پژوهشنامه مالیات
سال شانزدهم شماره 51 (زمستان 1387)

In this paper, theoretical and methodological issues of tax on businesses are firstly studied and then, four cases of goldsmiths, pharmacies, contractors, and consulting engineers have been selected for doing a field study work. Statistical tests have been done on thebasis of data gathered from researcher-made questionnaires. The researcher has tried to focus on methods of estimating shares of human and physical capitals in the business fields in question. These estimations have finally been used for classifying tax coefficients of the intended professions.

Excise Tax (E.T), as an important type of tax, is executed in a variety of countries. E.T does not have an organized structure like income tax, value- added tax, and sales tax. A Characteristic that makes E.T totally different from other taxes is the freedom in the definition of its executive mechanism and base selection. Some Characteristic ofexcise tax as related to tax base are as follows: 1) the massive production becomes controllable by the government 2) price elasticity is low, 3) income elasticity is more than one, and 4) externalities are negative from another point of view, some important properties of this kind of tax are: 1) low executive cost 2) neutrality or consistency withefficiency scale, and 3) being a tool for promotion of the economic equality. As the execution of E.T in Iran has been ignored and the contribution of goods and services tax in the Iranian tax basket is very low, we introduced a scenario for tax on execution of E.T on cars in the present paper. This scenario suggests a tax rate determination system for tax on cars based on efficiency and justice principles. The proposed scenario is based upon the optimal tax theory, international experiences as well as legal and social conditions of such developing countries as Iran. In this context, a scenario for excise tax on cars has been designed and based on its model, income and distributive impacts of E.T on cars in Iran have been introduced. The results show that the primary goal of this scenario with respect to efficiency and justice are satisfied.

The present research aims at estimating and forecasting tax revenues of Ghazvin province up to the year 1393/2014 on the basis of data of the years 1374/1995-1383/2004. Researchers have tried out to identify the potential/realized tax capacities of the aforesaid province and to explore how to decrease the gaps between the existing and idealcapacities. They have also dealt with identifying the shortcomings of the tax system in the province in question and in the whole country. Research findings show that in spite of a large variety of endogenous variables involved, the general trend of estimation fluctuations has been in conformity with the fluctuations of tax performances ofdifferent years so as to say that any abrupt improvements in the tax performance of the province in question have been reflected in the predictions thereof.

This paper aims at capturing the impacts of taxes on income distribution through HDI indices and is also trying to explore the factors involved in the (un)influence of the Iranian tax system on the improvement of income distribution throughout the country during thepast three post-revolution development plans (from 1989 to 2002). The paper uses two research the inferential method based upon statistical analyses within E-views program to measure the impacts of the institution of government on the changes of HDI, and the in-depth research method through doing interviews with experts in order to qualitatively study the impacts of the government on the income distribution on the basis of tax policies. The coefficient (and the sign) of the tax income in the model shows that in the event of 1% increase in the tax revenues, the HDI index will have an increase of0.07% and the vice versa. Moreover, if the coefficient (and the sign) of the share of direct tax revenues in GDP (GDP without the oil sector) has an increase of 1%, then the HDI index will have an increase of 0.14% and the vice versa. There is no statisticallysignificant relationship between the tax revenue and the HDI index and since the dependent variable representing income distribution has been the HDI index, it has been concluded that the taxes have had no distribution orientations in Iran. As for the role of the institution of government and its influence on the income distribution, the indicesexplaining the situation of a rentier government has been verified indicating the supporting role of such a government in Iran and its independence from tax revenues. In other words, the characteristics of rentier governments in Iran have led to a condition wherein the tax system has no distribution orientations.

