Tax evasion has persistently carried severe penalties, although its intended deterrence effect is highly doubtful. We can safely say that it is based on the widely shared assumption among government officials that tax evasion is among the more serious crimes. In other words, the rationale of the...

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was an economist and journalist. A member of the French Liberal School, he is best known for his free trade ideas and his philosophy of law. Mark Blaug ranks him as one of the 100 greatest economists before Keynes. Schumpeter called him a brilliant economic...

The principles of good taxation are a set of guiding values necessary for any responsible state to consider in constructing their tax policy. The principles are derived from various philosophical and economic discussions including but not limited to the role of the state, ownership of natural...

Should accountants be punished for aiding and abetting tax evasion? The impulsive reply, as well as the politically correct answer, is “yes.” However, closer reflection reveals that the answer is not so cut and dried. This paper reviews the major ethical arguments that take the position that...

This article comments on the article written by Ulrica Nylén that was based on a survey of Swedish CEOs. The author challenges some of Nylén's premises, most notably the concept of stakeholder interest and the duties that taxpayers owe to various groups

In this article I address the normative basis Kant provides for taxation. There exists a significant literature already that applies “Kantian” principles to the understanding of taxation but it does so in a limited way that shows little grasp of the structure of Kant’s ethics. Here I set...

Several Congresses have passed various forms of minimum tax legislation, both at the individual and corporate level over the years. They have even passed alternative minimum tax bills to squeeze out additional tax revenue that would not otherwise be forthcoming. The underlying theory behind the...

Most papers on transfer pricing deal either with technical aspects of the topic or strategy. Research on ethical aspects of transfer pricing is almost totally absent from the business literature and is scantly covered in the ethics literature. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap....

This article continues what has now become a comprehensive series examining the new U.S. reporting and withholding system for foreign account tax compliance. Part VI provides a new four-point analysis to determine if an FFI or USFI has a withholding tax liability for pass-through payments under...

China's tax system is characterized by the co-existence of formal taxes, sundry levies and hidden taxes. In China, multiple authorities with tax law making powers and tax administration powers exist. This leads to issues of tax jurisdiction and tax compliance such as differential treatment...