Journal of Tax Research
Year:2018 | Volume:26 | Issue:37 (85)|Papers Count:8

In this paper, the relationship between trade liberalization (three different indicators) and total tax revenues collected from four tax bases has been examined using a panel data of 32 less-developed and developing countries (members of WTO) during the period 2000-2015. Although many independent variables have already been included in the models to study the effect of the structural features as well as institutional and political constraints on tax revenues, the present study focuses on reviewing the effect of trade liberalization on tax revenues using different trade liberalization indicators. To this end, three indicators "trade openness", "tariff rate" and "trade freedom" have been taken into account as representatives of liberalization and the results obtained show that each of these indicators has had different effects on tax revenues. Based on the results, tax revenues are not so much affected by the increased trade openness (trade share of GDP) and trade freedom (removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers), while the impact of trade liberalization on the tax structure in the form of lower tariff rates is more than the impacts of two other indicators of liberalization. The results also show that an increased liberalization (for each of the three indicators used for trade liberalization) is associated with a shift in tax mixture in developing countries. With an increase in the liberalization level, international trade taxes have been reduced, and domestic taxes (such as taxes on goods and services, corporate income tax, and personal income taxes) have increased.

Undesirable social and economic consequences of income inequality persuade the governments to give a first priority to the income distribution improvement and pursue plans to reduce inequality in the form of income redistribution policy, resource allocation and stabilization of macroeconomic indices. Taxes in addition to being the most important source of government revenues are one of the most effective policy tools in improving income distribution. In this paper, using a FAVAR method and quarterly data for the period 1990-2014 for 99 macroeconomic variables, the impact of direct taxes on the Gini coefficient, as an indicator of income distribution, have been explored. Impulse response functions show that a positive shock of one standard deviation in direct taxes causes a sustainable reduction in the Gini coefficient and improves income distribution. Also, variance decomposition results show that after the fourth season, tax shocks have the most important role in the dynamics of Gini coefficient. This study also rejects Kuznets Hypothesis for the Iranian economy.

In most countries, tax proceedings are of a great significance as an aspect of financial Law. In Iran, too, it has a long history and because of its importance for mutual relations of taxpayers and the tax administration, and its impact on taxpayers’ satisfaction, it has always been a major issue in the Iranian tax system. Therefore, in this paper problems and challenges ahead of tax dispute settlement aiming at promoting Iran’ s tax proceedings are studied. For this purpose, the status qua of tax proceedings and its relevant processes are described and for the purpose of comparing and using best practices of other countries, their tax proceedings have been explored. In so doing, documentary and library study methodologies have been employed as well as a survey method based on questioners filled out by officials working at dispute settlement division. The study findings indicate prolong delayed dispute settlement in Iran, high numbers of tax dispute cases filed with tax dispute settlement boards, lack of independency of tax dispute settlement boards and non-neutrality of decisions made, non-observance of the legal potential of articles (238) and (248) of Direct Taxes Act, are among the most important problems ahead of INTA. At the last section of the paper, some solutions for improving Iranian tax dispute settlement processes have been proposed.

One important aspect of tax treaties is the possibility for referring to all the mechanisms available in domestic law of contracting states along with the International dispute Settlement procedures. A taxpayer can take advantage of the international mutual agreement procedure and the methods envisaged in this regard by international organizations. In this article we have tried to analyze the methods of resolving tax disputes as proposed by international organizations within such arrangements and organizations as Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), World Trade Organization (WTO), European: : : : union: : : : (EU), United Nations (UN) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These organizations have similar and sometimes different approaches to resolving tax disputes. One of these methods is Tax Proceeding or international tax arbitration, which is mainly, follows a disagreement resulting from the referral of the dispute to competent authorities of contracting states.

