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We focus on the design of optimal policies in the event of commitment problems. In the first essay, we characterize how income should be redistributed within and across generations. The time-inconsistency problem arises when the government cannot commit to the future retirees' nonlinear tax schedule. Because retired individuals have revealed their private information during the active period of their lives, the government has an incentive to misuse it and to implement more redistribution than a regular second-best policy would prescribe. We study the set of equilibria that can be sustained if the government is infinitely lived, and the households are short-lived. Second, we derive an optimal linear pension scheme when individuals need forced savings as a commitment device. We do so with time-inconsistent preferences, whereby forced savings are the outcome of a paternalistic social welfare maximization process. We then derive the optimal scheme when individuals have self-control preferences.In both cases, we study the conflict between the forced-savings and redistributive roles of public pensions. We show that the non-paternalistic pension system may exhibit more forced savings and be less redistributive than the paternalistic one. The third essay analyzes whether centralizing or decentralizing the provision of public goods may influence the threats of secessions in a federation. We use a simple model with two regions, in which one of them may decide to secede even if it would be socially optimal, from the standpoint of the whole federation, to keep it united. Centralization offers both benefits and costs for individual regions. We show how centralizing generates a cost to secede if centralizing the provision of public goods requires an investment in joint institutions that cannot be perfectly recovered if the federation is dissolved. However, because a centralized provision of public goods does not match local preferences as well as a decentralized one, it also generates a long-run cost to remain in the federation. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-12 14:37:20.574

by Chan Mau-sing & Ng Kong-ping. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 80-82.

The traditional accounting system in China was directly linked to the tax assessment. The close linkage between the two sets of reporting rules has substantially weakened, as China promulgated a series of accounting standards and regulations in the late 1990s. As a result, accounting for financial reporting purposes does not have to conform to accounting for tax reporting purposes. This divergence between the two measures of income will inevitably cause accounting book income to differ from taxable income. This is because the more the excess of book income over taxable income, the more the magnitude of tax audit adjustments. Mills (1998) suggests that book tax difference is an indicator of a firm’s tax noncompliance. This implies that additional tax-related costs may arise when accounting book income is higher than taxable income, and these costs may have an impact on the tradeoff between tax incentives and financial reporting incentives. Based on data from the Chinese stock market, this study tests empirically whether book tax differences due to the tradeoff between tax and non-tax cost results in tax audit adjustments. I hypothesize that the magnitude of tax noncompliance increases as book tax differences increase, and this relationship is stronger after the departure of financial reporting from tax rules in China. The results provide evidence in support of the hypothesis. This study extends prior research and contributes to the understanding of tax and non-tax tradeoffs in a different context. The results have rich implications for corporate managers and policymakers in other developing countries experiencing a similar transition from a tax-based accounting system to a system that gives corporate managers considerable discretion over the choice of accounting methods. One implication is that although book tax delinking may improve the usefulness of financial reports, it could weaken the perceived equity of the tax system and increase corporate tax avoidance behavior. Therefore, when setting accounting standards, policy makers should not only look at the impact of information relevance on the capital market, but also consider the consequence of these standards on government revenue.

The concept of “beneficial ownership” is frequently used in international tax treaties. The concept is applied in situations where taxpayers may be benefiting indirectly from the advantages a particular treaty provides by interposing a corporation in a “tax-favourable jurisdiction” for the purpose of paying less tax than the corporation might pay in other jurisdictions. This corporate behaviour is called “treaty shopping.” Recent constructions of the term “beneficial ownership” in legal literature and case law, and by national tax agencies have been contradictory. Thus, there is a need for clarification both in Canada and internationally. The author of the thesis comes to the conclusion that a new definition is not desirable and that a strict interpretation of the current concept is the lesser evil. However, he argues that, if the concept is to be effectively used to tackle the kinds of arrangements it was intended to challenge, the assistance of a substance-over-form component is inevitable. He proposes some ways this component might be developed.

The concept of “beneficial ownership” is frequently used in international tax treaties. The concept is applied in situations where taxpayers may be benefiting indirectly from the advantages a particular treaty provides by interposing a corporation in a “tax-favourable jurisdiction” for the purpose of paying less tax than the corporation might pay in other jurisdictions. This corporate behaviour is called “treaty shopping.” Recent constructions of the term “beneficial ownership” in legal literature and case law, and by national tax agencies have been contradictory. Thus, there is a need for clarification both in Canada and internationally. The author of the thesis comes to the conclusion that a new definition is not desirable and that a strict interpretation of the current concept is the lesser evil. However, he argues that, if the concept is to be effectively used to tackle the kinds of arrangements it was intended to challenge, the assistance of a substance-over-form component is inevitable. He proposes some ways this component might be developed.

This dissertation examines how the internal revenue legislation enacted during the American Civil War fostered a new role for government in society. The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention constructed a system of fiscal federalism for the United States. The national government relied on indirect taxes, particularly customs duties, as its primary source of revenue. Concurrently, the states developed an array of unique financing strategies, including taxing citizens directly. The dire need for war funds compelled this "unperceived" government to expand beyond the constraints imposed by this antebellum fiscal structure. Through my research, I found that the taxes imposed during the war represent an attempt to cope with a financial crisis, rather than impart a particular preconceived agenda. Because Congress had depended on customs receipts as its primary source of revenue for four decades, lawmakers had few ready options for meeting the overwhelming war costs. In developing the war revenue measures, lawmakers borrowed policies and statutes from the past, rather than relying upon the "free labor ideology" that united the party. The need to meet the escalating costs of war forced lawmakers to react with more speed than deliberation. They often sacrificed their principles to provide the means to prosecute the war and reunite the nation. Once peace returned, the question of whether to "sink" the debt or shrink revenues, vexed lawmakers, and kept the government from returning to its limited role in the economy. As a result, the United States government emerged from the Civil War as a perceived power, one that touched citizens "individually" through the new internal revenue system. I concluded that the fiscal powers of the national government expanded beyond the restraints imposed throughout the antebellum era. The internal revenue measures enacted during the war played a significant role in this transformation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1942. / Lithoprinted. Bibliography: p. 290-296.

Inaug.-diss.--Halle-Wittenberg. / Lebenslauf.