The Complexity of Tax Simplification

The Complexity of Tax Simplification PDF Author: Simon James
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137478691
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Simplicity in taxation has considerable potential advantages. However, attempts to simplify tax systems are only likely to be successful and enduring if they take account of the reasons why taxation is complex. There are strong pressures on tax systems to accommodate a range of important factors, as well as complex and changing national and international environments within which modern tax systems have to operate. This book explores the experiences of simplification in a range of countries and jurisdictions. The authors analyse a range of manifestations of simplification, including tax systems, tax law, taxpayer communications and tax administration. They also review the longer term or more fundamental approaches to simplification, suggesting that in order to strike the optimum balance between simplicity and the aims of a tax system in terms of efficiency and equity, a range of complex environmental factors must all be taken into account. With chapters reflecting on experiences from Australia, China, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the UK and the US, the authors illustrate differences between jurisdictions and the changing environment in which they operate. This book addresses the crucial balance between simplicity and the other objectives of tax design and reform, and suggests that reformers of the tax system should include simplicity as one of the key evaluators of any design or reform proposal.

The Complexity of Tax Simplification

The Complexity of Tax Simplification PDF Author: Simon James
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137478691
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
Simplicity in taxation has considerable potential advantages. However, attempts to simplify tax systems are only likely to be successful and enduring if they take account of the reasons why taxation is complex. There are strong pressures on tax systems to accommodate a range of important factors, as well as complex and changing national and international environments within which modern tax systems have to operate. This book explores the experiences of simplification in a range of countries and jurisdictions. The authors analyse a range of manifestations of simplification, including tax systems, tax law, taxpayer communications and tax administration. They also review the longer term or more fundamental approaches to simplification, suggesting that in order to strike the optimum balance between simplicity and the aims of a tax system in terms of efficiency and equity, a range of complex environmental factors must all be taken into account. With chapters reflecting on experiences from Australia, China, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the UK and the US, the authors illustrate differences between jurisdictions and the changing environment in which they operate. This book addresses the crucial balance between simplicity and the other objectives of tax design and reform, and suggests that reformers of the tax system should include simplicity as one of the key evaluators of any design or reform proposal.

The Complexity of Tax Simplification

The Complexity of Tax Simplification PDF Author: Simon James
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349574650
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This book explores the experiences of simplification in a range of countries and jurisdictions.

Tax Simplification

Tax Simplification PDF Author: Chris Evans
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789041159762
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Why are tax systems so complex? What are the causes of tax law complexity? What are the consequences? Why is tax simplification so difficult to achieve? These, and related questions, lie at the core of this volume on tax simplification featuring chapters by leading tax experts around the world. The quest for simplicity è^' or at least some move towards simplification è^' has been a fixation of governments and others for many years, but little appears to have been achieved. Tax simplification is the most widely quoted but the least widely observed of the usually stated goals of policy (equity and efficiency being the others). It has been used (and abused) as a primary justification for tax reform over the last century, and typically it is seen as è^-a good thingè^-- è^' to say that one is in favour of tax simplification is tantamount to stating that one is in favour of good as opposed to evil.

Advances in Cross-Section Data Methods in Applied Economic Research

Advances in Cross-Section Data Methods in Applied Economic Research PDF Author: Nicholas Tsounis
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030382532
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
This proceedings volume presents new methods and applications in applied economics with special interest in advanced cross-section data estimation methodology. Featuring select contributions from the 2019 International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE 2019) held in Milan, Italy, this book explores areas such as applied macroeconomics, applied microeconomics, applied financial economics, applied international economics, applied agricultural economics, applied marketing and applied managerial economics. International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE) is an annual conference that started in 2008, designed to bring together economists from different fields of applied economic research, in order to share methods and ideas. Applied economics is a rapidly growing field of economics that combines economic theory with econometrics, to analyze economic problems of the real world, usually with economic policy interest. In addition, there is growing interest in the field of applied economics for cross-section data estimation methods, tests and techniques. This volume makes a contribution in the field of applied economic research by presenting the most current research. Featuring country specific studies, this book is of interest to academics, students, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in applied economics, econometrics and economic policy.

