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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

The following thesis outlines the benefits of manufacturing in the United States because of the new Republican tax reform. House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump have been proposing large corporate tax cuts, full expensing of capital expenditures, a border adjustment tax, and repatriation of foreign cash flows. These changes will encourage more corporations to manufacture in the USA because the USA will be more globally competitive, a key focus of the Republican administration.

For the last few years, the financial imbalance and the environmental deterioration are gradually serious in the various level of government. The formulating process of environmental and financial policies usually neglects the viewpoints of the interested stakeholders so that the insufficient policy information causes the policy deviation and even further leads to the gaps between the policy performance and the expected target. Additionally the ¡§green tax reform¡¨ has become the trend worldwide. In the past few years, various countries gradually switch from administrative control to tax measures to facilitate the environmental protection. Through economic incentives and market mechanism, it will more effectively achieve the goal of industrial greening and will produce the double dividend in the improvement of environmental quality and the distortion alleviation of tax system. The research studies the contents of the environment related tax (fee) system and the green tax reform or the green reform experiences in the European countries and the States, meanwhile the research takes Kaohsiung city as empirical case. Besides the research applies the social judgment theory (SJT), SAGE and one-way analysis of variance to separately evaluate the acceptability of current implemented improvement plan for the income application mechanism of air pollution control fee and to study the viewpoints on special tax and temporary tax imposed by Kaohsiung city. The results of empirical study find out the tested interested stakeholders or groups prefer the income application mechanism of air pollution control fee to be changed toward the mechanism of complete gaining and expenditure. There are no significant gaps in the recognition consistence of the related interested stakeholders. In addition, no significant gaps are occurred in the judging similarity value or judging principle similarity value among interested stakeholders. In the meantime the tested interested stakeholders also support the Kaohsiung city government imposes the special tax and temporary tax in the future. The results and suggestions indicate the tax could be levied including special petroleum refining tax, special steel refining tax, special noise pollution tax in the civil airport, special road maintenance tax of incoming and outgoing container cars in the harbor, resident income special tax, temporary vendors management tax in the evening retail market, temporary tax of construction produced soil and temporary tax of residential and land renewal and development. There are no significant gaps existed in the opinions of tested interested stakeholders on special tax levy. However the gaps are occurred in the opinions of temporary tax levy, it may be because of tax object and levied procedure or being limited by tested samples so that different age groups or occupation or resided administrative district produce different results. Additionally the research suggests to increase the business tax rate, to conduct the complete reform of financial income and expenditure, to revise the commodity tax statutes, Air Pollution Control Act, Statutes for Upgrading Industries and local tax and duty regulations, to enhance the environmental effect of consumption tax including the business tax and commodity tax with hope of establishing the sound environmental financial system, environmental order and financial discipline. Since the research is restricted by time factor and the sample is not easily controlled, the research doesn¡¦t conduct the further in-depth study in the parts of recognition feedback effect and the comparison or integration of information integration theory. However these parts can be used as the directions of subsequent studies.

The recent political and fiscal crises in Kyrgyzstan offer a good opportunity to rethink the objectives and the direction of tax reform. The tax system of the Kyrgyz Republic has changed substantially since 1991 including a shift of the tax structure towards indirect taxation, reduction in a number of taxes, and drastic decrease in tax rates. The thesis aims to identify and describe the main factors influencing tax reform in Kyrgyzstan during the first decades of transition to a market economy using important theoretical model of public management reform. So, it will critically review the applicability of a Pollitt-Bouckaert’s model in this context and implications for how the model could be adapted to fit the tax reform process in post-Soviet transition countries. Accomplishment of these goals would require a multiple methods approach based on the assumption that collecting diverse types of data sequentially in the embedded single-case study will provide more complete understanding of research questions than either quantitative or qualitative data alone. For the study of tax reform, the quantitative data are subjected to time-series analysis of the embedded units while the qualitative interviews remain critical in explaining the main proposition central to the entire case study. The study starts with the theoretical assumption that the factors identified in the model have significant effect on tax reform process. This basic proposition – the impact of socio-economic forces, political changes, administrative system, elite’s decisions, and chance events on the reform process – will be traced for each factor in ‘within-country’ explanatory case study. The fundamental part of this thesis is the Pollitt and Bouckaert’s model of public management reform, which will provide a framework for discussion of the main forces influencing the reform process. As a diagram of main factors of the public sector reform, this model will be further adapted and modified for tax reform purposes. However, the direction of tax reform in the Kyrgyz Republic cannot be understood completely without a good knowledge of the main legacies of the Soviet Union, the cultural and institutional features of centralized planning system, which have left a long-lasting impact on trajectory of the economic and political development in the country. Therefore, the model proposed by Pollitt and Bouckaert does not include other forces, which have substantial impact on reform. In particular, it needs to take more account of significant importance of the development partners in tax reform process.

