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Tax crimes have continued to overreach legal clarity, enforcement certainty, fiscal performance and effective public policy in the European Union (EU). The criminal justice countermeasures that have been devised to confront the vitality, intransigence and impacts of tax crimes have consequently been far from being effective and efficient. Guided by the research outputs of an EU funded PROTAX, an advanced solution-hunting research project for tax crimes, this article identifies the uncertainties embedded in the definition of tax crimes in the legal frameworks across the EU Member States as one of the key impediments that weaken the resolve to fight against tax crimes in the EU effectively. By utilising empirical and comparative legal research, this article delves into the main gaps in the criminalisation of tax evasion behaviour. It urges for the development of new methods that can effectively counter tax crimes in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect on the elasticity of taxable income for individuals in couples, where there is no income splitting for tax purposes but joint decisions are taken regarding taxable incomes. Two approaches are considered. First, the effects of minimising the total tax increase arising from a marginal rate increase are examined. Second, the paper considers the effects of joint utility maximisation. In both cases, analytical results suggest the possibility that empirical taxable income elasticity estimates obtained while ignoring the distinction between individuals and couples can be biased, sometimes substantially. Thus, in the presence of individual income taxation, both taxable income elasticity and revenue response estimates could be expected to be quite different when those estimates are obtained while erroneously treating the behaviour of members of couple households as if they were separate individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inheritance tax is often seen as an effective tool to reduce wealth inequality, to raise public revenues if needed, and to increase incentives to work by lowering the tax burden on labour, which is especially high in Germany, according to the OECD. The purpose of this paper is therefore to shed light on the question of whether an inheritance tax is a promising tool for fighting wealth inequality without having distorting effects on the economy. For this purpose, firstly, the distributional effects of inheritances on wealth distribution are evaluated for Germany and are then compared with those in Austria and France, using data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). A change in the German inheritance tax law in 2009 is further used in a difference-in-difference analysis to identify the behavioural effects of the change in the inheritance tax on the volume of bequests, which are large and robust for different specifications. Secondly, the insight from part one is applied to the design of an inheritance tax reform for Germany. The potential tax revenue of the reform can be estimated by using the data from the inheritance and gift tax statistics. A revenue shift from income to inheritance tax could be used to increase work incentives by cutting the marginal tax rates for the working population. However, it turns out that taxing inheritances will be accompanied by significant behavioural responses of donors via tax planning. Furthermore, the introduction of a flat tax model with a broad tax base would not generate enough additional revenue to foster relevant employment effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard methodology on tax‐effort (i.e., the ratio of actual tax revenue to its optimal level) is to run a regression of actual tax revenue on countries' specific (macroeconomic, demographic, geographical, political, social, and institutional) variables. The resulting predicted (fitted) values are then taken to represent the optimal (desired or maximum) level of tax revenue. The crucial issue of tracing out how the optimal tax revenue should be allocated to the fiscal objectives (equity, efficiency) does not seem to be of any interest to the researchers on tax‐effort. The present paper argues that the standard methodology is not without faults and needs revising. We demonstrate that an optimal tax system can be safely derived from maximizing a utility function with respect to (in)direct tax rates. The manipulation of the first‐order conditions, using a novel mathematical module, leads to an infinite number of optimal direct–indirect tax rates. The selection of the optimal mix of these tax rates is dependent on the country‐specific households' preferences over equity/efficiency, as they are formulated by voters' volition in election periods. A simulation procedure helps understanding how the optimal tax revenue is chosen and how it can be optimally allocated to fiscal objectives, in the context of a panel data set including a large number of developed and developing countries. Throughout our text, the optimal tax revenue is defined as the sum of the products of the optimal (in)direct tax rates and their corresponding tax bases. In the simple Arrow–Debreu economy, the above sum is shown to be equal to the difference between income and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study draws on data on sales volume, brand-level market shares, and sugar content to calculate the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) sales