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Purpose This study aims to analyze tax revenue in the presence of double tax treaties affecting social welfare of the inhabitants in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) developing economies, whose fiscal regimes are being branded as responsible for exacerbating poverty for the inhabitants. This paper seeks to determine if double tax treaties are negatively impacting on human development of the host countries. Design/methodology/approach This study analyses 21 SSA countries from 1996 to 2016 using panel models and bootstrapped quantile regression. It uses a devised mathematical model which introduces the interaction between tax revenue and double tax treaties and measures the social welfare impact using the human development index (HDI). Findings The findings have broadly shown that (i) the net effect from the complementarity between tax revenue and double tax treaty (DTTs) in influencing the human development is for the most part negative (ii) the impact of tax revenue from international trade has the most positive net effect as compared to other tax revenues when interacted with the DTT and (iii) the DTT complements the tax revenue from income, profits and capital gains to progressively increase human development in the upper quartiles of HDI. Research limitations/implications This study has examined how the presence of double tax treaties has impacted the effect of tax revenue on human development in 21 SSA countries for the period 1996–2016. A mathematical model was devised and bootstrapped quantile regression was used owing to the specificities of the sample. In accordance with recent literature on net effects, the results were interpreted. Practical implications It is evident that further research is required on whether double tax treaties are indirectly responsible for poverty on the rise in SSA countries or on the contrary, they bring FDI alongside with other positive spillovers which in the end contribute to a rise in the human development aspect of societies in developing host economies. Social implications The HDI is an important measure used nowadays for human development as a proxy for social welfare. This research will use an HDI mathematical model devised by Sinha and Sengupta (2019) and adapt it to the context to testing econometrically whether double tax treaties have an impact on welfare or poverty reduction. The empirical results will help determine whether tax treaties are impacting the social welfare positively or negatively. Originality/value This result is the first research attempt to consider both the impact of tax revenue (which is expected to have a positive impact on social welfare of the people of the host developing countries) and the impact of double tax treaties simultaneously. It is the first empirical study focusing on the impact of tax revenue on human development in the presence of double tax treaties. Its methodology is original and adds to the current literature to benefit policymakers and academia.

This paper examines the impact of foreign direct investments on environment degradation in the SIDS group by using a sample of six small island developing states for the time period 2004-2014. It provides a better understanding on the relationship between FDI inflows with its control variables and environment pollution. The results show that there is no positive and significant relationship between FDI and CO2 emissions, that is, FDI has no negative impact on the environment. This outcome was contrary to our expectations but can be attributed and explained by the fact that FDI are perceived as the main sources of cleaner advanced technology and sustainable modes of production to the SIDS. The results indicate that a rise in FDI does not lead to a significant increase in the levels of CO2 emissions in SIDS countries. In other words, foreign investments do not appear to facilitate the growth of pollution havens in amongst the SIDS. Furthermore, the combined effects of the fixed effect model and SUR suggests that FDI and its control variables do not contribute to the higher level of CO2 emissions in SIDS economies. A possible explanation for this optimistic finding is that FDI may help emerging economies like the small islands developing states to modernize and upgrade the quality of their capital stock and such technology effects may translate into lower air pollution. The results are consistent with Liang (2006), Pao and Tsai (2011), Fereidouni (2013) and Hassaballa (2013) who argued that FDI does not increase pollution levels the results provide useful information to policymakers of these small island developing states, as it suggests that these countries can concentrate their efforts in attracting higher levels of FDI inflows into their economies. Though there have been several papers which analyzed the FDI-Environment relationship, this is the first one which studied the impact of FDI inflows on environment degradation in the SIDS.

Whether it be in developed or in developing countries, complying with corporate tax is necessary. However, little is known about the behavior and attitudes of corporate tax payers towards tax compliance in Mauritius. Therefore, this paper adapts the theory of planned behavior concept to develop a new model, CT-model, explaining corporate tax payers' attitudes with the inclusion of organizational characteristics, perceived risks, level of understanding and government accountability. A total of 58 companies responded to the survey. Quantitative research was adopted in the study. The methodology used in the study consists of a random sampling. Data are collected from secondary sources such as articles published by the well-known periodicals, books, and dissertations in order to base the construction of the theoretical framework. The population that was considered for this study was a variety of companies involving in different business activities which included those registered as management companies, construction companies, listed companies, banking and finance companies, textile and manufacturing companies, those involve in plantation and services, as well as SMEs, all over Mauritius. Our main findings of this paper confirm that the relation between organizational characteristics, perceived risks, level of understanding and government accountability with attitudes of corporate tax payers is positively correlated, while perception of the burden of tax has no significant relationship with corporate taxpayers' attitudes. The results also show there is a strong, positive correlation between level of understanding and attitudes/compliance, with high levels of corporate tax understanding with higher levels of tax compliance. This implies that if government encourages tax payment and use the money judiciously (Ayee, 2007), then the higher will be the corporate tax compliance. In addition, the higher the perceived risk which is associated if corporate tax is not paid, such as penalties, sanction, reputational risk, then the more companies will abide to corporate tax payment. These results indicate that, the more government shows higher responsibility towards tax, the higher the companies will pay tax, or the simple the tax procedure the more corporations will abide to tax. Results are consistent with Isa (2012) and Sapiei & Kasipillai (2013) who identified that an important corporate taxpayers' compliance variable that influences compliance behavior is tax complexity / understanding. Results also indicate that firm's characteristics such as business size and tax liability influenced compliance while business age and business activity have no impact on compliance.

