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Abstract Outside of direct fiscal policy effects, the rise in inequality may be attributed to the demand for highly skilled labor rising more rapidly than its supply, as well as [...]

Civilizations rise and fall based on the effectiveness of their socio-political arrangements and institutions. The institutions that matter most are the laws and customs that govern 1) production and exchange of goods (trade), 2) land tenure and the distribution of the surplus associated with it, 3) the levying of taxes to provide public goods and services, and 4) the monetary systems adopted to facilitate such activities. If those institutions distribute the benefits of civilization equitably to all members of society, the result is likely to be peace and prosperity. However, if the rules of a society are designed to protect the interests of an elite, conflict is likely to ensue. Unrestricted trade across national borders ('free trade') has the potential to produce socially beneficial outcomes, but it is not sufficient to overcome systemic injustices associated with flawed systems of land tenure, taxation, and monetary management. This article makes use of historical examples to examine trade in relation to the other institutions to show why just social arrangements must be considered an essential part of trade policy.

What is the relationship between taxation and public safety? Contrary to studies suggesting that personal victimization and heightened perceptions of insecurity increase pro-social attitudes and support for state intervention in the form of greater taxation, this article argues that such concerns decrease willingness to pay taxes to address public safety. It estimates what citizens are willing to pay to reduce crime, using an original representative survey conducted in Mexico and relying on the contingent valuation method to assess the value of nonmarket goods. Attitudes toward taxation are found to respond to subjective, sociotropic assessments of public safety rather than to actual risk or occurrences of individual victimization. These findings counter the conventional wisdom that demand for personal security enables greater extraction, a central proposition in classic accounts of state building. Showing that willingness to accept heavier taxation may be weakest among those who perceive the gravest need for security, the study adds precision to theories of fiscal exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords Market experiment; Pigouvian taxation; Negative externality; Peer effects; Vote Despite the efficacy of Pigouvian taxes, governments often find them surprisingly controversial to implement. Evidence suggests the reason may be their complexity, which stems from the delay of externality. This paper studies whether communication among peers can promote public support for Pigouvian taxation. Using a market experiment with time-delayed negative externalities, we find that support for Pigouvian taxation increases when tax supporters can explain their position to other voters. We show that the peer effects cannot be explained by simple imitation or compliance, but are more likely to be driven by social learning. Our findings provide converging evidence for the role of complexity in the lack of support for Pigouvian taxes. These results point to the importance of giving voice and visibility to members of the general public who support efficient but complex tax policies. Author Affiliation: (a) Economics Experimental Laboratory, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China (b) Department of Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia * Corresponding author. Article History: Received 27 May 2020; Revised 22 March 2021; Accepted 15 April 2021 (footnote) We gratefully acknowledge the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP160102743) for funding this research. Byline: Lingbo Huang [lingbo.huang@outlook.com] (a), Erte Xiao [erte.xiao@monash.edu] (b,*)

