西方典型发达国家物业税发展情况比较研究

物业税是当今中国税制改革的一个热点问题,也是各国税收制度的一项重要内容,由于历史、文化、国情以及经济调控目标各异,各国物业税在征收主体、征税对象、计税方法等方面存在较大差异.比较美、加、日等西方典型发达国家物业税收制度,分析国外物业税的政策趋向,试图将其一些先进方法思想运用到中国的物业税改革中,从而为中国顺利的推行物业税提供借鉴.     

虚开增值税专用发票罪若干问题探析

虚开增值税专用发票罪是我国新刑法规定的一个新罪名。由于本罪具有较强的专业性,刑法的规定也不很清晰,所以,与本罪相关的一些问题在司法实践中引起了争议。比如,虚开增值税专用发票又以此骗取国家税款的行为应如何定性、对虚开增值税专用发票罪是否可以适用死刑等。对此,只有在综合分析后才能得出正确的结论。     

Points for Place: Can State Governments Shape Siting Patterns of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Developments?

There is considerable controversy about the allocation of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Some charge that credits are disproportionately allocated to developments in poor, minority neighborhoods without additional investments and thereby reinforcing patterns of poverty concentration and racial segregation. We examine whether Qualified Allocation Plans, which outline the selection criteria states use when awarding credits, can serve as an effective tool for directing credits to higher opportunity neighborhoods (or neighborhoods that offer a rich set of resources, such as high-performing schools and access to jobs) for states wishing to do so. To answer this question, we study changes in the location criteria outlined in allocation plans for 20 different states across the country between 2002 and 2010, and observe the degree to which those modifications are associated with changes in the poverty rates and racial composition of the neighborhoods where developments awarded tax credits are located. We find evidence that changes to allocation plans that prioritize higher opportunity neighborhoods are associated with increases in the share of credits allocated to housing units in lower poverty neighborhoods and reductions in the share allocated to those in predominantly minority neighborhoods. This analysis provides the first source of empirical evidence that state allocation plans can shape LIHTC siting patterns.     

Gateway to Opportunity? Disparities in Neighborhood Conditions Among Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Residents

A key goal of housing assistance programs is to help lower income households reach neighborhoods of opportunity. Studies have described the degree to which Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments are located in high-opportunity neighborhoods, but our focus is on how neighborhood outcomes vary across different subsets of LIHTC residents. We also examine whether LIHTC households are better able to reach certain types of neighborhood opportunities. Specifically, we use new data on LIHTC tenants in 12 states along with eight measures of neighborhood opportunity. We find that compared with other rental units, LIHTC units are located in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates, weaker labor markets, more polluted environments, and lower performing schools, but better transit access. We also find that compared with other LIHTC tenants, poor and minority tenants live in neighborhoods that are significantly more disadvantaged.     

Why are public offices sold in Kyrgyzstan?

Why are public offices for sale in Kyrgyzstan? To address this question, this article attempts to set out a new logic for understanding the motives, nature, and consequences of corruption in the country. Rather than securing access to a single favor through bribery, officials invest in political and administrative posts in order to obtain access to stream of rents associated with an office. Political and administrative corruption is organically linked in this system, and corruption stems not so much from weak monitoring as from being a franchise-like arrangement, where officials are required to pay continuous “fees” to their bosses. The key is to be the public official influencing the redistribution of rents as well as participating in the informal market where “public” goods are privatized and exchanged for informal payments. Thus, instead of control over the pure economic assets of the state, influence over the state's institutional and organizational framework is the dominant strategy for earning and investing in the country.     

National identity-building and the “Ustaša-nostalgia” in Croatia: the past that will not pass

Most scholarship on post-Communist Croatia claims that the first Croatian president, Franjo Tu?man, intentionally rehabilitated the legacy of the World War II (WWII) Croatian Usta?a and its Nazi-puppet state. The rehabilitation of the Usta?a has been linked to Tu?man’s national reconciliation politics that tended toward a particular “forgetting of the past.” The national reconciliation was conceptualized as a joint struggle of both the Croatian anti-fascist Partisan and the Croatian WWII fascist Usta?a successors to achieve Croatian independence. However, the existing scholarship does not offer a comprehensive explanation of the nexus between national reconciliation and the rehabilitation of the Usta?a. Hence, this article will present how “Usta?a-nostalgia” does not stem from Tu?man’s intentions, but rather from the morphological gap occurring in Tu?man’s nation-building idea. Namely, Tu?man’s condemnation of the entire idea of Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia eventually brought about the perception that any historical agent advocating the idea of an independent Croatia is better than any form of Croatian Yugoslavism. Finally, the article will present how contemporary Croatian society is still seeped in “Usta?a-nostalgia” due to the hesitation of the post-Tu?man Croatian politics to come to terms with the legacy of his national reconciliation politics.     

Tax Compliance as a System: Mapping the Field

Tax evasion is a serious and growing problem all over the world. In most cases, non-compliant tax behavior is associated with tax evasion. Such approach, however, is incomplete. There is a lack of clear definitions of compliance and non-compliance. This article focuses on defining the key terms related to tax compliance and on mapping and systematizing the determinants of tax compliance and proposes a way to develop an administrative strategy for tax compliance. The novelty of the study lies in approaching tax compliance as a systemic whole. A systemic approach to tax compliance as a comprehensive whole could serve as the basis for the tax authority in developing administrative strategies.     

Taxing Digital Economy: A Critical View around the GloBE (Pillar Two)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposal for taxation of digital economy constitutes one of the most ambitious projects in the field of taxation and may lead to the most significant reform to international tax rules in the 20th century. Based on a two-pillar approach, Pillar Two of the proposal suggests the adoption of Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) provisions that are aimed at introducing a worldwide minimum tax. In this article, a critical analysis is based that the GloBE proposal suggests that it represents a shift in the OECD policy. As compared to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), it jeopardizes the tax sovereignty of jurisdictions and it raises fundamental challenges of implementation, both in terms of amendments to domestic law and conflicts with tax treaties.     

Factors Influencing SME Tax Compliance: Evidence from Indonesia

This study examines factors influencing the tax compliance of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for income-tax reporting requirements in Indonesia. Using multiple regressions, six tax compliance factors are examined. Data were collected through a survey conducted in Jakarta using 328 respondents who are small business taxpayers. A researcher–administered questionnaire survey method was used for data collection. The results reveal that referral groups, the probability of audit, tax knowledge, and the perception of equity and fairness have a significant impact on tax compliance. In particular, the referral group had the most significant influence on the noncompliance behavior of SME taxpayers. These findings can enable policymakers to develop future tax policies that focus on tax compliance. This study also contributes to the literature by including observations from Asian countries.     

Why Do States Commission the Truth? Political Considerations in the Establishment of African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Although the use of truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) has grown considerably over the last 3 decades, there is still much that we do not know concerning the choice and the structuring of TRCs. While the literature has focused primarily on the effects of TRCs, we examine the domestic and the international factors influencing the choice of a commission in sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to 2003 using pooled cross-sectional time series. We find that states which adopted a TRC prior to South Africa were generally repressive centralized regimes which used the truth commission as political cover. However, since South Africa’s TRC, democratizing states have been more likely to adopt a truth commission as a form of transitional justice.