Compliance on green tax amongst small medium enterprise owners in the eThekwini district

The aim of this study was to explore how green tax compliance is viewed amongst SME business owners and to understand what strategies need to be in place to strengthen the level of compliance. A qualitative research methodology was utilised. Two samples were recruited to participate in this study: Sample 1 included 12 SME business owners, and Sample 2 included 8 tax practitioners. All of the participants were from the eThekwini district. Semi-structured interviews and telephonic interviews were used to collect data from both samples. Data was collected until data saturation was reached. In total, twelve SME business owners and eight tax practitioners were interviewed. The data collected was analysed through the use of thematic analysis, which enabled similar patterns and themes in the data to be pooled together. This gave rise to 5 main themes and 13 related sub-themes. It was found that SME business owners had a positive attitude towards green tax compliance, as they were highly concerned about the sustainability and protection of the environment. There were various factors that hindered green tax compliance by SMEs. These included increased administrative procedures and costs that businesses needed to incur, lack of adoption of green practices in manufacturing processes, incurrence of high costs to comply with this tax, whilst the major finding was the lack of awareness regarding this tax. The study also concluded that business owners were contributing to environmental degradation as they were unaware of the level of damage that their manufacturing processes were causing. It was further established that the government needs to provide adequate information to the public and SMEs regarding the green tax policy. The need for transparency from the government was seen as an important measure to encourage compliance as there is a lack of trust between SMEs and the government. It was also concluded that there is a need for seminars, workshops, and media broadcasts to educate SME owners about the calculation and contribution of green tax policy. There was conclusive evidence for the need for additional, detailed information to be provided to SMEs about the green tax policy in order to encourage green tax compliance to promote environmental sustainability. This study makes a valuable contribution in that it seeks the well- being of local communities and endeavours to preserve the earth by fostering compliance with green taxes.

When tax practitioners file their personal tax returns: Do attitude, social norms, and perceptual control matter?

Tax revenue is a key source of income for most countries in the world. To maximize tax revenue, it is critical that taxpayers comply with relevant tax laws particularly in a self-assessment filing system. Alas, many countries are still grappling with tax evasion or even tax avoidance issue. A key challenge is tax compliance behavior remains a complex and perplexing topic. While a lack of tax knowledge is pertinently attributable to unintentional non-compliance, the causes of intentional non-compliance are far from clear. This study aims to investigate the factors associated with intentional tax non-compliance by ruling out the variation in tax knowledge explanation. In so doing, this study employs a sample of respondents deemed conversant with tax knowledge. More specifically, this study surveys 104 tax practitioners in Malaysia using a convenience sampling technique and utilizes the theories of planned behavior and free trait to explore how they behave when filing their personal tax returns. The findings suggest only subjective norms is significantly linked to their tax compliance behavior. This study extends the literature on the role of individual factors on tax compliance behaviour among tax practitioners acting in a different persona.

When I grow up... Understanding the motivations that individuals have for pursuing a career in tax

Often seen as a specialization, the motivation to pursue a career in tax is not well understood, compared to the broader disciplines of law and accounting. Relying on an initial set of exploratory interviews with 38 professionals, this study examines why individuals have decided to pursue careers as tax practitioners. A survey more systematically investigated the motivations, revealing that the qualitative nature of tax work, including the intellectual challenge, is the strongest motivator, regardless of professional background. Overall, intrinsic reasons dominate over more external motivations, and the survey results are largely consistent and convergent with the interview findings. The study contributes to the understanding of the factors that influence individuals to both enter and remain in a very specialized field, which has hereto received limited direct attention. The results should be of interest to students considering a career in tax, as well as those in charge of educating and recruiting future tax practitioners.

RE-DEFINING NIGERIAS TAX SYSTEM AMIDST DIGITALISATION OF THEBUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Technology, internet and e-commerce have redefined business models and practices such that values are created in environments different from where profits are earned and taxes are subsequently paid. Suchpractices, which exacerbatebase erosion and profit shifting, negatively affect the collectible tax revenues by governments in several jurisdictions including Nigeria,making it difficult for them to meet their social contract obligations to their citizens.Using an expost facto research design and qualitative research methodology, this exploratory study assessed the capacity of the Nigerian government to address the challenges imposed on its tax system by the emerging digitalized economy. The study observed that the issue of taxation in digitalized economy has not received the desiredlegislative and governancepriority attention largely because of the dearth of knowledge about its complexities as well as the undue dependence on revenue from crude oil.The study therefore recommends that the revenue authorities should set up a think tank comprising chartered accountants, tax practitioners, information technology experts, academics and regulators to develop a comprehensive framework to address the issue from a national perspective while the ECOWAS Commission should be prodded and supported by its member-states to take on the issue at the sub-regional level as OECD is currently doing for its member-states in Europe, USA, Japan and Canada.

Critical Review Zakat as Tax Deduction (Indonesia-Malaysia Comparative Study)

This idea originated from the speech of the Minister of Finance at the 2nd Annual Conference of Islamic Finance in 2017 on the management of zakat and taxes. This paper critically discusses the regulation of income tax and zakat income in Indonesia and Malaysia. Furthermore, this paper aims to compare the treatment of zakat on personal income tax reporting with personal income tax in Malaysia. The research method used is design research that adopts the Plomp and Nieveen (2013) development model with adjustments, by collecting data through document studies, literature studies and in-depth interviews with zakat and tax practitioners. The results of the discussion show that Indonesia has not implemented zakat as a tax credit like Malaysia. Indonesia also does not yet have a national standard for zakat calculation.