Taxation has gained considerable attention in the past few year and lot of studies have been done on tax evasion and tax compliance. This study assesses the level of tax and identifies factors that shape tax morale in Mauritius. A self-developed questionnaire was distributed to 250 randomly respondents and a logistic regression analysis was used to analyse data collected. A high degree of tax morale is required to achieve high level of tax compliance. The result shows that socio-demographic and socio economic factors have an impact on tax morale and it can be seen that social norm, fairness and equity, trust in government and in tax authority are determinants that shape tax morale. The findings are in line with that some authors who found out that that there is a positive correlation between inequity and tax evasion. The study recommended that population should be educated, tax system should be simplified, government should be fair and tax authority should respect the population. Key words: Tax evasion, logit model, cross sectional regression, tax morale.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between FDI and environmental regulation. A panel data set of 18 European countries has been used for a time period of 1995 to 2013. The dependent variable is FDI and the independent variables are total environmental tax revenue, gross domestic product, gross capital formation, gross national income, trade openness and carbon dioxide emissions.Used time series data (1995-2013) for empirical analysis. The empirical result is that total environmental tax revenue are positively related with FDI. Trade openness is coherent with FDI which is in line with Demirhan et al. (2008) and Edwards (1990). Gross domestic product and FDI are positively significant and the findings are reliable to the study of Mottaleb et al. (2008) and Hakizimana (2015). Gross capital formation and FDI has a positive relationship which is line with Krkoska (2001) and Awan et al. (2014). Gross national income and FDI has a negative relationship which is reliable to the study of Antwi et al. (2013) but unreliable to Awan et al. (2014). Nevertheless only carbon dioxide emissions has failed to be in line with the expected outcome. This empirical study implies increase in FDI will lead to an increase of total environmental tax revenue that may help the government to control the environment quality of their country by monitoring FDI inflows and a decrease in FDI inflow results in a less polluting environment. Further FDI revenue can boost up economic growth but that will be at the expense of the environment where government should come up with proper contract with the foreign investors in which it must be stated that use of green technology to decrease carbon dioxide emission and use of more environmentally friendly means of transport so that pollution in these countries could be alleviated. Governments should also motivate FDI to adopt lower levels of pollution by providing of subsidies, grants for the acquisition of environmentally friendly products and adopting production schemas which have a low impact on the environment.

Tax is the income which is paid to the government in order to fulfill the need of the public. However tax evasion is the act of not paying the tax by use of illegal ways. Allingham and Sandmo being the first researchers studying the tax evasion found a relationship of tax evasion with low penalty fees and a low detection. The tax evasion basically is affected by various factors but it also affects many economic factors. Sub Saharan Africa being a developing region is facing the phenomenon of tax evasion in a crucial way. This study measures the impact of the tax evasion on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Sub Saharan Africa. The relationship between the GDP per capita and tax evasion is tested using the generalized least squared whereby it is found that there is a positive impact of tax evasion on the GDP per capita however the p-value states that the tax evasion is insignificant and is not an important component for the determination of the GDP per capita. Moreover in the presence of tax evasion, this study shows that GDP per capita has also a negative relationship with the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), positive relationship the Gross Domestic Fixed Capital Formation (GDFCF), a favorable connection with the export, a negative relationship with the import, a positive impact on the inflation and a negative relationship with the government expenditure. To fight against tax evasion for the economic benefit of Sub Saharan Africa, it is advised to review the tax system, to implement strict and severe penalties and very high fines for tax evaders. Moreover, the tax authorities of Sub Saharan Africa need to appoint more experts in auditing department to be able to detect the non-compliance tax payers easily and rapidly Key words: Tax evasion, cross sectional regression, tax morale.

