پژوهشنامه مالیات
سال بیستم شماره 62 (تابستان 1391)

The experience of large budget deficit in either developed or developing countries during the past decades have gradually led to the importance of assessing the fiscal stability and sustainability in economic literature. The fiscal stability lead to the feasibility of expenditure on public goods needed for economic infrastructures that provide long-run economic growth. In contrast, the fiscal instability of government results in variability in the necessary public expenditure that weakens long-run growth. In that case, notice to effective factors in government’s fiscal stability is necessary. Since the adaptation of VAT is one of the most remarkable events in the evolution of tax system in the past decade, in this study the effect of VAT share in total government revenue on fiscal stability will be examined. The volatility of budget deficit is used as an indicator for fiscal instability of government. The sample in this study includes 108 countries during the period 1990 to 2010. The empirical evidences obtained through a static and dynamic panel data analysis imply that the increase in share of VAT in total government revenue cause reduction in the volatility of budget deficit.

Oil revenues have played an essential role in the political economy of Iran over the past decades. The government's reliance on oil revenues, which are extremely volatile, establishes the spirit of rent-seeking, corruption, speculation and non-productive activities in the economy and in the situation where sanctions have sharpened its blade for the pressure on the Iran economy more than the past, reducing oil dependence will be considered more important. One way to reduce oil dependence is raising the state income tax from which much of the national budget should be obtained. Following the abolition of Article 129 of Direct Tax Act with the subject of "aggregated income tax" in 1380, the purpose of the study, as the title of this article shows (the expected effects of re-introduction of tax on total income) is income distribution as the most important issue. Obviously what is observed in our economic status is improper distribution of national income. Hence one of the important measures in this respect is to survey and study the current information about the allocation & distribution effects of tax policy in other countries. For this purpose, in this survey the tax status of some selected countries of the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Cyprus during the period of 8 years from 2002 to 2009) has been studied. This information can help government leaders and economic policy-makers significantly to provide a better and more effective policy in the Tax area. The method which is used in this study is panel data. The results indicate that in selected countries in the Middle East and Africa, total personal income tax, on the contrary, provides a negative impact on the income distribution.

Tax of firms listed in stock exchange constitutes a major part of government income. Almost in all cases there is a difference between declared tax by firms and detected tax by the tax authorities. In this study, the effect of firm characteristics, industry type and institutional ownership on the difference between declared and definite tax of firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange are investigated. In this regard, the panel data method and multiple regressions is used. Findings of investigating 64 firms in the 2003 to 2009 show that size, growth opportunities and profitability have significant positive relationships with the difference of declared and definite tax. However, there is no significant relationship between financial leverage and firm age with the difference of declared and definite tax. Also, the findings indicate that industry type has a significant effect on the difference of declared and definite tax. In other words, size of the difference of declared and definite tax is different in various industries. Furthermore, the results evidence that institutional ownership does not affect the difference of declared and definite tax of the firms.

Increasing considerations on the sustainability of fiscal policy and tax smoothing hypothesis have been acquired a significant position in the theoretical background. On the one hand, the sustainability of fiscal policy requires convergence of government expenditure and its revenues in the long- run and on the other, tax smoothing indicates that the government should take action to minimize administrative costs and the welfare loss due to tax variations. So, this paper, by focusing on both challenges, aimed at investigating if the government had performed tax smoothing and/or fiscal policy sustainability in the sample period (1971-2008). After correction of the Barro's model (1979) to recover oil revenues and testing tax smoothing hypothesis, we recognized the financial repression as a main obstacle on the tax smoothing path. Also, our findings based on FMOLS method, in spite of imposing tax tilting condition to the model, reveal that the smart performing of tax tilting can be rejected. This result, i.e. no evidence of tax smoothing, provided a doubtful consequence about sustainability of fiscal policy in Iran’s economy. Therefore, using multicointegration approach, TARCH model and finally simultaneous equation system, we investigated the hypothesis of sustainability of fiscal policy. But outcomes show that there is no tract of sustainability between expenditure and tax revenues of government. Albeit, we can see a weak evidence of sustainability between government expenditure and total revenues.

