Taxation History, Theory, Law and Administration

Taxation History, Theory, Law and Administration
Author: Parthasarathi Shome
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 507
Release: 2021-04-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030682145

Tax practitioners are unfamiliar with tax theory. Tax economists remain unfamiliar with tax law and tax administration. Most textbooks relate mainly to the US, UK or European experiences. Students in emerging economies remain unfamiliar with their own taxation history. This textbook fills those gaps. It covers the concept of taxes in regards to their rationale, principles, design, and common errors. It addresses distortions in consumer choices and production decisions caused by tax and redressals. The main principles of taxation—efficiency, equity, stabilization, revenue productivity, administrative feasibility, international neutrality—are presented and discussed. The efficiency principle requires the minimisation of distortions in the market caused by tax. Equity in taxation is another principle that is maintained through progressivity in the tax structure. Similarly, other principles have their own ramifications that are also addressed. A country’s constitutional specification of tax assignment to different levels of government—central, state, municipal—are elaborated. The UK is more centralised than the US and India. India has amended its constitution to introduce a goods and services tax (GST) covering both central and state governments. Drafting of tax law is crucial for clarity and this aspect is addressed. Furthermore, the author illustrates different types of taxes such as individual income tax, corporate income tax, wealth tax, retail sales/value added/goods and services tax, selective excises, property tax, minimum taxes such as the minimum alternate tax (MAT), cash-flow tax, financial transactions tax, fringe benefits tax, customs duties and export taxes, environment tax and global carbon tax, and user charges. An emerging concern regarding the inadequacy of international taxation of multinational corporations is covered in some detail. Structural aspects of tax administration are given particular attention.

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue
Author: Michael Keen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691199981

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

The Flat Tax

The Flat Tax
Author: Robert E. Hall
Publisher: Hoover Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2013-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0817993134

This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax—called "the bible of the flat tax movement" by Forbes—explains what's wrong with our present tax system and offers a practical alternative. Hall and Rabushka set forth what many believe is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable tax reform plan on the table: tax all income, once only, at a uniform rate of 19 percent.

Corporate Income Taxes under Pressure

Corporate Income Taxes under Pressure
Author: Ruud A. de Mooij
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2021-02-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513511777

The book describes the difficulties of the current international corporate income tax system. It starts by describing its origins and how changes, such as the development of multinational enterprises and digitalization have created fundamental problems, not foreseen at its inception. These include tax competition—as governments try to attract tax bases through low tax rates or incentives, and profit shifting, as companies avoid tax by reporting profits in jurisdictions with lower tax rates. The book then discusses solutions, including both evolutionary changes to the current system and fundamental reform options. It covers both reform efforts already under way, for example under the Inclusive Framework at the OECD, and potential radical reform ideas developed by academics.

The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies
Author: Peter Cane
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 1071
Release: 2005
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780199248179

This volume provides a widely acessible overview of legal scholarship at the dawn of the 21st century. Through 43 essays by leading legal scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Germany, it provides a varied and stimulating set of road maps to guide readers through the increasingly large and conceptually sophisticated body of legal scholarship. Focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on scholarship in the English language and taking an international and comparative approach, the contributors offer original and interpretative accounts of the nature, themes, and preoccupations of research and writing about law. They then go on to consider likely trends in scholarship in the next decade or so.

Taxation in Developing Countries

Taxation in Developing Countries
Author: Roger Gordon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231520077

Taxes are a crucial policy issue, especially in developing countries. Just recently, proposals to raise middle-class taxes toppled the Bolivian government, and plans to extend or increase the value-added tax caused political unrest in Ecuador and Mexico. Despite the impact of tax policy on developing countries, a comprehensive study has yet to be written. Treating Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia as key case studies, this volume outlines the major aspects of current tax codes and explores their economic and political implications. Examples of both the poorest and wealthiest developing countries, Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia uniquely demonstrate the diverse fiscal problems of tax reform. Each economy relies heavily on indirect and corporate income taxes, though recently some have reduced their tariff rates and have switched from excise to value-added taxes. There is a large, informal economy in most of these countries, and tax evasion by firms is a significant concern. As a result, tax revenue remains low, even though rates are as high as those in developed economies. Also, unconventional methods to collect revenue have been implemented, including bank debit taxes, state ownership of firms, and implicit taxes on individuals in the informal sector. Exploring these and other concerns, as well as changes in tax law, administration, and fiscal pressures, this comprehensive anthology clarifies the current landscape of tax administration and the economic future of the world's poorer economies.

Tax System in India

Tax System in India
Author: M. M. Sury
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Taxation
ISBN: 9788177084108

This book describes and analyses the tax system and the tax structure developments in India since Independence in 1947 focusing on post-1991 reforms. It places current developments in the field of taxation in perspective. The book is divided into seven parts dealing with the following subjects: pre-Independence tax system, post-Independence tax policy, central and state tax revenue, structure of central taxes, structure of state taxes, federal aspects of Indian taxation, and international aspects of Indian taxation. Part VIII consists of time series tax statistics of India 1950-51 to 2013-14/2015-16.

Goods and Services Tax in India

Goods and Services Tax in India
Author: R. Kavita Rao
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108473962

Studies the evolution of GST in India since the Report of the Indirect Taxation Enquiry Committee of 1977.

Taxation in Colonial America

Taxation in Colonial America
Author: Alvin Rabushka
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 968
Release: 2015-07-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691168237

Taxation in Colonial America examines life in the thirteen original American colonies through the revealing lens of the taxes levied on and by the colonists. Spanning the turbulent years from the founding of the Jamestown settlement to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Alvin Rabushka provides the definitive history of taxation in the colonial era, and sets it against the backdrop of enormous economic, political, and social upheaval in the colonies and Europe. Rabushka shows how the colonists strove to minimize, avoid, and evade British and local taxation, and how they used tax incentives to foster settlement. He describes the systems of public finance they created to reduce taxation, and reveals how they gained control over taxes through elected representatives in colonial legislatures. Rabushka takes a comprehensive look at the external taxes imposed on the colonists by Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as well as internal direct taxes like poll and income taxes. He examines indirect taxes like duties and tonnage fees, as well as county and town taxes, church and education taxes, bounties, and other charges. He links the types and amounts of taxes with the means of payment--be it gold coins, agricultural commodities, wampum, or furs--and he compares tax systems and burdens among the colonies and with Britain. This book brings the colonial period to life in all its rich complexity, and shows how colonial attitudes toward taxation offer a unique window into the causes of the revolution.