This study examines the conditions under which local social environments are likely to influence corporate tax behavior. Using a social capital index at the county level, we find that on average, social capital reduces firms' aggressive tax avoidance behavior. The impact of social capital on corporate tax avoidance is weaker when managers are under excessive pressure to meet earnings targets, during the periods of financial constraints, and when managers are incentivized to undertake risk. We further find that corporate tax avoidance activities engaged by firms headquartered in high-social-capital counties tend to be less value-increasing, indicating that potential social sanctions in these areas may reduce the benefits of tax avoidance activities accrue to firms. However, the negative impact of tax avoidance on firm value in high-social-capital counties tends to be lower for firms with strong corporate governance, which suggests that managers in well-governed firms can better exploit tax avoidance opportunities. Overall, our evidence is consistent with our conjecture that although the local social environments have a significant influence on corporate tax behavior, this influence is fragile in the presence of excessive earnings pressure, financial constraints, and equity risk incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between income inequality and redistributive policies? This question carries with it important implications for both scholars of comparative politics and for core political dynamics in contemporary world politics. We contend that the current literature fails to provide satisfactory answers. It generally does not acknowledge heterogeneity in the relationship between inequality and redistributive policies across space and time, nor does it use cross-nationally comparable data on government redistribution and income. In this note, we compare the relationship between inequality and redistribution over time, as well as among clusters of developed and less developed countries. We use a number of statistical models to address the complexity of the relationship.We find a positive, short-term association between inequality and redistribution, controlling for endogeneity between redistribution and market income inequality. We also find that, over the long term, inequality increases redistribution in developed democracies, but appears to decrease it in a number of developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presented paper focuses on measuring tax literacy among bachelor degree students at the University of Economics, Prague, along with analysis of the two factors that influence it. Based on the 150 collected questionnaires (63 % response rate), we measured tax literacy of students (personal income tax and VAT) and examined whether it depends on (i) previous passing of tax courses and (ii) previous practical experience with filing tax returns. More than half of the students were well to excellently-versed in tax matters, including those who have not completed any more advanced tax courses apart from the elementary tax course. For VAT, the results of statistical tests show that students' knowledge depends on passing a more advanced course on consumption taxation. On the other hand, the link between experience with tax returns and results of tax literacy tests cannot be unambiguously confirmed or rejected. Within the first statistical test (personal income tax), it was established that students' knowledge does not depend on previous filing of tax returns; the second test (value added tax) led to the opposite conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corrective taxes have been implemented in a number of countries with the aim of addressing growing concern about the rise in obesity and diet-related diseases. The rationale is that food consumption imposes costs on the consumer in the future that they do not fully take into account at the point of consumption ('internalities'). Corrective taxes have the potential to improve welfare by reducing suboptimally high consumption. We review the literature on the size of these internalities and on the optimal corrective tax, which depends on the patterns of internalities, the price responsiveness of consumers and on redistributive aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate how the salience of alternatives influences the attention of a decision maker in a natural extension of the model of choice with limited attention by Masatlioglu et al. (Am Econ Rev 102(5):2183-2205, 2012). We propose positive salience effects on the attention of a decision maker. For example, when an alternative to which a consumer pays attention becomes more salient in terms of the extent of product advertisement, she will still pay attention to it in a market. We manipulate the salience of alternatives to find choice reversals from observable choice data, which play an important role in our analysis. The advantages of our model over the Masatlioglu et al. (Am Econ Rev 102(5):2183-2205, 2012) model are that it broadens the application of the model of choice with limited attention, and improves the power of inferring the decision maker's preference and the alternatives to which she pays attention and does not pay attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commitment is assumed to be a type of motivation that influences taxpayer behaviour. Generally, commitment is defined as an obliging force that gives direction to behaviour. This is experienced as a mind-set which in turn characterise different dimensions of commitment. These dimensions, namely affective, normative and continuance commitment, have not previously been investigated in a tax compliance behaviour context. The present paper aims to conceptualise these dimensions and proposes a model of commitment that will help us to understand taxpayers' compliance. Empirical findings confirm the prevalence of the affective and continuance dimensions in the population surveyed, while the normative dimension could not be distinguished. The results endorse the validity of the role of commitment in tax compliance behaviour and warrant further investigation into the presence of the three dimensions of taxpayer commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many seniors pay taxes on their Social Security benefits due to a provision in the program's 1983 reform, under which the portion of benefits that's taxable rises with total income. This tax structure can impose high marginal rates on seniors even if their other income sources are modest. These high marginal rates, in turn, can determine whether beneficiaries decide to keep working or retire. Research suggests that several policy alternatives are more likely to keep seniors in the workforce and to generate more revenue for the Social Security Trust Fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1480, the inhabitants of Beauvoir-sur-Mer and Bois-de Céné, two small towns on the Atlantic coast of Poitou, in France, rebelled against the officials in charge of collecting the salt tax and arrested some of them. Despite the fact that the resulting civil disturbance had few long-lasting consequences, the case is an effective illustration of the dynamics of rural revolts at the end of the fifteenth century. This article demonstrates how violence was only the last stage of protest against royal taxation; the riots had been preceded by legal resistance and negotiations. The article also shows how the events were permeated and fuelled by judicial complexity and a climate of legal uncertainty surrounding the rights of French officials to collect the tax. These revolts must then be understood not simply as a reaction to excessive taxation, but more as self-defence against royal officials who refused to acknowledge the rights of the inhabitants of these towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.11.009 Byline: Nigar Hashimzade, Gareth D. Myles, Matthew D. Rablen Abstract: The literature on audit strategies has focused on random audits or on audits conditioned only on income declaration. In contrast, tax authorities employ the tools of predictive analytics to identify taxpayers for audit, with a range of variables used for conditioning. The paper explores the compliance and revenue consequences of the use of predictive analytics in an agent-based model that draws upon a behavioral approach to tax compliance. The taxpayers in the model form subjective beliefs about the probability of audit from social interaction, and are guided by a social custom that is developed from meeting other taxpayers. The belief and social custom feed into the occupational choice between employment and two forms of self-employment. It is shown that the use of predictive analytics yields a significant increase in revenue over a random audit strategy. Author Affiliation: (a) Durham University and Tax Administration Research Centre, UK (b) University of Exeter and Tax Administration Research Centre, UK (c) Brunel University London and Tax Administration Research Centre, UK Article History: Received 12 June 2014; Revised 24 October 2015; Accepted 19 November 2015 Article Note: (footnote) [star] We thank two guest editors; an anonymous referee; the participants of the Taxation, Social Norms and Compliance Conference (Nuremberg) and the Shadow Economy, Tax Evasion and Governance Conference (Munster); and seminar audiences at Brunel and Tulane for their helpful comments. We are grateful to the ESRC for financial support under grant ES/K005944/1.

