The influence of tax authorities on the employment of tax practitioners: Empirical evidence from a survey and interview study

Tax practitioners play a crucial role in the degree of taxpayers’ compliance – a role that has increased as tax systems worldwide have become more complex. However, little is known about tax authorities’ impact on taxpayers’ decisions to employ tax practitioners. Based on earlier research on motivations to employ a tax practitioner and the extended slippery slope framework of tax compliance, we conducted two studies which provide some answers. A survey study – comprising a representative sample of 500 Austrian self-employed taxpayers – revealed that financial gain is not the most important reason to employ a tax practitioner but instead the motivation to avoid problems with the tax authorities. Related to that, we also find that taxpayers’ perception of tax authorities wielding coercive power motivates them to employ tax practitioners. In the interview study with 33 self-employed taxpayers and 30 tax auditors, taxpayers indicated that they sought to avoid contact with tax officers by employing tax practitioners. This finding was supported by tax officers who reported preferring interaction with tax practitioners over direct contact with taxpayers. The two studies point to the complex relationship between taxpayers, tax authorities and tax practitioners, and allow the drawing of theoretical and practical implications.     

Behavioral responses and the distributional effects of the Russian ‘flat’ tax

This paper simulates the distributional impact of the Russian personal income tax (PIT) following the flat tax reform of 2001 using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. I decompose the change in the distribution of net income into a direct (tax) effect and an indirect effect. The indirect effect is further decomposed into evasion and productivity effects using existing estimates of these respective elasticities. As expected, the direct tax effect increased net income inequality. Changes in the pre-tax distribution (indirect effect), on the other hand, had a large negative impact on inequality thus leading to an overall decline in net income inequality. I also find that the tax-induced evasion response increased reported net income inequality while reducing consumption inequality. To the extent that consumption approximates actual income, these results demonstrate that the flat tax reform had a much smaller effect on actual income inequality than on reported income inequality. More importantly, relative to non-tax factor, the reform had little overall effect on income inequality. This suggests that objection to flatter tax schedules on the grounds of income inequality is mostly misguided, especially in transitional countries with high levels of evasion.     

一个半离散的Hilbert型不等式及其等价形式

应用权系数方法给出的一个新的带有最佳常数的一个半离散的Hilbert不等式,同时出给相应的等价形式.     

张学良重视女子教育的举措及原因

张学良教育思想中,主张男女平等、注重女子教育的特点十分突出。主政东北后,张学良冲破禁锢,大胆发展女子教育,在东北大学各系招收女生,开创东北女子高等教育新风尚,创办同泽女子中学,并亲任董事长。他重视女子教育的原因既源于"西学东渐"带来的"兴女学"运动、五四新文化运动时期倡导女性解放的时代背景和辽沈地区女子教育自身的发展,也由于他的教育思想具有时代性、超前性以及他自身振兴东北、抵御外侮、强国保种的思想。     

男权重压下的悲苦女性——《儿子与情人》的女性主义解读

D·H·劳伦斯《儿子与情人》中有三位主要女性,莫莱尔夫人——保罗的母亲、米丽安——他的第一个情人以及克拉拉——他的第二个情人。所有三个女性都成为这个男权中心社会的受害者和男权主义者保罗走向成功的踏脚石。尝试回避对《儿子与情人》的常规性文学评论,从女性主义视角来仔细剖析书中的三位悲剧女性,希望借一曲女性的悲歌,加深对劳伦斯作品思想和内涵的更深理解。     

国家与社群的误读——论刘禾教授《个人主义话语》一文的问题

刘禾教授的《个人主义话语》一文存在一些对思想史料错误的解读,根本原因是她把中国现代民族国家观念与社群观念相混淆造成的。从根本上说,刘禾教授在考察五四时代的思想时没有摆脱“救亡—启蒙”的认识模式。     

Variability explained by covariates in linear mixed‐effect models for longitudinal data

Variability explained by covariates or explained variance is a well‐known concept in assessing the importance of covariates for dependent outcomes. In this paper we study R² statistics of explained variance pertinent to longitudinal data under linear mixed‐effect models, where the R² statistics are computed at two different levels to measure, respectively, within‐ and between‐subject variabilities explained by the covariates. By deriving the limits of R² statistics, we find that the interpretation of explained variance for the existing R² statistics is clear only in the case where the covariance matrix of the outcome vector is compound symmetric. Two new R² statistics are proposed to address the effect of time‐dependent covariate means. In the general case where the outcome covariance matrix is not compound symmetric, we introduce the concept of compound symmetry projection and use it to define level‐one and level‐two R² statistics. Numerical results are provided to support the theoretical findings and demonstrate the performance of the R² statistics. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 38: 352–368; 2010 © 2010 Statistical Society of Canada     

Optimal Berry–Esseen bound for parameter estimation of SPDE with small noise

We investigate a rate of convergence on asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for parameter $\theta$ appearing in parabolic SPDEs of the form

$d{u}^{?}(t,x)=(A_0+\theta A_1)u^{?}(t,x)dt+?dW(t,x),$

where $A_0$ and$A_1$ are partial differential operators, $W$ is a cylindrical Brownian motion (CBM) and $?\downarrow 0$. We find an optimal Berry–Esseen bound for central limit theorem (CLT) of the MLE. It is proved by developing techniques based on combining Malliavin calculus and Stein’s method.