Attractive Complexity

Attractive Complexity PDF Author: Steven Dean
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
Political failure has long been the scapegoat for the increasing complexity of the income tax. Over the last few decades, confusion over the meaning of the term simplification appears to have become a second important obstacle to creating simpler tax laws. Because some tax complexity is attractive to taxpayers, relying on taxpayer preferences to identify complexity and to guide simplification efforts has produced reforms and proposals that promise simplification but instead deliver pro-taxpayer deregulation that may cause more of society's resources to be devoted to paying, minimizing and collecting taxes rather than less. The check-the-box election, which provided taxpayers with greater flexibility to choose and change the classification of business entities while having only an ambiguous impact on the tax law's complexity, offers a clear example of the misidentification of a deregulatory reform as a simplification reform. The simplification proposals offered by the bipartisan tax reform panel in 2005 would have done an equally poor job of simplifying the tax law.A rational taxpayer will always embrace a complex tax rule when its economic costs (e.g. $100 in time and legal fees) are more than offset by tax benefits the rule facilitates (e.g. $101 in tax savings). Although that rule's complexity is attractive to taxpayers, it still consumes $100 of society's resources. To prevent attractive complexity from transforming tax simplification into tax deregulation, it is important to adopt an objective approach to identifying and measuring complexity. Recognizing that rational taxpayers will sometimes prefer complexity over simplicity will help prevent attractive complexity from undermining the success of efforts to simplify the tax law.

The Complexity of Simplification

The Complexity of Simplification PDF Author: B. Dodwell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This article reviews the issues faced by the Office of Tax Simplification and its efforts to address complexity in tax.

The Flat Tax

The Flat Tax PDF Author: Robert E. Hall
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817993134
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax—called "the bible of the flat tax movement" by Forbes—explains what's wrong with our present tax system and offers a practical alternative. Hall and Rabushka set forth what many believe is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable tax reform plan on the table: tax all income, once only, at a uniform rate of 19 percent.

The Crisis in Tax Administration

The Crisis in Tax Administration PDF Author: Henry Aaron
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815796565
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or imprisonment. The practical questions for tax administration are how to strengthen each of these motives to comply with the law. How much should be spent on enforcement and how should enforcement be organized to promote these objectives and achieve the best results per dollar spent? Over the last few years, the U.S. Congress has restricted spending on tax administration, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to curtail enforcement activities, at the same time, that the number of individual filers has increased, tax rules have become more complex, and more business have become multinational operations. But if too many cases of tax evasion go undetected and unpunished, those who may have grudgingly paid their taxes may soon find it easier to join the scofflaws. These events in combination have created a genuine crisis in tax administration. The chapters in this volume evaluate the capacity of authorities to enforce the tax laws in a modern, global economy and examine the implications of failing to do so. Specific aspects of tax law, including tax shelters, issues relating to small businesses, tax software, role of tax preparers, and the objectives of tax simplification are examined in detail. The volume also builds a conceptual basis for future scholarship, with regard not only to tax administration, but also to such fundamental questions as whether taxpayers respond mostly to economic incentives or are influenced by their experiences with the filing process and what is the proper framework for evaluating the allocation of resources within the IRS.

The Easy Case Against Tax Simplification

The Easy Case Against Tax Simplification PDF Author: Samuel A. Donaldson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
There is growing political momentum to simplify the Internal Revenue Code. While the federal tax laws should be no more complex than necessary, this Article demonstrates that tax complexity is not as bad as political rhetoric leads us to believe. The Article makes four arguments in support of this thesis. First, the forces comprising tax complexity are either inevitable or net beneficial, so calls for simplification are ultimately pointless. Second, the alleged harms of tax complexity are either unproven or overstated, so the need for simplification is questionable. Third, significant proposals for simplification are flawed because they either overcorrect for the perceived problem or actually result in increased complexity. Finally, as a criterion of tax policy, simplicity is overrated. While many scholars use the criteria of equity, efficiency, and simplicity in conducting tax policy analysis, simplicity is best characterized as a component of the efficiency criterion. By elevating simplicity to a plan equal with efficiency and equity, therefore, one gives greater weight to simplicity than to equity and the other components of efficiency. To the extent equitable-but-complex laws are superior to inequitable-but-simple laws, the emphasis on simplicity is misguided.

Tax Simplification Bills

Tax Simplification Bills PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance. Subcommittee on Taxation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 648

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Book Description