The article focuses on the issues of free-play tax deductions in the U.S. Topics discussed include analysis of the structure of gross gaming revenue taxes; an account of existing free-play tax policies in the country; and evaluation of tax policies in the light of social welfare, and patrons of the casinos.

Liberal welfare states tend to use more social tax expenditures (STEs) for the provision of social welfare benefits. These benefits are incorporated into tax legislations, which are usually considered neutral and especially gender-neutral. However, they can fail to consider some characteristics of the situation that women face and their role and, therefore, have the possibility to marginalize women and be an obstacle to gender equality. By conducting a historical discourse analysis in Canada (1967-2012), this article shows that the tax policy discourse in relation to STEs is not gender-neutral. In constructing STEs, various assumptions are made about women and their role in society: they are housewives, workers, or to be eventually completely evacuated from the discourse to the profit of children and the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social disparities have a common and consistent character in the vast majority of contemporary countries. The level of income inequality in OECD countries has grown in the past 30 years and is still rising. Taxes and tax systems, aside from social transfers, are fiscal instruments widely used in compensation policy. The aim of the article is to define the optimal structure of tax systems (i.e. the share of different tax categories in tax revenues) in terms of narrowing income disparities. To achieve this aim, scatter diagrams have been used. For the purpose of the article a tentative hypothesis has been formulated that the optimal tax system in terms of narrowing income disparities is characterised by a relatively large share of Personal Income Tax and at the same time a relatively low share of consumption taxes in tax revenues. The detailed analysis is focused on the countries for which the full data is available. The group of countries covers some 'old' member states of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom), the South- -East European countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia) as well as non-EU countries (Canada and Iceland). These countries represent different levels of socio-economic development and, as a result, the variety of situations concerning the distribution of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Accounting Analysis Journal (AAJ) is the property of Jurusan Akuntansi, Fakultas Ekonomi, Universitas Negeri Semarang 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.)

The article looks at the social and economic conditions of New Orleans, Louisiana and comments on the city's tax system. It notes the high rates of poverty experienced by its residents, especially children and minority communities, food insecurity, and wage gap between women and male employees. It talks about the role of the tax structure in contributing to the issues. Information on the efforts of Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS) to assist low-income taxpayers is also presented.

