Tax Amnesties and the Self-Selection of Risk-Averse Taxpayers

In this paper we model taxpayers participation in an unexpected tax amnesty, which can be entered by paying a fixed amount. Taxpayers are characterized by a Constant Relative Risk Aversion (CRRA) utility function and differ in relative risk aversion coefficient and in income. We show that amnesties may fail as a self-selective device to fully separate big from small evaders and to extract resources from the former. Only taxpayers whose relative risk aversion falls within a given interval participate, while those whose evasion is too small or too large do not enter. The model is used to estimate relative risk aversion and tax evasion of participants in 1991 and 1994 Italian income tax amnesties.JEL Classification: H260, D890, K420     

Tax Disputes under Institutional Instability: Theory and Implications

This article aims to offer the first structural analysis of tax disputes under institutional instability using a core element of the international tax regime as an example. It offers a theory grounded on Mancur Olson's seminal contribution to group dynamics, the logic of collective action. It also suggests implications of this theory that might help to address key enforcement issues faced by the international tax regime in a frequent context worldwide: institutionally unstable countries.     

激励创新抑或损害公益：避税方法专利的是与非

避税方法专利作为一种特殊的商业方法专利,近年来在美国逐渐兴起和发展。对于其利弊得失,引起美国各界的广泛关注和激烈讨论。争论的焦点涉及激励创新与促进公共福利、维护税负公平等公共政策的冲突。由于相关各方利益不同,导致对其采取不同的立场。这必然对避税方法专利的未来发展产生影响。     

海南自由贸易港间接税优惠的WTO合规性审视

建立对标世界最高开放形态的海南自由贸易港,是我国扩大开放的重大战略。为此,相关规定为海南自由贸易港货物贸易提供了多种税收优惠,但WTO《补贴与反补贴协定》将政府放弃应征收的收入纳入补贴,从而为此类税收优惠埋下了WTO合规隐患。在自贸港间接税优惠中,自贸港企业“两头在外”生产加工所用原辅料免税,貌似与WTO《补贴与反补贴协定》禁止的出口补贴相契合,但因符合该协定第1项注释规定的补贴例外,并不构成补贴。然而,由于生产设备作为资本货物不符合该项补贴例外,故自贸港企业自用生产设备进口免税易被认定为补贴。对此,海南应行使自贸港法规制定权,建立适用于自贸港的税制和税率,以避免专向性补贴。此外,进口料件加工增值内销免征关税,与《中国加入WTO议定书》的内容相悖,亦易被认定为进口替代补贴。欲避免之,需要变自贸港增值比例要求为自贸港原产地要求,并进行配套改革。     

Negotiating the Boundaries of Crime and Culture: A Sociolegal Perspective on Cultural Defense Strategies

In this article 1 offer a principled strategy for the courts to identify and to handle the uses of culture as a defense in a criminal proceeding. I begin by discussing the relationship between culture and behavior illuminated by sociologists of culture. I then explain the three categories into which cultural defenses fall–cultural reason, cultural requirement, and cultural tolerance–and the response of criminal courts in the United States to each. I argue that where culture offers an alternative explanation of the defendant's intent, it is highly relevant to determinations of criminal liability. However, where a defendant uses culture only to explain why he wanted to harm the victim and asks that the court be tolerant of such behavior, considerations of culture should not be allowed. In reaching this conclusion, I draw on theories of multiculturalism to consider the benefits and burdens of maintaining the facade of a "cultureless" criminal law in an increasingly heterogeneous society.     