volume by sugar content, propose sugar content thresholds for a tiered tax structure, and estimate tax revenue. The most common SSBs sold had 26 g of sugar/8-oz serving; 70.8% had ≥ 25 g of sugar/8-oz serving, 16.9% were in the 10-15 g range, and 8.7% were in the 16-20 g range. A tiered tax with cut points at < 20 g and < 5 g of sugar/8-oz serving is proposed. A tax of 1¢/oz for SSBs in the second tier and 2¢/oz in third tier is projected to raise $18.2 billion in tax revenue similar to the 1.5¢/oz flat tax projection ($18.0 billion) but would yield 9% lower SSB volume. Understanding the distribution of SSB sales volume by sugar content informs policymakers on tiered tax structures, which may discourage consumption of SSBs with high levels of sugar and incentivize reformulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Airlines are facing challenges from high cost structures and intense competition. This has made airlines universally look for opportunities to generate ancillary revenue, additional income apart from their main sources, including Full Service Carriers (FSC). Measuring consumer's willingness to pay is pivotal in pricing and estimating ancillary revenue demand. This study analyzes whether customer's type of journey, purpose of journey, length of flight, and type of flight class have an impact on willingness to pay (WTP) of Garuda Indonesia's ancillary revenues which comprises of unbundled products and commission based income. This paper uses data from a survey to Garuda Indonesia's customer and follows quantitative studies to identify and describe the relationship between the WTP of Garuda Indonesia's ancillary revenue and all variables involved. The study found that passengers value more the unbundled products. It is also found differences in WTP for particular ancillary products and services based on purpose of journey, length of flight, and type of flight class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Agricultural Economics & Social Sciences is the property of Egyptian National Agricultural Library (ENAL) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mounting empirical evidence suggests that term limits and, by extension, higher legislative turnover increase the overall size of government and change its spending composition. However, less is known about the turnover's impact on the composition of tax revenues. This study fills this void by exploiting exogenous variation in term limits and redistricting as instruments for legislative turnover, which is found to be positively associated with most state taxes except for the corporate income tax. We hypothesize that the negative association between legislative turnover and corporate income taxes might be influenced by a higher propensity of business owners to enter term‐limited state legislatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proper positioning of ride-sourcing drivers may improve vacant travel times, waiting times, and matching opportunities. Herein, we evaluate the potential repositioning response of drivers when provided guidance based on estimates of their earnings in a system offering ride-hailing (solo) and ridesplitting (shared) rides. Therefore, we develop a strategy that enumerates the best regional repositioning destination based on the expected number of requests a driver will encounter during the forecast horizon. A mixed continuous-discrete time Markov Chain (MDCTMC) is developed to predict a driver's activities and the associated revenues. In summary, the developed strategy provides a group of drivers with individualized near-future revenue estimates guiding drivers toward repositioning decisions that are more likely to maximize their earnings. Our main findings indicate that if the operator selects only a fraction of active drivers to provide guidance, these are likely to expect higher earnings than those without guidance. We also show that it manages to decrease the number of unserved requests compared to several state-of-art benchmarks while increasing vehicle occupancy and decreasing the deadheading. • Ride-sourcing repositioning strategy accounting for drivers' decision-making. • Strategy provides increased revenue for drivers and lower abandonments. • Strategy compared to benchmarks with superior performance. • Repositioning guidance includes path guidance at the intersection level. • Markov-chain model used to forecast drivers near-future revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the joint hypotheses of consumption and tax smoothing are shown to imply that the present value of expected proportionate declines in government non-interest outlays is approximately equal to a log-linear function of the budget deficit and private dissaving. In this exact linear relation, the budget deficit signals declines in future government outlays, after controlling for prospective changes in the tax base. Private dissaving controls for such prospective changes since, under the joint hypotheses, the present value of expected proportionate rises in tax revenues are approximately equal to a log-linear function of private dissaving. Both exact linear relations are tested in a VAR framework on annual post-World War II U.S. data. We find considerable empirical support for the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the legality of casino gambling in the U.S. Derivation of gambling tax revenues; Sociological problems associated with gambling; Indicator of gambling development.

