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Views Toward Tax Evasion: A Comparative Study of Moldova and Romania
-- Robert W McGee
There was a two-fold purpose in writing this paper. The first purpose was to discover how
the populations of Moldova and Romania view tax evasion and whether opinions vary based
on demographics. The second purpose, which may be more interesting from a sociological
and political perspective, was whether opinions differ between countries. What is now Moldova was
a part of Romania before the Soviets took it over and included it into the Soviet Union. The
paper analyzes whether, after two generations of Soviet rule, attitude towards tax evasion in
Moldova had become different from that in Romania. The study found that overall Romanians are
more opposed to tax evasion than the Moldovans. The study found that certain demographics made
a difference while other demographic factors did not, which has implications for the public
finance literature in general. Gender did not make a significant difference in attitude towards tax
evasion in either country; Romanians become more opposed to tax evasion as they get older, but
Moldovans in the age group of 30-49 are more opposed to tax evasion than the younger and older age
groups; the most educated people of Moldova are more opposed to tax evasion than the other two
groups, but the middle education group in Romania is less opposed to tax evasion than the lower
and upper education group; and married people oppose tax evasion more than the single people do
in both the countries. Although the research is limited to Moldova and Romania, one
could extrapolate that attitudes in former Soviet Republics might closely mirror those of Moldova
and attitudes of former Soviet Bloc countries might closely mirror those of Romania, although
any such conclusion must be tentative and subject to further research. This is the first study of
its kind that has been done to compare the attitude towards tax evasion in Moldova and Romania.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Corporate Financing
and Tax Environment in India
-- J Dennis Rajakumar
This paper examines the pattern of corporate financing, particularly, behavior and
composition of internal sources of funds. As firms' capacity to generate funds internally are mostly
affected by reserves and surplus, and depreciation provisions, this paper discusses how corporation
taxation policies and various tax relief measures provided by the government time and again
have significantly affected the generation of internal funds.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
A Greater Contribution
from Consumption Taxes:
An Avenue for Québec to Explore
-- Luc Godbout, Matthieu Arseneau and Suzie ST-Cerny
This paper analyzes the effect of a tax mix modification. More precisely, the authors assess
the relevance of increasing consumption taxes and at the same time decreasing income taxes.
Several arguments in favor of modifying the tax mix are analyzed, such as its impacts on savings,
labor supply and tax compliance. The authors observe that Québec still relies more on income
taxes, compared to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
In this context, if the Québec government comes forward with a tax mix reform, the authors
suggest that it should opt for a moderate reform in the consumption tax rate. They recommend
abolition of the tax exemptions adopted on particular goods and services, coupled with an increase in
tax credit to compensate for the negative impact on the personal finances of poor taxpayers.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Growth and Determinants
of Non-Tax Revenue of Indian States: A Panel Data Study
-- Himani Joshi Baxi
In the study of state finances, non-tax revenue has so far been the neglected area. This
paper attempts to examine the performance of non-tax revenue of Indian states. It estimates the
growth of non-tax revenue of 16 major Indian states over a period of 18 years. It examines the
determinants of non-tax revenue using panel data analysis with Fixed Effect Model (FEM). Based on
the hypothesis that it is the socioeconomic activities of the states that provide the base for
raising revenue, the paper analyzes how the economic development of the states determines
the performance of their own non-tax revenue. It concludes that the difference in
socioeconomic activities of individual states significantly influences the generation of non-tax revenue of
the state, as the state-specific intercepts are found to be statistically significant for each state.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
An Assessment of Non-Tax Revenue Sources in Bangladesh
-- Mohammad Faridul Alam and Nikhil Chandra Shil
In Bangladesh, the fundamental problem behind arresting the revenue deficit is the
rising expenditure unmatched by corresponding means of finance. Of total revenue, the revenue
from non-tax sources is nearly one-fifth and its share in GDP has shown a stable trend over the
years. This paper mainly focuses on the study of non-tax revenue performance in Bangladesh.
The contribution of non-tax revenue, although erratic in terms of growth rate, has shown
substantial increase in terms of absolute amount over the period, 1997-98 to 2006-07. Although,
various reform initiatives have been taken to improve the tax performance, the initiatives are
highly insignificant in case of non-tax revenue. The performance of non-tax revenue can significantly
be improved through effective and efficient policy measures, which may help the country to
cope with the fiscal imbalance in resource mobilization.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Political Economy of Determining
Own Tax Revenue and Selective State Taxes of Andhra Pradesh, India
-- Prasant Kumar Panda
The paper seeks to analyze the political economy of determining own tax revenue and
selective state taxes of Andhra Pradesh (AP), India. The study suggests that the own tax revenue
and revenue from selective state taxes of AP are mainly determined by a set of economic and
need-based factors, rather than political factors. The political dummies like Congress
government dummy and election year dummy are insignificant in influencing the own tax revenue,
and other state taxes except tax on vehicles. But in many cases the coefficients of these
political dummies are found to be negative, possibly signaling that the growth in tax revenues
is undermined by political power shift and compromises.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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