Some commentators have lamented that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is undertheorized--that its purpose is unclear--and that its design is therefore suboptimal. This Note explores the credit's path-dependent past, which has resulted in a present-day EITC that manifests a diverse, uncoordinated assortment of policy purposes. Although the EITC's ambiguity of purpose may yield policy inefficiencies, this Note argues that it also produces significant political benefits that would-be reformers who value the EITC's many societal benefits should take into account before they attempt to enact any major overhaul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framing tax increases as frequent purchases appears to be a popular message strategy to generate donations and elicit support for policies. We test whether this strategy is effective at obtaining support for tax increases through two survey experiments. Results demonstrate that this message strategy—framing tax increases in terms of items—is more effective than stating the increase in terms of a yearly or weekly amount. This strategy appears to be effective when the amount of a tax increase is framed as a hedonic item and appears to be particularly effective as the tax amount requested increases and among those uninvolved with the issue under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fiscal sociology has alleged the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at Benin, a low-income country that successfully democratised in the early 1990s. It finds that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratisation. However, the effect of democratisation has been indirect, while the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFI) and the size of the country's informal sector have played a more direct role. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation is based on a quasi-consensual relationship between the state and the taxpayers finds some confirmation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduced in the late 1990s, tax credits grew under successive Labour governments to become a cornerstone of UK social policy. Distinguished from traditional welfare policies by their target group and their mode of administration, and with goals that appeared capable of commanding support across the ideological spectrum, tax credits until recently seemed to hold the key to tackling poverty in a politically popular manner. But since 2010 the tax credit system has been systematically dismantled, initially qualitatively and latterly also quantitatively. This paper discusses the multiple factors that help to explain the rapid fall from grace in the UK of this liberal approach to supporting the incomes of poor working households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the history of taxation and the fairness of taxes for those whom it is levied upon. It offers an overview of government taxes and the extent to which they are justified, the taxation system of the Roman empire and the tax proposed by British prime minister William Pitt to fight the war against Napoleon. The author also discusses the income tax adopted by the U.S. to fight the civil war.

The present work considers the level of demonstrated happiness and unhappiness within groups, the latter measured by the conditional probability of suicide within groups facing an income tax rate and those without. Using US data for the year 2004, our results show that individuals have lower rates of suicide or are 'happy' when they do not pay income taxes than those who pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a formal model of international bargaining between two states in which one government must negotiate with a domestic opposition faction to secure tax revenue for military spending. The model examines how robust the international order is to domestic political crises that activate a stark trade-off to a governing coalition. Namely, offering fiscal relief to stave off domestic revolution can simultaneously undermine the larger international political order by facilitating military spending that can, under some circumstances, result in sizable shifts in the relative distribution of military power between states. We find that two key domestic conditions influence the likelihood of preventive war: the distribution of income within the state's economy and the relative economic stake that opposition groups possess in international settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyzes tax revenues by assessing their significance and influence factors. The largest share in State budget revenues is owned by tax revenues. Their importance is reflected both in the leadership - the government and the taxpayer, both being concerned about the ability to cover budget expenditure and investing in the quality of social life. Thus, at the end we tried to answer the question "How can we increase tax revenues?". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Law & Economics / Studia Prawno-Ekonomiczne is the property of Lodz Scientific Society / Lodzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe 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.)

This article argues that human rights could be improved by motivating politicians and bureaucrats to put more effort into protecting human rights. It conceptualizes the production of human rights practices as the outcome of two principal-agent relationships that constrain politicians and bureaucrats. Reliance on taxes is a non-electoral, fiscal factor that makes politicians more willing to protect human rights. Increased government revenue, no matter the source, raises bureaucratic compensation and helps create a more accountable bureaucracy. Thus both a higher reliance on taxes and larger state revenues lead to the better protection of human rights. Each fiscal factor promotes a different type of accountability, both of which independently contribute to good human rights practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes the importance of social and political contexts and individual value norms in tax morale. It introduces an approach to discuss tax morale with the notions of 'insider' and 'outsider' to capture socio-political context and personal value orientations. It constructs a general framework on tax compliance in socio-political context and analytically and statistically demonstrates the importance of identities and personal norms to explain the level of tax morale. Statistical results of an estimated logistics regression model from the World Value Survey data are generally consistent with hypothetical expectations. Results from the analysis indicate that social capital and political confidence are significant in order to estimate the level of tax morale. Moreover, individual reciprocal tendency, sensitiveness to expectations of others, collectivist orientation, and obedience tendency of authority are important determinants of tax morale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]