Thesis (doctoral)--Kath. Universiẗat Eichstätt, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-303).

Šis magistro baigiamasis darbas yra skirtas gyventojų pajamų mokesčio analizei Europos Sąjungoje bei atskirose jos valstybėse narėse. Darbo tikslas – atskleisti gyventojų pajamų mokesčio ypatybes. Gyventojų pajamų apmokestinimas – mokesčių mokėtojų, objektų ir mokėjimo taisyklių nustatymo sistema. Šiame darbe buvo analizuojama Europos Bendrijos kompetencija šio mokesčio srityje, dvigubo apmokestinimo politika Europos Sąjungoje, buvo nustatyta, kad gyventojų apmokestinimo klausimas paliekamas spręsti kiekvienai Europos Sąjungos valstybei narei. Planuojama, kad ir ateityje, kai Europos Sąjunga pasieks dar didesni integracijos lygį, tai bus palikta kiekvienos šalies narės diskrecijai. Gyventojų pajamų mokestis yra vienas svarbiausių mokesčių mūsų valstybėje, kuris yra per didelis daugeliui gyventojų. Šiuo klausimu yra daug diskusijų, kokiomis priemonėmis geriau mažinti šio mokesčio naštą. Daugelyje kitų Europos Sąjungos valstybių narių yra taikomas progresinis gyventojų pajamų apmokestinimas, mokesčio tarifas priklauso nuo mokėtojo kategorijos ir nuo gaunamų pajamų dydžio. Dvigubo pajamų apmokestinimo srityje Europos Sąjungos šalys narės tarpusavyje bei su trečiosiomis šalimis sudaro dvigubo pajamų apmokestinimo išvengimo sutartis, kad gyventojų pajamos nebūtų apmokestinamos du kartus. / The final master‘s paper is dedicated to the analysis of income tax in the European Union and in the Member States. The main task is to study and to explain the features of the income tax. Income taxation – is the system, which establishes the taxpayers, objects and the rules of how to pay the income tax. Herein the competence of the European Union on the income taxation issue was analyzed, as well the double taxation policy in the European Union. It was established that the sphere of the income tax would be left to the Member States, even when the European Union achieves a higher level of integration than at present. The income tax is one of the most important taxes in Lithuania, which is too big according to the income that people receive. And there are a lot of discussions, on how to choose the best way to decrease the burden of the income tax. The tariffs of the income tax are progressive in a lot of European Unions Member States. The amount of taxes that the residents need to pay depends on many things, such as the amount of income, the category of taxpayers. Speaking about the double taxation, the Member States conclude double taxation treaties with each other and with third countries, to avoid the cases, when the income are taxed twice.

This treatise tests the effectiveness of withholding taxes imposed by the South African tax authorities with respect to amounts paid from a South African source to a non-resident in respect of interest, royalties and foreign entertainers and sportspersons. The first research objective discusses the alignment of the meaning of words and phrases in both the domestic law of South Africa and Double Tax Agreements (DTA.) The second issue outlines whether the DTA supports the domestic law through the waiving of tax claims in favour of the country of source. In last instance the attribution of income is discussed. The interpretation attached to the words for the purpose of levying normal tax, serves as the methodology for identifying inconsistencies with the levying of withholding tax. The wider scope of withholding taxes with respect to the meaning of ‘interest’, ‘royalties’ as well as ‘foreign entertainer and sportsperson’ misaligns with the corresponding meaning of it in the DTA. This creates the risk that amounts paid to non-residents will either not be subjected to withholding tax in the source state or that the income will be taxable in the resident state as a result of the application of other articles of the DTA. DTA’s concluded between South Africa and other countries are based on the OECD Model Tax Convention. These DTA’s tend to favour the residence state with respect to the waiving of tax claims. The source state’s right to collect withholding tax on income from royalties and interest is prevented if the foreign person is physically present in South Africa for more than 183 days and if the interest/royalty payment is effectively connected with a permanent establishment in South Africa. The domestic law and DTA are misaligned with respect to the attribution of interest and royalty income since the recipient of the income for the purpose of the domestic law is not necessarily the beneficial owner of the debt claim or intellectual property. It can therefore be recommended that South Africa must renegotiate DTA’s to favour taxation in the source state. Withholding tax provisions must also be redrafted to align them with the DTA meaning.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect tax complexity has on taxpayers' understanding of the tax law. The individual income tax system in the United States is based on self assessment by the taxpayer. A self assessing system requires a high level of voluntary compliance by the participants. Taxpayers who file returns on time and file correctly are considered to be in compliance with the tax law. A taxpayer who cannot understand the rules for tax reporting logically does not have the ability to comply with the law. A tax system predicated on the presumption that the average taxpayer can understand and comply with the tax rules must not become so complex that the taxpayer is forced into either seeking external help or not fully complying. The question arises, does complexity affect the ability of taxpayers to understand, and thus comply with, the tax system?