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF PUBLISHED LITERATURE ON TAXATION IN MALAYSIA, BASED ON SCOPUS DATABASE

Taxation research has received considerable attention from many scholars, practitioners and policymakers across the globe. Many scholars have also conducted research on taxation in the Malaysian context. However, papers that track the trends of such research are scanty in the existing literature. The aim of this study is to review the trend and frequencies of published literature on taxation in Malaysia based on the Scopus database using the search term “Malaysia and tax”. The design of the study is bibliometric analysis. As of 23rd September 2020, a total of 88 documents were retrieved and analysed using Excel, Hazing’s Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software. Based on the standard bibliometric indicators, this paper reports the research papers and source types, years and language of publications, subject area, most active institutions, most active sources’ titles, keywords, authorship, abstract, title analysis and citation analysis. Findings revealed that there is an increase in growth rate of literature on studies related to taxation in the Malaysian context from 1977 to 2020 published in the Scopos database. The publications reached an all-time peak in 2016 to 2017 but significantly dropped in 2018 and 2019 based on the data retrieved from the Scopus database. The findings further show that Universiti Teknologi MARA is the most influential institution with 18.18% of the total documents retrieved, followed by Universiti Utara Malaysia with 9.1% respectively. Additional findings of the study show that Advance Science Letters is the highest source title with 14.71% of the published documents. The finding also indicates that Adhikari, Derashid and Zhang (2006) are the most influential authors with 187 citations as at 23rd September 2020. The research is limited to the literatures published in Scopus database, other database were not covered in this study. Malaysian policymakers should provide more research grants to tax practitioners and academicians to increase the level of publications in this field.

Book Review: Tax Tyranny

Pascal Salin's _Tax Tyranny_ is an essay on the principles of taxation. First published in 1985 under the title _L’arbitraire fiscale,_ this first English edition is most welcome. Written in a non-technical way, it is accessible to a broad readership. It serves very well as an introductory text for undergraduates, most notably in macroeconomics or public economics, but it also carries a lot of original food for thought that deserves the attention of scholars and tax practitioners. The central thesis is that there are no rational grounds for taxation and taxation can therefore never be justified. By its very nature, the tax state can never be a just state. When it taxes its citizens, it is arbitrary and tyrannical.

Examining the Taxation Profession in Australia – A Framework

This paper examines the nature of the taxation profession in Australia and its development over the past three decades and then suggests a framework to analyse important initiatives that have taken place during this period. Using secondary sources and the organizing principles of State, Market and Community (Puxty et al., 1987), we begin with the subject of tax policies and legislation introduced by the state and its impact on the tax profession in Australia. We follow this with a discussion relating to the recognition of Australian tax practice as a profession. The paper then focusses on two key areas of professional development during the last three decades, namely: tax law and tax administration. The paper finds interesting issues relating to professionalization of taxation in Australia. With the involvement of the state, market and the society over the last three decades, there is a requirement to recognise taxation practice as a profession in Australia. The paper suggests that the establishment of the Tax Practitioners Board[1], a statutory body to regulate the taxation profession in Australia, in conjunction with approved professional associations, may have enhanced the effective maintenance of the tax profession which has contributed to social, political and economic development in Australia. [1] The Minister for Revenue and Financial Services appoint the Board, so there is some degree of control by the state.

Mauritius as an offshore financial centre and laws relating to tax avoidance and evasion

Purpose While Mauritius is ranked as the fastest growing financial centre in Africa and the second-fastest-growing offshore financial centre (OFC) in the word by the New World Health in 2019, the country is facing severe allegations that it is progressing at the expense of other developing countries. In this respect, this paper aims to assess the contribution of the Mauritius OFC, the robustness of tax avoidance and evasion laws, the endeavours undertaken by the Mauritius Government to promote Mauritius OFC and the alleged classification of Mauritius as a tax haven. Design/methodology/approach To achieve the above research objectives, this paper will adopt the black letter approach. That is, the relevant legislation and case laws will be scrutinised. Also, books, journal articles, newspaper articles, reports from international bodies amongst others will be used. The research methodology also comprising a critical analysis which implies that existing studies conducted on the subject matter of this research will be assessed and the extent to which the researcher agrees with the existing work will be weighed. Findings Based on the critical analysis, this paper recommends that the Mauritius Income Tax Act be amended to provide for punitive and corrective actions for those engaged in impermissible tax avoidance. Additionally, for transparency and clarity, it is suggested that the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) clarifies in a practice note the factors that it considers when determining the tax liability that should have been payable or when detecting tax avoidance cases. Similarly, to discourage tax evasion, the fines and penalties for tax-evading offences should be more strict and a regulatory framework for tax practitioners need to be set up. Originality/value To the author’s knowledge, this paper is amongst the first academic research that emphasises the position of Mauritius as an OFC and critically analysed the related laws relating to the financial world.