Regarding the cultural factors affecting tax compliance, there is strong evidence that taxpayers are not just affected by binding legal mechanisms and instruments in various countries. This paper examines the promotion of tax culture and its impact on the expansion of tax umbrella and the identification of new taxpayers. In this research, the factors affecting tax culture have first been identified and ranked using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in the following nine groups: cultural and demographic norms, social values, financial and administrative corruption in the society, the rule of law, tax knowledge, enforcement guarantees, satisfaction of taxpayers and tax officials and the determination of government officials. Then, the impact of factors so identified on the expansion of tax umbrella has been studied. This research has been conducted at the level of experts consisting of university faculty members, tax auditors, and directors of departments at the Iranian National Tax Administration. According to the results obtained, enforcement guarantee, tax knowledge and cultural norms ranked first to third. Also, the sub-criteria of age difference of individuals, improvement of the ethics of employees in each profession, the existence of poverty in society and insufficient prosperity, observance of laws, observance of morality and values, familiarity of individuals with criminal acts, index of public supervision over the spending of tax revenues, taxpayer's perception of an equal application of law, reverence by tax officials, clarification of the law and its efficiency have been scored the highest in the sub-criteria prioritization. The results of the study in regard with the effect of the identified factors on the expansion of tax umbrella showed that cultural norms, social values and levels of financial and administrative corruption had the highest impacts.

The Economic Development Plan was proposed as a comprehensive program for solving problems and realizing the 20-year Vision of the Country and the Fifth Development Plan of I. R. Iran. Given the continuity of the gap between potential and actual taxes, tax revenues have not yet found their proper positions in the government's economic and financial system. In order to overcome this shortcoming, bearing in mind the importance of taxes in the economic development, the tax system was selected as one of the seven axes of the Economic Development Plan. A tax reform plan was devised in three main areas, namely the reform of tax laws and regulations, the implementation of Tax Administration and Reform Automation (TARA) program and a full implementation of the VAT system. One of the objectives of the TARA program is to ensure that all two-way interactions of taxpayers and INTA are through electronic means, not in presence. The Delphi method has largely been employed in this study as a tool for problem solving by surveying experts’ attitudes in many cases and in various research works. Delphi is a method of "prioritization" to get a collective agreement on the relative importance of issues. So, engaged in the Delphi research phases of this study, implementation of the E-ris software at the Tax Directorate General of South Tehran, were explored by following four steps, namely the intellectual storm, limiting, prioritizing and analyzing the options. The study indicated that the problems as software low slow; inadequate training and lack of update, suitable equipments and up-to-date computer had brought about the existing problems with running the E-ris software.

One of the most important factors in dealing with economic issues of countries is taxation. But in addition to taxation, methods of financing the firms are also important. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of an aggressive tax behavior on the relationship between effective tax rate and financial leverage at companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange. So, 90 financial companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange have been studied for the period from 2003 to 2014 (making for a total of 1080 company-year) and to analyze the results obtained from the application of Eviews9, STATA has been used and to analyze the relationship between variables, the panel data approach Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) has been employed. According to the findings, there is a significant positive relationship between aggressive tax (calculated as the difference between the overall effective tax rate and the cash effective tax rate) and the financial leverage. Moreover, the effect of the overall effective tax rate on the financial leverage associated with the aggressive tax policy is negatively significant. However, the aggressive tax policy does not affect on the relationship between the cash effective tax rate and the financial leverage.

Today, many countries consider a wide range of tax categories including local taxes, environmental taxes on pollutants, capital gain taxes, aggregate income tax and vacant residential units’ taxes as sustainable and justified taxes. Among these taxes, local taxes have been more attended and developed due to their efficiency and advantages. All national taxes can be chosen as local tax but some of them have local option advantages. One of the most important choices is the tax on real estate. The present paper investigates the effects of real estate transfer tax on improving urban development in the metropolitan city of Tehran within the framework of simultaneous equations methodology using the 3-stage Least Square method (3SLS). The results indicate that as the potential tax base in the real estate sector is vast, applying tax on real estate transfer results in improving the urbanization in Tehran.