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M.Com. (South African and International Taxation) / Tax policy is important on many levels. It directly affects all members of society. The gender impact of these polices is often overlooked. The study was motivated by the potential existence of unintended gender discrimination within various indirect taxes. Tax policy has real repercussions on household budgeting and spending. The impact is likely to differ between the genders and this should be taken into account when setting tax policy in order to maintain fairness. Value Added Tax and the national lottery are all regressive taxes and affect the poor more than the wealthy. In light of the feminisation of poverty, as well as different household responsibilities and spending patterns between men and women, the gendered effect of this regressive tax is significant. This study considers whether South Africa’s indirect tax legislation and policies result in gender discrimination and what the potential solutions are. A largely qualitative approach was undertaken in executing the research. This entailed detailed reading on the topic to support any inferences and conclusions. This study finds that indirect gender discrimination exists in South Africa’s indirect taxation system and policy. The discrimination arises mostly due to the regressive nature of indirect taxes. These taxes have far larger ramifications for the poor. Women make up most of the poorest people both in South Africa and around the world. Men and women also spend differently and their spending and decision making directly affects household disposable income. The result of these gendered spending patterns could be said to put woman at a disadvantage in certain cases. The introduction of additional zero-ratings on children’s clothing and personal hygiene products could go far in addressing discrimination without a huge impact to the fiscus.

Šiame darbe buvo analizuojami tam tikri netiesioginių mokesčių Europos Sąjungoje reglamentavimo aspektai – tiek pirmoje, tiek antroje darbo dalyje analizė buvo pradedama apžvelgiant kaip kito požiūris į tam tikrus reglamentavimo aspektus, kokių priemonių buvo imtasi, kitais žodžiais tariant, atrodė svarbu apžvelgti, kaip istoriškai kito požiūris į netiesioginių mokesčių reglamentavimą, be abejo, nepaliekant nuošalyje vieno iš svarbesnių aspektų – atsižvelgiant į bendruosius Bendrijos tikslus, peržvelgti, kaip buvo įgyvendintas (ar turėjo būti) siekis harmonizuoti reglamentavimą netiesioginių mokesčių srityje. Po harmonizavimo politikos istorinės apžvalgos buvo pereita prie konkrečių, šiuo metu galiojančių tiek pridėtinės vertės mokesčio, tiek akcizo reglamentavimo aspektų. Kaip vienu iš vertingų šaltinių buvo pasirinkta Europos Teisingumo Teismo praktika, kuri buvo vertinga iš esmės dėl dviejų pagrindinių priežasčių – remiantis Teismo praktika buvo galima išskirti tas sritis, kurių dabartinis reguliavimas vis dar išlieka problematiškas, be to, tose srityse, kur vis dar susiduriama su reglamentavimo neaiškumu ar dviprasmiškumu, pavyzdžiui, aiškinant tam tikras sąvokas, Teismo praktika buvo vertingas šaltinis stengiantis iššiaiškinti kokrečių normų prasmę. Galiausiai darbo išvadose buvo glaustai pateikti pagrindiniai probleminiai aspektai, kurie išryškėjo analizuojant tiek teisės aktus, tiek teismų praktiką bei užsienio teisės mokslininkų darbus – tokie kaip vis dar taikomi... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The subject of this master thesis was the analysis of certain aspects, regarding indirect taxes regulation in the European Union. The first and the second part of this paper cover the changes in the attitude to certain regulations aspects, what sort of measures have been taken, in other words, it seemed important to show the historical development of this attitude, nevertheless pay consideration to the harmonization policy in the field of indirect taxation, the way it had been introduced and implemented (or should be) with regard to the Community’s aims. After the introduction, regarding harmonization policy, both parts deal with certain aspects of the regulation of value added tax and excises. The practice of European Court of Justice has been beneficial mainly because firstly, it helped to disclose those areas, in which the regulation remains problematic and secondly, where regulation is still deemed as inexplicit – it has stood as a valuable source trying to clarify the real meaning of certain regulation aspects. Finally, conclusions have been made with regard to the analysis of laws and practice of the European Court of Justice. These are zero rates, applicable to the Value Added Tax, which do not comply with the common system of the value added tax, excise rates, which Member States are free to determine according to the fixed minimum rates and in this way to distort the common market.

The scope of this work is analysing how economic policies chosen by governments are influenced by the power of social groups. The core idea is taken from the single-mindedness theory, which states that preferences of groups and their ability to focus on the consumption of goods enable them to obtain the most favourable policies. This approach exploits the advantages of probabilistic voting theory, ability to manage the multidiemnsionality and possibility to study precisely how politicians tailor their policies to groups' features. Unlike classic probabilistic voting models, my theory assumes that the density function which captures the distribution of political preferences depends on consumption of goods and preferences of individuals. The higher the consumption of goods, the higher the density, the higher the political power. This mechanism is better explained by considering the role played by "swing voters". Since they are pivotal to changing the equilibrium, candidates must favour them because they realise that even a small change in policy could force them to vote for the other candidate, Thus, the lower the loyalty of voters for parties, the higher the benefit they obtain. As a consequence, these voters are better off and represent the winners of the political process.

Harmonization of tax systems of the European Union member states has been going on since 1950s. This trend is followed to this day in order to achieve one of the primary objectives of the European Union, single domestic market. The harmonization of tax systems allows free movement of capital, goods, and services. Value added tax is harmonized through the EU Directives that have unified tax object, tax base and partly tax rates. The Court of Justice of the European Union also plays a vital role in the harmonization, because the European case law complements the interpretation of the directives and creates a comprehensive impact throughout the harmonization. This thesis analyses the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which have been implemented in the VAT Act, and examines at the same time impact of the implementation. The first implementation took place in the amendment of the VAT Act in 2006. The biggest changes occurred in the amendment of the VAT Act in 2012 and it was mainly in the realm of the conditions for exemption from VAT without deduction and the possibility of claiming a deduction. Finally, time frame of the implementation was also researched, judging from the outcomes of the research, one can say that the Czech Republic responds quite flexibly to the publication of the European case of law and the implementation takes place shortly following verdict of The Court of Justice of the European Union.

The digital economy is growing exponentially. Companies such as Facebook and Instagram base their business model on supplying services completely free of charge to billions of users.  This model of business is called “Freeconomics”. These companies generate huge profits from the exploitation of personal data provided by Users. The peculiarity of this way of doing business, although this may seem absurd, is that the company's profit is directly proportional to the number of non-paying users. Such situations have given rise to discussions regarding the powerlessness of the tax system of states to levy tax on such profits. Regarding the indirect taxation, the question is even more difficult if one considers free digital services and personal data. Unfortunately, this flow of “digital” consumption remains completely out of a VAT assessment. Exclude a priori those transactions from being assessed for VAT purposes only because it could be arduous to assess the consumption would result in a violation of the principle of neutrality. Accordingly, issues related to the distortion of competition could also arise. The author of this thesis examines the assumption that between the Companies and the Users take place a reciprocal exchange of benefits in kind characterized by a synallagmatic relationship (quid pro quo) in the form of barter. The results of the analysis indicate that the transactions characterized by the supply of free digital services to Users in exchange for personal data - as described in the Business Reference Model - actually fall within the scope of Article 2 (1)(c) of the EU VAT Directive and therefore must be subject to indirect taxation.