A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (specialising in Taxation) Johannesburg, 2017 / As a result of a weakening and slow global economy and rising debt, many foreign governments are finding it difficult to implement strategies to ensure continued inclusive and sustainable growth. It is based on this troubling perspective of global uncertainty that tax authorities worldwide have unanimously persisted in their fight against tax evasion through the under-declaration of income from foreign assets, the illegal movement of money abroad, the misapplication and / or manipulation of transfer pricing legislation and mistreatments of tax treaties. The G20 Leaders together with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) have developed standards such as the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) for the Automatic Exchange of Information (“AEOI”) between tax authorities to enhance the sharing of information and transparency of information between tax authorities worldwide. South Africa has pledged to implement the CRS and automatically share tax information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis in the fight against tax evasion and avoidance. Of significance, in terms of timing for South African tax residents, is that South Africa has undertaken to be one of the early adopters of the CRS and committed to commence the first exchange of information from 2017. In light of the standards and actions coming into place, it has become clear that before long the likelihood of the South African Revenue Services (“SARS”) and the South African Reserve Bank (“SARB”) detecting tax evasion and avoidance is increasingly high. Based on this, non-compliant taxpayers have a limited timeframe to manoeuvre freely in and what may be their last opportunity to voluntarily disclose these assets and the income derived therefrom to SARS and SARB without facing heavier penalties and possible criminal prosecution. / MT 2018

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (Specialising in Taxation) Johannesburg, 2017 / Trusts are an essential tool for estate planning. The interest in trust structures by taxpayers has increased over the years and the South African Revenue Services (‘SARS’) and National Treasury (‘NT’) have placed trusts on their agenda due to their perceived tax avoidance resulting from the use of trust structures. Section 7C was introduced into the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 (as amended) (‘the Act’) in order to curb the avoidance of estate duty. However, the work undertaken by SARS and NT over the years and the insertion of this section in the Act, created an impression that there is avoidance of taxation through the use of trust structures. This study will interrogate the provisions of s 7C in order to determine the effectiveness of this section in curbing the avoidance of estate duty and/or tax through the use of trust structures. The well thought out manner in which this section was drafted and the existence of other tax provisions in the Act which pertain to trusts and the funding mechanisms of trusts suggest that this new inclusion is a convenient and easy manner to monitor the abuse by SARS and NT and subsequently curb the perceived abuse. The interplay of this section with ss 7 and 31 of the Act indicate a risk of unintended double taxation. This and the circumvention options that taxpayers may embark on are matters that may render the section ineffective, although it is evidenced that this section closes that last door that remained open for taxpayers in respect of funding a trust. Key Words: Tax avoidance, estate duty avoidance, National Treasury, SARS, National Budget Speech, Davis Tax Committee Reports on estate duty, Interest-free and low interest loans, Affected Transactions (s 31), Donor attribution rules (s 7), Donations and donations tax, Double taxation. / GR2018

This Thesis studies a new and evolving area of international tax law, namely, the international tax law of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the 'BRICS', and concludes that the thrust of their divergences from the developed world's international tax law evolves from the necessity to counter the significant illicit outflow of funds while not disturbing inbound FDI or, in recent times, their outbound FDI while ensuring profits are taxed where created. The design of the divergences reflects more on the initial limited manpower capacity of their emerging tax authorities to deal with the complex international tax law issues and politically encouraged policy cooperation amongst the BRICS than it does of actual tax authority cooperation although not wishing to underestimate the importance of that cooperation. Relevant to my conclusions are the published positions of international governance organisations and financing institutions, BRICS tax administrations, scholars and precedent, and I have used that information, both for and against, to arrive at the most rational conclusions. While economic theories may be relevant, they are not relevant to this study. My research questions include what is the basis of the BRICS approach to core international tax law, in what way has their approach to defining evasion and avoidance been driven by the magnitude of profits shifted offshore and particularly to tax havens and whether their divergences from the developed world's approach to countering thin capitalisation, transfer pricing and controlled foreign companies have been fashioned by the necessity for countering the elevated level of abuse. My conclusions also reflect my research on whether the divergences have been designed to counter treaty abuse affiliated with the transactions implemented by MNEs intending to shift the profits offshore or the accumulation of passive income in tax havens and, on whether were the BRICS to localise the BEPS recommendations, would their capacity to counter this abuse be improved. My research also considers whether resolving the disputation arising from the increasing level of tax authority cross border audits and investigations can be facilitated through the adoption of alternative dispute resolution procedures. I also study whether the BRICS' response to the world's growing information exchanging architecture reflects their elevated necessity for gathering information to be used to stem illicit flows, countering international evasion and avoidance and ensuring profits are taxed where created. I conclude the study with recommendations for the BRICS Heads of Revenue to include in a Communique for updating their tax law and procedures which counter the abuse and assist in dispute resolution.