从法医角度看医疗纠纷及其产生的原因与防范

从医疗纠纷鉴定人角度研究医疗纠纷,为相关机构防范医疗纠纷提供思路。医疗纠纷是多种原因引起的,一般采用诉讼方式解决。法医在医疗纠纷的解决中扮演重要角色。在医疗纠纷鉴定中要判定诊疗行为对患者造成的损害后果,判定诊疗行为是否存在医疗过失,判定医疗过失与损害后果之间的因果关系．正确地进行死因分析和证据的取舍认定。在引起医疗纠纷的原因中,以技术性、责任心、医患交流不足等方面的原因居多。医护人员应提高自身的业务水平、责任心及服务质量;加强医患交流,建立畅通的医患沟通渠道;增强自我法律防护意识,建立健全的医疗规章管理制度。     

疫情对建设工程施工合同纠纷案件审理的影响及对策

新冠肺炎疫情暴发对建筑房地产市场产生较大影响,如复工日被迫延期,人材机费价格普遍上涨等。反映在司法领域,体现为疫情具有何种法律属性,工期能否及如何顺延,合同能否以及在何种情况下可以变更或解除,相关费用或损失如何负担等等,需要及时研究应对。本文分析后认为,疫情需结合个案及当事人诉请判定,构成不可抗力时可顺延工期,并对顺延工期具体认定作出分析;疫情构成情势变更的,承包人可得主张合同变更或解除;因疫情引起的赶工费、消毒防疫措施费、必要看护费等应由发包人承担,其他人工机械等停工损失可由双方协商确定,协商不成的应各自承担;疫情一般不影响工程(进度)款的支付,未按期支付应当承担违约责任。     

正确处理征税人与纳税人的关系是构建和谐社会的重要物质和社会基础

刘隆亨教授为我国著名税法专家,曾主持过多次税法研究课题。现为北京税法研究中心主任、中国财税法学研究会会长、中国法学会西部开发研究会会长、北京联合大学经济法研究所所长。     

医疗纠纷的法律误区与建立医疗纠纷仲裁制度的探讨

医疗纠纷是当今社会的热点问题之一,由于我国医疗纠纷在法律属性的界定上存在误区,致使医疗纠纷解决机制严重滞后,医患关系日趋紧张,卫生立法及配套改革显得刻不容缓。本文在分析医疗纠纷产生的原因及医患关系的法律属性的基础上,对建立我国医疗纠纷仲裁制度进行了探讨。     

人类基因财产权的确立——争议和实践

理论和实践界关于人类基因财产权存在一定争议。实质保障人的自由意志,真正体现人格尊严,是对人类基因确立财产权的道德和法理依据。对基因财产权的确立,可以促进生物科技的发展,最终造福于人类。建立人类基因财产权,从法制角度,需要在立法、司法领域明确权利内容和权利实现方式。在法制相对不健全的情形下,私人主体的契约安排是合理的补充和救济方式,具有重要的实践意义。     

论出口退税制度的法理基础--税收中性与税收调控的结合

中性税收,作为针对税收超额负担提出的一项原则,在实践中指导着税制的设计。出口退税是一项国际上通行的税收规则,它既要符合税收中性的要求,又要实现税收的调控职能。我国于2004年1月正式实施的新的出口退税制度既完善了总体税制又体现了国家的产业政策,力图实现税收中性与税收调控的有机结合。     

Negotiating Durable Solutions for Refugees: A Critical Space for Semiotic Analysis

Despite the proliferation of specialised agencies designed to reduce the prevalence of refugees worldwide, the number of individuals fleeing persecution is increasing year on year as endemic violence in countries such as Iraq, Somalia and the Syrian Arab Republic continues. As a result, media broadcasts and political dialogues are saturated with discussions about these “persons of concern”. Fundamental questions nonetheless remain unanswered about what meaning these actors attribute to the label ‘refugee’ and what intent, other than paucity of knowledge, might be driving the term’s use or manipulation. Though this is evidently important in the public arena, where incorrect conflations fuel mistrust and misunderstandings, the ramifications of these divergent understandings at the level of multi-lateral politics have yet to be critically explored. This article applies Barthes’ theory of the multiple orders of the sign to address this. Using the case study of the negotiations preceding the invocation of the Cessation Clause for Rwandan refugees, it illustrates how the word refugee is susceptible to numerous, simultaneous understandings, and discusses the implications of these manifold interpretations for how durable solutions are envisaged and negotiated in the refugee regime. In the case of Rwandan refugees in Uganda, this has meant that over a decade of stalemated discussions between the Governments of Uganda and Rwanda and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees over their future have been broken by a series of bilateral concessions that, whilst diminishing the political significance attached to this protracted caseload, have failed to address the continuing precarity of their situation. By conceptualising the word refugee as a sign according to the Saussurean model of semiotics, this paper therefore argues that despite the term’s established legal-normative definition, its inherent malleability makes it susceptible to processes of political instrumentalisation. This elevates the refugee as a rhetorical figure above the refugee as a physical-legal body entitled to certain forms of assistance.     

