The principles of business taxation are governed by the Adam Smith’s fourth canon of taxation : ‘every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the treasury of the state’. However,...

U.K. guidelines on the introduction of new regulations require that politicians and civil servants should “think small first” when deciding whether and how to introduce new regulations that affect business. Similar guidelines are currently being adopted across the EU. This paper presents the...

Small firms suffer far more than large firmsSuccessive governments have promised to reduce business red tape, whilst doing nothing about it. In fact, with regard to the tax system, ever-greater numbers of taxes and ever-greater complexity have increased burdens on businesses by turning firms...

Successive governments have promised to reduce business red tape, whilst doing nothing about it. In fact, with regard to the tax system, ever-greater numbers of taxes and ever-greater complexity have increased burdens on businesses by turning firms into unpaid tax collectors.Research into the...

This empirical research paper draws evidence from a database of UK independent private companies (n=250) and reports on the financial aspirations of owner-managers of family firms with respect to the flotation route. Following a brief review of the literature, the paper proceeds with an...

The choice of financing source is particularly difficult for a small firm due to the high uncertainty about future liquidity requirements. We show that the techniques of continuous time arbitrage and stochastic control theory may be used not only to value such firms but also to determine the...