South Africa's right to tax the income of a non-resident is determined in terms of the South African "source rules" established by court decisions in relation to the imposition of tax in terms of the Income Tax Act. Unless a non-resident's income is captured by the South African "source rules" (on the basis that hi slits income is derived from a South African source), South Africa would have no right to tax such income, even if such non-resident creates a permanent establishment in South Africa by performing business activities within South Africa which could be considered essential (but not dominant) in nature. In such scenario the activities performed by the non-resident in South Africa may utilise the natural resources and the infrastructure of South Africa, but the South African fiscus would be deprived of the right to any tax revenues attributable to the income produced partly by such activities within South Africa. The South African "source rules" refer only to the main or dominant activities giving rise to the income for the purpose of determining the source of such income (and accordingly the right to tax such income). On the other hand, the "permanent establishment rules" as set out under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital refer to all the taxpayer's essential business activities for the purpose of determining whether or not such activities create a pennanent establishment. The result of the narrow nature of the South African "source rules" is that, under certain circumstances, the South African fiscus would not necessarily be granted the right to tax all income produced partly within South Africa. The research demonstrated that incorporating the principles underlying the "pennanent establishment rules" into South African legislation would be a reasonable and logical solution to the problem of detennining the source of income. In so doing, the South African "source rules" would determine the source of income, and consequently South Africa's taxing rights, with reference to the essential business activities giving rise to such income. In such case South Africa would be afforded the right to tax the income of a non-resident in the event that it performs any of its essential business activities within South Africa, albeit not the dominant or main activities giving rise to the income.

M.Comm. (South African & International Taxation) / The capital allowance mentioned in section 11(e) of Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 (“the Act”) refers to machinery, plant, implements, utensils and articles, the value of which may have diminished by reason of wear and tear or depreciation. The machinery, plant, and articles in question, often accede to other assets of a permanent nature such as immovable buildings. This is a problem in South Africa because the wear and tear allowance is lost when machinery, plant or articles lose their identities upon being absorbed into assets of a permanent nature such as a building. Buildings and other structures of a permanent nature do not qualify for the wear and tear allowance in terms of section 11(e) of the Act. This article investigates the uncertainties with regard to interpreting what constitutes “buildings, or other structures or works of a permanent nature” for the purposes of the prohibition of wear and tear allowances contained in section 11(e)(ii) of the Act.

1 Abstract To study the effect a change in a tax base has on the corresponding tax revenue is a useful tool to better predict future tax revenues. This property is called a tax revenue elasticity but generally it does not get as much attention as it deserves, and when it does, key points like using data adjusted for the effects of tax reforms or distinguishing between the short-run (instantaneous) and the long-run (equilibrium) elasticity are often omitted. In my thesis, I am the first one to estimate the tax revenue elasticities for Slovakia. I use a unique dataset adjusted for the effects of tax reforms and tax changes to estimate both the short-run and the long-run elasticities for the three tax categories th at account for the majority of each year's tax revenue - Personal Income Tax, Corporate Income Tax and Value Added Tax. I obtain a long-run elasticity of 0.98, 1.28 and 0.94 for the Personal Income Tax, the Corporate Income Tax and the Value Added Tax respectively and a short-run elasticity of 3.51 and 1.93 for the Corporate Income Tax and the Value Added Tax respectively. I do not obtain a significant estimate in the case of the Personal Income Tax. Additionally, I find that it takes more than a year for the elasticity to reach its equilibrium value for all the three tax categories and that there...

"Mining operations" and "mining" are defined in s 1 of the Income Tax Act (ITA). A concept that is of great significance to this definition is the matter of when a mineral is won and the related question of when does the mining process end and the process of manufacture commences. Case law has not established a definitive point that can be used by the mining taxpayer to determine where the mining process ends for income tax purposes. The Supreme Court of Appeal was presented with the perfect opportunity in the Foskor1 case to clearly define the boundaries between these processes. Unfortunately, the court did not seize this opportunity to provide legal certainty. The significance of the distinction lies in the fact that a mining taxpayer is allowed to claim accelerated capital allowances. The objective of these allowances is to provide tax relief to the mining taxpayer taking the immense risk of investing billions of rands in capital expenditure. The capital expenditure incurred will also result in direct foreign investment. This in turn will result in economic growth and job creation. Currently, there is no legal certainty as to which processes will qualify as mining operations for income tax purposes. This may result in mining taxpayers being hesitant to incur capital expenditure as the risk relating to a project would have increased. The accelerated capital allowances may therefore not serve their intended purpose. The gross domestic product (GDP) contribution from gold mining has been decreasing in the last number of years, but this decrease has to a large extent been offset by an increase in the downstream or beneficiated minerals industry. This industry has also been identified by Government as a growth sector. The downstream or beneficiated mineral industry may not be catered for in the current definition of "mining operations" and "mining" and may therefore not qualify for beneficial tax allowances. It is therefore proposed that the term "won" as used in the definition of "mining operations" and "mining" should be defined in s 1 of the ITA as follows: A mineral is "won" when all the requisite and necessary processes, including, amongst other things, refinement, beneficiation, smelting, separation, have been undertaken to the mineral to render it saleable in an open and general market. This extension will provide legal certainty to a mining taxpayer and will ensure that South Africa obtains direct foreign investment and maximum value for its minerals. This will contribute to economic growth for South Africa's developing economy and result in job creation.