再论医疗纠纷的法医学鉴定--兼评《医疗事故处理条例》

结合有关法律法规、文献和个人体会,论述<医疗事故处理条例>颁布实行以来医疗纠纷技求鉴定和处理的某些问题,指出医疗纠纷法医学司法技求鉴定对公正公平处理医疗纠纷的必要性和可行性.     

行政纠纷与民事纠纷的纠结与求解

行政与民事交叉案件日益增多,囿于法律依据不明,司法指导不一,实践中审判思路各异,做法不同,案件中经常出现当事人诉权得不到保障,法院权威受到挑战的情况,使公平和效率的实现大打折扣。因此积极探索行政与民事交叉案件的审理机制极为迫切。为了降低诉讼的成本,提高司法效率,合并或附带审理是一种更为可行的选择。对此,需把握原则,由点到面,类型化突破,还需建设专门的行政纠纷与民事纠纷交叉案件审判合议庭制度。     

Should we trust the gatekeepers?: Auditors’ and lawyers’ liability for clients’ misconduct

Many corporate scandals of the past years (Enron, Worldcom) have made apparent the essential role of professional service providers, such as auditors, corporate lawyers, and securities analysts, in detecting and revealing corporate misconduct on the part of their clients [Coffee, J., Jr. (2006). Gatekeepers. The role of the professions in corporate governance. Oxford University Press]. Political and legal responses in the aftermath of those scandals have increased the level of regulatory intervention upon auditors and lawyers. For instance, several measures were introduced in the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and were recommended by the European Commission.The imposition of duties of care and reporting on gatekeepers, conditional on their having observed an underlying wrongdoing or misconduct of their clients, is, however, more complicated at a theoretical level than believed by policymakers and commentators. Using framework similar to the one we have recently employed to analyze heterogeneous victims in terms of their costs of care [Ganuza, J., & Gomez, F. (2005). Caution, children crossing! Heterogeneity of victim's cost of care and the negligence rule [article 3], Review of Law and Economics, 1], we model the interaction as one in which the gatekeeper observes the state of the world affecting misconduct with a given probability, and Courts or regulators imposing duties or liabilities are unable to verify whether, in fact, misconduct had or not been observed by the lawyer or auditor. The wrongdoing by the client, however, is ex post costlessly verifiable by the Courts or regulators. Information on wrongdoing is thus verifiable but hideable. In this setting, we show that general (albeit maybe increased) standards of professional behavior by auditors or lawyers may well be sufficient as incentives. If those standards can be adequately set by Courts or regulators, in anticipation of the opportunities for strategic behavior derived from the imperfect observation and the unverifiability of actual observation, legal rules do not need to rely on more complex policies of trust or distrust towards the statements, or on the proofs, provided by the gatekeepers, concerning the actual observation of clients’ misbehavior. The implications of the model tend to imply that the distinction between voluntary violation (scienter) of duties, and mere negligence, contrary to existing Law, is not very useful in this context.     

税收征管质效与税务稽查体系建设

分税制财政体制改革后的20多年来，随着税制改革的不断深入及征管模式的优化调整．我国的税收工作取得了一定的成绩。税务稽查作为税收征管的最后一道防线，对维护税法的严肃性，保证税款的及时入库，发挥了重要作用。因此，对税务稽查模式的深入探讨，有助于提高税收征管效能。