The paper explores the trends of increases in taxes as part of the government revenues and focuses on the T/GDP ratios in Lorestan province. Lorestan tax capacity and the factors influencing it during the period 1360/1981-1383/2004 have been estimated through ARDL econometric method. On the basis of existing theoretical discussionsand experimental works previously done on the topic, some endogenous variables such as the value-added of different economic sectors, per capita income, rate of literacy, rate of inflation, and population have been regarded as the most important factors affectingthe tax capacity of the province in question. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between the tax capacity, on one hand, and the value-added of the sectors industry and services, and the rate of literacy, on the other hand. However, there is no significant correlation between the tax capacity and the variables of the valueaddedof the mines sector, the per capita income, the rate of inflation, and the population. In addition, the tax capacity and tax effort of Lortestan province have been calculated on the basis of the estimated parameters of the model during the period under discussion. Acomparison between the collected taxes and the estimated tax capacities shows that the Lorestan tax administration has not been highly efficient in the period under investigation.

In this paper, the researchers tested the impacts of the change made in the corporate income tax law on the corporate taxes, net incomes, retained earnings, and the levels of investment of manufacturing companies admitted into Tehran Stock Exchange. To do the task, at first, changes in the amounts of corporate income taxes, net incomes,retained earnings, and investment levels of the companies during the years before and after the changes in question were compared and tested. To test the hypotheses, t-test, analysis of variance, and multiple regression methods were used. Results obtained indicated considerable changes in the amounts of corporate income taxes andinvestment levels of manufacturing companies in the years after the change of the Iranian Direct Taxes Act as compared to the years before the change of the law.

Environmental taxes, as one of important tax categories, are based on Pigou's theoretical assumption that "any polluter must pay for the cost of his polluting activity". The introduction of this tax category, as a fiscal policy-making instrument, can have allocation implications. The roles and shares attributed to this tax category have differently beeninterpreted within various economic development stages so as to say that in the pre-industrial era, it was not considered to be so important while during industrial development stages it attained significance gradually. In this paper, the environmental impacts of polluters and their marginal costs have been studied. The Cost Control Method has been used wherein the marginal cost of a polluting unit has been measured econometrically on the basis of estimating the cost function thereof. The results obtained have been presented in the forms of three scenarios for air pollution decrease and one scenario for water pollution decrease. The first scenario includes the marginal cost of airpollution decrease assuming the realization of the objectives stipulated in the Third Development Plan; the second scenario assumes the realization of the pollution decrease down to allowed levels (Euro 2000 Standard); and the third scenario assumes the pollution decrease down to zero degree. According to estimated pollution cost controlfunctions, the pollution cost has been estimated as 0.2% of GDP in the first scenario, 3.8% of GDP (5.8% of GDP excluding oil and agriculture sectors) in the second scenario, and 14% of GDP in the third scenario. The pollution control costs (at prices of the year1381/2000) have been estimated respectively as equal to Rls 1066.45 for one liter of gas, Rls 1620.42 for one liter of gas oil, and Rls 1692.75 for one liter of mazut. Costs of 1 tone of decrease in the levels of polluting materials SO2, NO2, and CO have been estimated as being equal to Rls 16.2 million, Rls 2.69 million, and Rls 0.2 millionrespectively. It has been concluded that in investigating the impacts of price increases resulted from pollution cost transfer on the consumption levels, it is not possible to use the price instrument as the main tool of controlling pollution, and that at current price levels, the elasticity of the gas price is lower than one.

The quality of services has an obvious relationship with such issues as costumer satisfaction, costumer keeping, and profit making, and as such, it is regarded to be critical in most service-providing industries. This is due to the fact that higher customer satisfaction levels leads to higher levels of faithfulness; on one hand, fully satisfied customers are much more faithful than partially satisfied customers and, on the otherhand, there is a positive correlation between faithfulness of customers and the interests of the organization in question. The present paper is the result of a field research aimed at evaluating the quality of tax services provided by Tehran East Head Tax Affairs Office through making use of Servqual model. The statistical population of the research consists of all legal entities having tax files with the aforesaid tax head office. Following the evaluation and ranking the dimensions and components of the quality of tax services presented to taxpayers, the existing gap between taxpayer's expectations/perceptions and the services provided has been investigated leading to some operationalsuggestions in the line with the results of analyses.