Income tax is levied upon a taxpayer’s taxable income. Various steps are taken in order to arrive at the taxpayer’s taxable income. The starting point when calculating taxable income is determining the taxpayer’s ‘gross income’. ‘Gross income’ is defined in terms of section 1 of the Act. Various terms within the gross income definition are not clearly defined, except in the case of a ‘resident’. Even in the case of the definition of a ‘resident’, the aspect of ‘ordinarily resident’ is not defined and nor is the ‘place of effective management’. The following components fall within the definition of ‘gross income’: • The total amount in cash or otherwise; • received by or accrued to, or in favour of, a person; • from anywhere, in the case of a person who is a resident; • from a South African source (or deemed source), in the case of a non-resident; • other than receipts or accruals of a capital nature. The ‘total amount’ in ‘cash or otherwise’ is the first step when determining the taxable income of a taxpayer for a particular year of assessment. Gross income only arises if an amount is received or has accrued; this amount need not be in the form of money but must have a money value. The next component, ‘received by or accrued to’, is related to time and implies that a taxpayer should include amounts that have been ‘received by’, as well as amounts that have ‘accrued to’ him during the year of assessment. ‘Resident’ and ‘non-resident’ unlike the other components, are defined in terms of section 1 of the Income Tax Act. There are two rules used to determine whether natural persons are residents, these are: • To determine whether natural persons are ‘ordinarily resident’; or • where the natural person is not an ‘ordinarily resident’, the ‘physical presence test’ will be applied. ‘Source’ means origin and not place; it is therefore the ‘originating cause of the receipt of the money’. There is no single definition for the word ‘source’ as circumstances may differ in various cases. The facts of each case must be analysed in order to determine the actual source of income for that particular case. The last component of the definition of ‘gross income’ is the exclusion of ‘receipts and accruals of a capital nature’. The Act does not define the meaning of ‘capital nature’ but does indicate that receipts or accruals of a capital nature are, with certain exceptions, not included in ‘gross income’. Receipts or accruals that are not of a capital nature is known as ‘revenue’ and subjected to tax. This study is primarily aimed at an examination of court cases related to the various components falling within the definition of ‘gross income’.

The Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 (“Act”) entitles taxpayers to deduct certain losses and expenses incurred by them from their taxable income if such losses and expenses comply with the requirements of section 11(a) of the Act. One of the requirements of section 11(a) is that, in order to be eligible for a deduction, the losses and expenses must have been “actually incurred” by the taxpayer. The area of tax deductions in our tax law represents the frontline in the continuous and inevitable war between the taxpayer (almost always desperately trying to maximise her deductions) and the revenue authorities (as often times desperately trying to minimise the deductions to which the taxpayer is entitled). The stage on which the various battles which make up this mighty war between citizen and state are fought is the court and the arsenal with which each party comes armed is the Act and, more specifically, the absolute belief of each party in the correctness of their interpretation of the Act, which, each party hopes, will be ably demonstrated by their able (and often extremely expensive) counsel. Such is the determination of the taxpayer and the tax authorities alike that the body of case law relating to this specific area of our law is, especially when one considers that it essentially involves on only one section of the Act, relatively voluminous. The author’s intention is to consider only one of the requirements with which the taxpayer must comply in order to be eligible for a deduction, namely, the requirement that the relevant loss or expenditure must have been “actually incurred” by the taxpayer. Despite the fact that the meaning of the phrase “actually incurred” has been considered extensively by our courts, significant uncertainty still exists as to its exact meaning. The author will deal with three specific contexts in which the meaning of this phrase remains a subject of uncertainty, namely, share-based payments, contingent liabilities and losses and expenses incurred in relation to illegal receipts. The author will begin first by dealing with the interpretation of tax statutes, the author will then, in general terms, consider the general deduction formula after which the author will delve into the meaning of the phrase “actually incurred” in the contexts of each of the transactions mentioned above. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Mercantile Law / unrestricted