Overcoming the Impact of Corruption through Diligence: The Experience of Russian Female Managers

This article proposes that managerial time spent dealing with regulations, in addition to being a reflection of regulatory burden, can also be partially accounted by managerial strategy and propensity to “play by the rules” rather than rely on informal corrupt means to solve business problems in Russia. Using top-manager gender as a proxy for such behaviors, the study finds that firms headed by female managers are more likely to devote more time to dealing with regulations, and to protect their interests in courts. Such firms are less likely to be in a situation where corrupt requests are made, and also minimize corruption impact such as relative size of payments, when actually exposed to corruption pressures. It appears that there are non-spurious gender effect persisting after controlling for multiple firm- and region- level variables. With regards to managerial time spent on dealing with regulations in particular, it appears that the gender effects are reflected in differential responses to corrupt pressures (e.g. spending more time dealing with regulations), but increase in time tax by itself does not appear to limit impact of corruption, except waiting times for operating license, which are shortened. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

监狱生产税收政策研究

监狱生产作为一项公共产品本不涉及纳税问题。然而,我国的监狱生产借助了监狱企业这样的组织形式,并且随着市场经济的发展,现代社会的多元需求将逐渐打破监狱生产国营的垄断地位,不同所有制形式的组织将会介入监狱生产,使监狱生产面临更加复杂的纳税问题。借鉴国外政府对监狱生产的扶持政策,对探讨我国监狱生产税收政策有一定意义。     

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。     

Editor’s Note

Over the past two decades, China’s tax law reform has become a highly valued and distinguished area for earnestly advancing Chinese socialist rule of law construction. With the establishment of the principle on strengthening legality of imposing tax, as well as new settings regarding China’s social and economic development, the administration and management of tax collection and protection of taxpayers’ well-being gradually and vigilantly attain responsiveness from top national legislators and scholars. Meanwhile, the efforts exerted by tax administers on fighting tax evasion have been elevated on both international and domestic grounds. For example, a focal area is the evaluation and collection of presumptive tax which is a common routine for administers around the world. Moreover, the current laws and regulations on administering tax collection invite a rigorous process of revision and modification with contemporary conceptions of taxpayers’ well-being. This article argues that, through the example of presumptive tax collection, the administration and management of tax collection should adhere to the basic principles of protecting taxpayers and advancing the goals of de-administrating arduous procedures to conform to new trends of social and economic development. It also proposes that the vigor and dynamics of tax collection efforts should coincide with national goals of reformulating the individual income tax collection mechanisms, solidifying the national conversion of business tax to value-added tax, matching with the new wave of bankruptcy of certain enterprises, and so forth.     

对完善我国《个人所得税法》的思考

随着中国社会经济的发展,个人所得税在调节个人收入,维护社会公平方面的重要意义将更加凸显.我国现行的《个人所得税法》存在的主要问题有:税制模式不能体现纳税人税负的公平合理;个人所得税的征收范围窄,不利于发挥税收的调节作用;费用扣除标准的设定不合理;税率设定复杂显失公平;税收征管缺乏力度;全社会依法纳税的意识依然淡薄,纳税义务人故意隐瞒收入.其改进方案包括:选择合理的税制模式;拓宽个人所得税的征税范围,减少减免税项目;调整费用扣除标准;税率调整;加强税收源头控制,防止税款流失;加大对偷漏个人所得税行为的查处、打击力度,维护法律的严肃性.通过有针对性的改革,进一步修改、完善适合我国社会主义市场经济发展需求的科学的《个人所得税法》.     

Ukrainian kleptocrats and America's real-life House of Cards: Corruption,lobbyism and the rule of law

Washington DC is not only a center for democracy promotion programs by government-funded and private foundations and think tanks. Washington DC has also attracted hundreds of millions of dollars for lobbyists, political consultants and think tanks from authoritarian political forces and kleptocrats who have little in common with American and European values. Both Republicans and Democrats have been recipients of these illicit funds from state officials and oligarchs who are seeking to ingratiate themselves with American public opinion. Political consultants, lobbyists, lawyers and think tanks which receive funds from such sources are part of a bigger problem of reverse corruption and cynicism and the export of authoritarian practices from Ukraine and post-Soviet states to the West. This was clearly seen in the hiring of Paul Manafort, Viktor Yanukovych's long-time political consultant by US presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump's promise to ‘drain the (Washington) swamp’ rings hollow after it was revealed he accepted funds from a Ukrainian oligarch who had earlier donated funds to the Clinton's (Reader 2016).     

税收立宪的价值及其在我国的运用

西方国家通过税收立宪,实现了国家征税权的宪法限制、私有财产权的宪法地位、纳税人权利的宪法保障,最终走上了宪政发展的道路。我国宪法税收条款缺失,没有规定税收法定原则,行政机关成为税收立法权和执行权的中心,使得征税权在我国成为几乎不受约束的权力。我国宪法对于私有财产权与公有财产权实行不平等保护,只规定了纳税人义务内容而没有规定权利内容,导致纳税人权益无从得到切实保障。税收立宪的价值就在于通过限制国家征税权来保障人权并实现宪政。     

Simplification： A single tax and a single entitlement

The United States is experiencing a very serious economic downturn. It is now necessary to consider some significant changes in government policy. The system of revenue collection should be simplified with a single tax levied and itemized at the national, state, and local levels. Likewise, the system of benefit distribution should be simplified with a single entitlement paid to each individual at every level with absolutely no strings attached. Such simplification would save a massive amount of time and money even if it was neutral in terms of overall revenue and expenditure. And, it would minimize fraud, waste and abuse. The gains in efficiency and accountability would be enormous.     

'Sharing the Proceeds of Growth': Conservative Economic Policy under David Cameron

Upon becoming Conservative leader, David Cameron, and his Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, initially sought to compete with Labour by pledging increased expenditure on education and the NHS, and thereby insisting that tax cuts would have to wait. Rather than cutting taxation overall, the emphasis was on restructuring and simplifying Britain's tax system, and shifting the burden towards the better off, mainly thorough promoting environmental taxes. However, the economic collapse at the end of 2008 has prompted the Conservatives to modify this new economic stance, by insisting that they will no longer match Labour's planned increases in public expenditure, but, instead, will increase it at a lower rate. This is intended to reduce the need to increase government borrowing during the recession, and thereby ensure that when the economy recovers, the proceeds of economic growth can be shared between higher public expenditure and lower taxation, rather than being spent on repaying government debt for many years ahead.     

UK Governance: From Overloading to Freeloading

The UK's ongoing political turbulence has prompted a reprise of debates from the 1970s when many concluded the country was ungovernable. Then, the most influential diagnosis conceptualised the UK's governance problem as one of ‘overloading’ caused by the electorate's excessive expectations. This article argues that these accounts overlooked another phenomenon besieging UK governance during this period. This phenomenon was freeloading: the withering of government capacity deriving from the ability of actors to enjoy the benefits of citizenship without altogether contributing to the cost. In the interim, these problems have become endemic, not least because of the unspoken but discernible policy of successive governments to turn the UK into a tax haven. High‐profile scandals involving prominent individuals and corporations, plus the failure to clamp down on them have reinforced the perception that the UK's political system is geared towards the rich and the powerful at the expense of the marginalised majority.