This dissertation analyzes the optimal mix of direct and indirect taxes in an economy with multiple tax collecting authorities when both the taxes are subject to evasion and to what extent the tax compliance behavior of individuals in the United States are persistent and spatially dependent. Essay I derives and provides an intuitive interpretation of: (i) impact of the changes in the government instruments on tax evasion by firms, the expected prices they charge, and the expected tax rates they face; (ii) a generalized version of Ramsey rule for optimal commodity taxation which accounts for income tax evasion from either or both the tax authorities; (iii) generalized formulae for the optimal income tax rate for each of the tax authorities; and (iv) the tradeoff between optimal tax rates and audit probabilities for each of the tax authorities. It also re-examines controversies surrounding the uniform income taxes and the differentiated commodity taxes, and investigates how income tax evasion affects the progressivity of the income tax rates. It concludes that whether or not tax evasion calls for reductions in the optimal income tax rates hinges on how tax evasion and the associated concealment costs vary across individual taxpayers. Essay II introduces the twin issues of spatiality and persistence in the individual income tax evasion. While the issue of persistence arises through accumulated learning over time, spatiality arises for several reasons. Some these include the exchange of information between taxpayers; the social norm of tax compliance: an individual would comply if everybody in the society complies and vice versa; individuals faced with dynamic stochastic decision problems that pose immense computational challenges may simply look to others to infer satisfactory policies and interpersonal dependence works through learning by imitating rather than learning by doing. State-level annual per return evasion of individual income tax and related data were used to examine the above hypotheses and found supports for both of them in the individual income tax evasion in the United States.

Essay one develops and tests a revenue-maximizing tax structure model. This model represents one of the first attempts to evaluate and compare the responsiveness of various tax instruments to tax evasion within a tax revenue maximization framework. We use data from both the OECD and East African countries and estimation is via a seemingly unrelated regression model. The GDP share of agricultural income is used as an instrument to correct for the simultaneity between tax revenue shares and tax evasion. Our findings indicate that tax evasion increases the tax authority’s reliance on consumption taxes vis-à-vis taxes on income, suggesting that diverse tax instruments respond differently to tax evasion, and as such the choice of a revenue-maximizing tax structure is influenced by the amount of revenue lost through tax evasion. Essay two analyzes the incidence of tax evasion in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy using a computable general equilibrium model. This essay incorporates the element of uncertainty in an individual’s decision to evade so as to account for the uncertainty of returns to the tax evader. We also allow for varying degrees of competi¬tion or entry across sectors in the economy to examine how much of the tax advantage is retained by the initial evaders and how much is shifted via factor and commodity price changes. Our simulation results show that the evading households’ post-evasion welfare is only 0.68-3.40 percent higher than the post-tax welfare if it had fully complied with taxes. The simulation results further reveal that the evading household keeps 77.1-83.2 percent of this initial increase in welfare, while 16.8-22.9 percent of this initial gain is competed away as a result of increased competition and entry into the informal sector. The compliant households’ welfare increases by 58.8-101.7 percent with increased competition in the informal sector. Therefore, if we construe the changes in consumer welfare as an overall indicator of the gains and/or losses from tax evasion, then the evading household only benefits marginally and this advantage diminishes with increased entry or competition in the informal sector.

No description available.

This dissertation comprises three chapters. The first chapter investigates whether consumers can help governments improve firm compliance with the Value Added Tax. It exploits quasi-experimental variation from a government program from Sao Paulo, Brazil that created monetary rewards for consumers to ask for receipts. To assess how incentives to consumers can be effective despite potential collusion opportunities, I construct datasets for 1 million firms, 40 million consumers, and 2.7 billion receipts. I estimate that revenue reported in retail increased by at least 22% over four years. The estimated compliance effect is stronger for sectors with a high volume of transactions and small receipt values, consistent with a model in which there are fixed costs to negotiate collusive deals to avoid issuing receipts. Furthermore, the effect has an inverted-U shape with respect to firm size. This result is consistent with a model of higher baseline compliance among larger firms, and in which shifts in audit probability from consumer monitoring increase in firm size. I find no effects on exit rates or formal employment decisions.

Issues and problems associated with the seriousness of tax non-compliance have increased dramatically over the years due to the widening tax gaps experienced by governments worldwide as a result of sophisticated transactions. To add to the severity of the situation are the concerns surrounding the difficulties associated with our abilities in defining what is meant by tax compliance, non-compliance and their relevant sub-categories. This study reviews both the international existing literature and New Zealand case law to examine how the concepts have (or have not) been defined over the years within particular studies and case law. The results are presented in the form of a critical literature review where the definitions (or descriptions) for the concepts are organized into tables, in order to compare how the definitions have (or have not) been ‘improved’ over the years. Lastly, this study discusses the implications regarding whether ‘universal’ definitions can or should be developed and attributed to each of the concepts in order to clear the murkiness between our understanding of the various concepts of tax compliance, non-compliance, and their sub-categories.

Zugl.: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 2007

Freie Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2000.