Purpose: Up to now a country-specific study on Qatar with respect to underground economy, illegal money and tax evasion has not been undertaken. This paper aims to contribute by separately estimating the magnitude of the underground economy in Qatar from 1980 to 2010 using adjusted currency demand function. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses the Zivot–Andrews unit root test for the stationarity analysis and applies the Gregory and Hansen long run cointegrating technique for estimating the underground economy based on the latest form of the currency demand function model. While the general to specific technique is used to estimate the short run error correction model. Findings: The results show that the average size of the underground economy in Qatar is about 17.03 per cent of the official gross domestic products (GDPs). The average level of tax evasion as a per cent of the total non-oil tax revenues is estimated at around 16.50 per cent and is about 2.12 per cent of the official GDP. The average level of illegal money to the total money from banking sector is estimated at 26.70 per cent. Originality/value: This study is the first to separately estimate the extent of the underground economy, illegal currency and tax evasion in Qatar. It overcomes the methodological errors and spurious estimation problems encountered in the previous studies that included Qatar with other countries based on cross-country data without taking into consideration the economic differences between countries. The authors believe that the findings may help the government of Qatar to re-formulate its economic policies, thus, enabling it to curb the growing underground economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Animal Science is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Measuring tax gap highlights 'everything' an expanding digital era might mean for tax - and not just tax non-compliance. Since tax gap measures the difference between the theoretical tax liability and actual revenue collected, its measurement transparently links tax policy design, revenue administration performance and taxpayer behaviour to the broader questions of economic growth, fiscal sustainability and fiscal effort and capacity. It also asks fundamental questions about data and its integrity as reported by the revenue administration, the official statistician and business and individual taxpayers. What tax gap estimates can therefore do is bring transparency and understanding to otherwise complex issues arising from the digital era and therein facilitate an informed evidence-based response to its impact through changes to tax policy design, legislation and administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(12764) Petr Janský Marek Šedivý Tax treaties between countries influence how much tax revenues governments receive from multinational enterprises. These treaties often reduce the withholding tax rates on outgoing dividend and interest payments. We provide illustrative estimates of costs for these two taxes for 14 developing countries in sub‐Saharan Africa and Asia in a first multi‐country comparison of this kind. These might be overestimates because we assume that foreign direct investments are not influenced by the tax treaties. We estimate that the highest potential tax revenue losses are within hundreds of millions US$ and around 0.1% of GDP, with Philippines incurring the highest losses both in US$ and relative to GDP. We also find that around 95% of the losses is due to dividends and that only four investor countries—Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore—are together responsible for more than half of the losses. We discuss the limitations of these estimates and how future research could improve their quality as well as coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of banking services as VAT exempted is a dominant model and common practice among EU member countries mainly due to the technical difficulties of calculating value added and applying the general credit -- invoice method of VAT taxation. Not charging VAT on banking sector results in overtaxation of business customers and undertaxation of final consumers, and creates serious distortions in the economy. With this study and empirical assessment made, we seek to address some of the problems that have not been solved so far and to contribute, at least to a certain degree, to the ongoing academic debate on whether financial services need and should stay VAT exempt. By using a modified mobile-ratio method the current paper explores and assesses economic effects of including banking sector in the range of VAT taxable supplies. To identify the potential gains and losses that could have been generated under a hypothetical case of applying VAT to banking services in Bulgaria we provide a quantitative estimate for the period 2008 through 2016 at two separate levels: (1) banking system, and (2) business consumers of banking services. Finally, we estimate the volume of revenue that could has been accumulated to the State budget during the period under review if banking services were subject to VAT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tax evasion is one of the factors impeding tax revenue mobilisation. Although there are efforts to reduce non-compliance, the extent and nature thereof remain fairly unknown in many developing countries, including South Africa. To adequately address tax evasion, it is imperative to determine the tax gap (i.e. the difference between the theoretical tax liability and the actual tax revenue collected). Aim: To estimate the extent and nature of South Africa's personal income tax gap, disaggregating the gap by the type of income (salaried and non-salaried). Setting: The study looks at the South African personal income tax system. Methods: This study employs a micro-simulation approach using data from the Income and Expenditure Survey of South Africa for the periods 2005/2006 and 2010/2011. Results: The findings reveal that South Africa lost tax revenue of R60.1 billion in 2005/2006, and R26.2 bn in 2010/2011 (in 2017 prices). Of the total compliance gap in 2005, 28.5% emanated from taxpayers with salaried income, and 71.5% from non-salaried income taxpayers. In 2010, salaried income taxpayers contributed 1.1% to the total compliance gap. Conclusion: Despite an overall improvement in the individual compliance rate, non-salaried income taxpayers (self-assessment reporting) are the main contributors to South Africa's personal income tax gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a U.S. economic forecast for 1974. The forecast assumes that the war in the Middle East will not directly involve the U.S. and not escalate U.S. defense expenditures significantly. It is predicted that the war will not have a significant impact on the U.S.' output of goods and services. U.S. federal tax rates are not predicted to increase. Federal expenditures are expected to stay stable. Experts predict that the Federal Reserve System will move to a moderate and less restrictive monetary policy.