BackgroundIn response to high smoking rates, especially among men, Mauritius launched a National Action Plan on Tobacco Control in 2008. It changed its tax system from a mixed system to a uniform specific system. Despite these interventions, cigarette consumption and smoking prevalence in Mauritius decreased only marginally in the subsequent decade.MethodUsing publicly available data, we decompose the retail price of cigarettes into tax and net-of-tax components, between 2011 and 2017. We cover premium, popular and economy cigarettes.ResultsSince its introduction in 2008, the nominal excise tax was increased six times. Between 2011 and 2017, the real value of the excise tax increased by 47%. Meanwhile, British American Tobacco (BAT) increased the real net-of-tax price of premium cigarettes by 61.8% and of popular cigarettes by 47.2%, thus overshifting the tax increase. On economy cigarettes, BAT decreased the real net-of-tax price by 14.7%, thus undershifting the excise tax increase.ConclusionThrough its pricing strategy, BAT has greatly undermined Mauritius’s tobacco control policy. However, BAT cannot continue undershifting the excise tax on economy brands, since the net-of-tax proportion of the retail price is very low already. BAT would have little choice but to increase the retail price on economy brands in response to future excise tax increases. The government of Mauritius is encouraged to keep the specific excise tax structure but to increase the rate at which it is levied.

This study has made an attempt to investigate and analyze empirically the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the economic growth for a panel of 32 Sub-Saharan African countries during the period 2008-2014. Both static panel regression techniques and dynamic panel estimates were employed to assess the causal link of our regressors, namely, FDI, trade openness, domestic investment, working population size and the effects of the 2009 European debt crisis on our dependent variable, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. The evidence from the statistical analysis suggests that aggregated FDI does have a positive and significant impact on economic growth and is thus consistent with the literature, especially with respect to developing countries. Based on static random effects, the inclusion of the 2009 Euro zone crisis did not diverge the results despite its negative impact on economic growth. The contribution of FDI is observed to be relatively higher than domestic investment.

At the same time as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been encouraging trade liberalized, there has been a proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). These RTAs also aim to reduce trade barriers, but they do so it in a preferential way. There is continued debate as to whether such RTAs are an effective way of achieving free trade, or if increased trade among members causes less trade with non-member countries? If RTAs increase total trade, this is known as ‘trade creation’, whereas if the extra trade occurs at the expense of non-members, this is called ‘trade diversion’. Trade creation implies improved welfare, whereas ‘trade diversion’ may adversely affect welfare. This paper examines five different RTAs using a gravity model to see if they have been trade creating or trade diverting. Annual data from 26 countries covering five RTAs in the Asia and Pacific region for the years 1980–2000 was used. The results show that the effects of the different RTAs varied remarkably. The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Australian and New Zealand Closer Economic Relations (CER) fostered greater trade with trading partners and with the rest of the world. While the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR) and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) tended to be trade diverting, that is, they expanded intra-bloc trade at the expense of trade with others.

This study demonstrates, through the use both qualitative and quantitative data, that there are several factors determining Foreign Direct Investment flows between two countries. A total of 180 accountants were surveyed in this study, whereby the majority of respondents agreed that Capital Gains Tax is an important factor determining FDI flow within a tax treaty but is not the only significant factor. The study also used regression analysis through a gravity equation to confirm the survey’s conclusion. Using Mauritius and a host of its tax treaty partners as proxies, it was found that Gross Domestic Product per capita, Capital Gains Tax, common language and distance were major factors affecting Foreign Direct Investment flow in a bilateral tax treaty. This study gives a good insight on the reasons why foreign investors use the Mauritian tax treaty network as a platform for investment. The main rationale for such investments was attributed to Mauritius offering a 0% Capital Gains Tax rate and being a low tax jurisdiction. However, this study sheds new light on this reasoning and provides evidence that investment does not depend solely on Capital Gains Tax levy but also a host of other important factors.

In recent times a number of countries have initiated some important tax reforms to eliminate the distortions of double taxation. In this context, Australia adopted a dividend imputation system in 1987, while the US employed the 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA). The analysis in this paper examines the effects on the level of corporate capital investment, on proxies for corporate tax rates, financial leverage, liquidity, capital intensity and firm size after controlling for the tax reforms. The empirical results provide evidence that: (1) dividend imputation as introduced in Australia is an effective way to reduce the distortions caused by the traditional system of taxation. (2) Compared with the TRA, dividend imputation has been better able to positively stimulate corporate capital investment. (3) TRA effect on corporate investment is more pronounced in the US for firms having a net operating loss. (4) Individual tax rates play a role in corporate investment decisions in both the US and Australia.