current problems.     

An Empirical Investigation of Audit Pricing in the Public Sector: The Case of Greek LGOs

This paper investigates the associations between audit pricing and multidimensional characteristics of local governments by using a sample of Greek municipalities. The Greek institutional setting is interesting because it is politically pluralistic. Moreover, independent auditors appointed through a bid process exclusively perform the audits. Our results suggest a considerable variation on audit fees which is mainly driven by politically related factors indicating the importance of relevant theoretical anticipations in audit pricing in the public sector. Agency costs appear strong enough to explain audit pricing. We also confirm prior findings on the significance of audit complexity and size. Results also suggest that audit fees are reduced when an internal team dedicated to accrual accounting is appointed. Therefore, our conclusions offer practical implications for policy setters and regulators in the public sector in relation to audit quality.     

The German public and its trust in the ECB: The role of knowledge and information search

In this paper, we analyse the effects of objective and subjective knowledge about monetary policy, as well as the information search patterns, of German citizens on trust in the ECB. We rely on a unique representative public opinion survey of German households conducted in 2011. We find that subjective and factual knowledge, as well as the desire to be informed, about the ECB foster citizens' trust. Specific knowledge about the ECB is more influential than general monetary policy knowledge. Objective knowledge is more important than subjective knowledge. However, an increasing intensity of media usage, especially newspaper reading, has a significantly negative influence on trust. We conclude that the only viable way for the ECB to generate more trust in itself is to spread monetary policy knowledge.