Nowadays globalization has expanded activities of multinational companies in various countries. Therefore, transfer pricing has become currently such a significant issue faced by governments and tax authorities all over the world. Statistics indicate that governments are missing some of their revenue due to the unfair transfer pricing. In order to keep away from tax avoidance and tax evasion, more than 40 countries have legislated specific transfer pricing regulations to prevent tax crimes. In recent years, the Iranian tax authorities have been interested in this subject but there is still no regulations and directives for companies on transfer pricing rules. The current paper aims at studying the role of transfer pricing methods by using sectional and geographical exceptions to avoid tax in Iran. We have recognized and extracted those legal cases which are linked to this topic. Accordingly, lack of any regulations in this area means that companies are capable of abusing some points to decrease their profits as well as their tax debts. Underlying study in this paper proposes some tips as initial points to prepare a draft pertaining mentioned subject in the Iranian taxation system.

One of the main measures¬ taken by the Iranian National Tax Administration (INTA) is to move towards new ITs for designing and implementing proper collection of taxes as an enormous elastic revenue resource. For implementing electronic tax collection, besides technological and legal infrastructures, citizen's acceptance is a key point in developing electronic structures. Therefore, this paper by using descriptive and field study method is trying to answer whether taxpayers embrace electronic tax services. In this study, Davis Model which is the same as IT acceptance model is used and the independent variables include the easiness of using the internet system, the advantages and risk of using the internet system, the access to the technological facilities and the demographic specifications; the dependant variable is the inclination of the taxpayers for using the electronic tax services. The results indicate that the electronic tax services acceptance by taxpayers has positive and direct relationship with the variables like the easiness, the advantages of using the internet system, the access to the technologic facilities and the demographic specifications and has inverse relationship with the risk of using the internet system.

Generally speaking, tax is deemed as a manifestation of the government's authority and plays a key role in procuring public revenues as the most critical factor. Indeed, we might say that continuity of the governmental activities depends on collecting taxes. As taxes are of high importance in most of the countries especially Iran and England, therefore, lots of powers and sanctions have been granted to the taxation system, in order to assure assessing and collecting taxes. In this paper, these sanctions can be divided into administrative, criminal and civil which are explained and compared according to the rules, regulations and available official documents in two countries i.e. Iran and England. It shouldnt be neglected that the will of the people plays an important role in implementing Tax Law and sanctions. Thus, the effective success factor in ensuring implementation of these laws will be the promotion of cooperation of taxpayers and finally enhancing taxation culture of society. Originally, growing public awareness about laws and its consequences results in more promotion in all countries.

As the size of the informal economy increases, the growth opportunities of the firms reduce, and the government tax revenue decreases. Therefore, increasing the formal business activities is a fundamental priority of policy-makers. This paper hypothesized that by both decreasing tax rates and regulatory burden, agents move into formal economy. Empirical results indicate that (1) reducing tax rate decreases the size of the informal sector, both in high income, and in middle and low income countries; (2) Tariff rate has a significant effect on underground economy only in high income countries; (3) Reducing the costs of starting a business affects informal activities regardless of the income level of the countries; (4) The costs of property registration has a significant effect only on middle and low income countries; and (5) Efficiency of legal system explains the size of the informal sector in high income countries.

The study of main determinants of tax revenue especially the structural and institutional ones is the important issue in macroeconomics literature. For this, the main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of control of corruption and government effectiveness indices on tax revenue in upper middle income countries over the 1990-2009. In this paper, we used the dynamic panel data approach and GMM method for model estimation. The empirical results of study shows that control of corruption and government effectiveness indices have positive and significant effects on tax revenue in these countries. Moreover, the trade openness, the share of industry sector's value added and per capita income have positive and significant effect on tax revenue.