This thesis examines the use of tax incentives to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) in Thailand and the issues arising out of the way in which the Thai revenue system has chosen to implement these incentives. Thailand experiences sporadic political unrest, and has been affected by regional and global economic crises. Since FDI appears to increase economic growth and help the host country to achieve sustainable development, the Thai government has a clear policy to encourage FDI. Tax incentives have become a significant weapon in the Thai government’s arsenal for encouraging this aim. This thesis presents a detailed analysis of the tax incentives and the mechanisms used for their implantation. Analysis reveals that, unfortunately, the Thai government has also chosen to deliver the administration of tax incentives in to the hands of two separate bodies ─ the Revenue Department and the Board of Investment (BOI). This strategy is problematic because it creates unnecessary difficulties and uncertainty in the administration of incentives and promotes confusion among foreign investors. The jurisdictional problems inherent in the system of the dual allocation of tax incentive powers are highlighted in the landmark Minebea case, which involved conflicting interpretations by the Revenue Department and the BOI. In addressing these jurisdictional problems, this thesis examines norm conflict resolution principles in general and the lex specialis in particular, and argues that the Investment Promotion Act of 2001 (IPA 2001), being a special law, and so overrides the more general provisions of the Revenue Code. Two solutions are suggested in order to tackle the current problem: 1) to amend the IPA 2001 to specify methods of tax calculation and clearly define problematic terms and 2) to incorporate the tax incentive provisions provided for BOI-promoted companies into the Revenue Code. This is based on the premise that all tax matters, including tax incentives provisions, should be administered only by the revenue authority, i.e. the Revenue Department.

Este trabalho analisa as razões do recorrente fracasso das reformas tributárias no Brasil. Foram estudadas três tentativas de reforma - uma no governo FHC e duas no governo Lula. Apesar de o sistema tributário brasileiro ser muito mal avaliado, todas estas tentativas de reforma falharam. A hipótese central do trabalho é que este fracasso não pode ser explicado pelas estruturas políticas ou federativas, mas pela estratégia dos governos. A ampla insatisfação com os tributos no Brasil induz o governo a propor reformas abrangentes, que alteram muitos aspectos da intrincada estrutura tributária. Estas propostas acabam gerando conflitos multidimensionais, ou seja, o aparecimento de muitas clivagens políticas simultâneas. Também se compara a reforma tributária a outras duas grandes reformas do período: a reforma do judiciário e a reforma administrativa. / This thesis analyzes the reasons for the persistent failure of the tax reforms in Brazil. I studied three attempts at reform one in Cardosos and two in Lulas administration. Although the Brazilian tax system is rated very poor, all these attempts have failed. The central hypothesis of this study is that failure can not be explained by political or federal sistem, but by the strategy of governments. Widespread dissatisfaction with taxes in Brazil induces the government to propose sweeping reforms that alter many aspects of the intricate tax structure. These proposals generated multidimensional conflicts: the emergence of many political cleavages simultaneously. I also compare the tax reform with two other reforms of the period: the reform of judiciary and administrative reform.

The paper describes the content of the project “Tax-/Transfer-Reform and Fiscal Responsibility: Pathways to a Sustainable Fiscal Policy in Georgia”, which is supported for the period Fall 2005 to Spring 2008 by the VolkswagenStiftung. Within the project a knowledgetransfer is organized, concentrating on state theory, tax and transfer reform, revenue sharing as well as fiscal equalization. A short overview on the current situation in Georgia is presented. Then the main project components – tax reform, tax revenue estimation and microsimulation – are briefly discussed.

This paper gives an outline of the evolution of fiscal policy in Georgia. Starting in the mid-1990s, the authors break the recent Georgian history into two main periods, separated by the Rose Revolution of 2003. The first period was marked by some first efforts to generate and stabilize tax revenues, which were largely offset by the financial crisis of 1998. The Georgian budget at that time was largely financed by foreign sources. Following the Rose Revolution the country’s financial situation has improved, hyperinflation was overcome and public revenues have steadily increased due to administrative changes and tax law reforms.

Recently, Peru went through a major process to reform its mining tax system oriented to striking an appropriate balance between two conflicting goals: (1) to raise tax revenues, and (2) to attract investment to the mining sector. This thesis analyzes if this objective is being achieved. This thesis analyses the recent enactments in the Peruvian mining tax regime by using a combination of doctrinal analysis, law and economics and public choice analysis. This thesis contains a detailed assessment of the political dynamics that give rise to the particular law reform and presents some recommendations as to what should be considered by the government when enacting additional mining tax legislation in order for the reform to be successful in achieving the goals intended.