Social Network Analysis to Optimize Tax Enforcement Effort

The tax gap is a phenomenon experienced by revenue collection agencies which describes the difference between the taxes due, as prescribed by legislation, and the actual taxes collected. The tax gap is mostly a result of taxpayer non-compliance, such as the failure to submit a tax return. Recent theories suggest that a taxpayer’s social structure is a significant determinant of a taxpayer’s attitude towards tax compliance. This study explores the proposal that social network analysis through decision support systems can facilitate the objective of revenue collection agencies to minimize the tax gap. The results suggest that an agency’s limited enforcement capacity can achieve a greater impact on tax compliance by focusing on non-compliant social structures as opposed to single instances of non-compliance. The research fills a gap in literature by demonstrating IT’s value proposition towards government financial services

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use

Reforming tax systems - the World Bank record in the 1990s

The main constraint on world Bank operations in tax and customs administration is the Bank's inadequate institutional framework for accumulating knowledge from loan operations, concludes this review of the Bank's record on reform of tax systems in the 1990s. The Bank's theoretical basis for reforming tax and customs administration is still rudimentary. Recent theories stress the importance of institutions that harness voice and improve transparency and contestability, but there is little evidence that reform of these factors alone makes tax administration more effective. Improvements are needed in pre-project diagnosis and project design, especially for examining accountability, administration costs, managerial autonomy, performance incentives for staff, taxpayer equity and services, and environmental factors. Pre-project work could draw more systematically on lessons from previous experience. Institutional components of project design have been biased toward organization, manpower upgrading, and procedures related to information technology. Too little attention has been paid to improving accountability, administrative cost-effectiveness, and anticorruption institution-building. Projects have made inadequate use of different kinds of performance indicators, with little uniformity in those applied. Methods used to evaluate project outcomes could be better and more uniform. Suggestions for future Bank operations: 1) doing better background work and articulating a strategy and comprehensive framework for Bank involvement in reform of tax administration. 2) Possibly supporting and strengthening regional tax administration associations, which could serve as catalysts for change. 3) Strengthening partnering and supporting private sector consultant organizations, so they can manage major components of administrative reform. 4) Institutionalizing the accumulation of knowledge about tax administration (which might require changing staff recruitment, the mix of staff skills, and training plans). The authors provide recommendations for improving project diagnosis, design, performance indicators, and appraisal, as well as a short list of projects that serve as guides to good practice.Enterprise Development&Reform,Decentralization,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,National Governance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Municipal Financial Management,Tax Policy and Administration

Transition Support Mechanisms for Communities Facing Full or Partial Coal Power Plant Retirement in New York

New York State is undergoing a rapid and unprecedented energy transformation, particularly in the electricity sector. As new resources and technologies emerge to meet the demands of 21st century life, regulators must balance the need for cost effective and equitable participation in wholesale power markets while maintaining reliability on the grid. Furthermore, it is critical that all New Yorkers participate fully in the promise of a revitalized and equitable energy future. Such a transformation requires that the needs of all communities are factored into the polices and regulations that move New York toward the bold goals set forth under its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative. The precipitous drop in natural gas prices, the decreased costs of wind and solar energy, and the rise in the cost of coal, have contributed to the mothballing or retiring of coal-fired and nuclear energy generators across the country, including in New York. Communities that have been home to the electric generation units of the past, particularly struggling coal-fired power plants, are especially vulnerable during this transformation, because these communities often rely on the generators for tax revenues, such as through Payments in Lieu of Tax agreements. New York has the opportunity to ensure a just transition for these communities by adopting new, clean energy resources, technologies, and markets while fostering a trained and skilled workforce to support its ambitious goals. For all New Yorkers to enjoy the new energy future, leadership must address the impact of lost jobs, declining economic activity and lost tax revenue, and must support essential services in impacted communities with the same level of urgency and expansive vision needed to balance the integration of new technologies in the most cost effective manner to maintain grid reliability. At the same time, state and federal funding must be allocated to communities in transition for the remediation and redevelopment of shuttered power plant sites, and to provide the necessary support, training and tools for impacted communities to actively participate in the transition and implementation of clean energy resources. The first section of this report examines the lessons learned from other jurisdictions in when and how to address the fiscal challenges of retiring electric generation units (EGU’s). The challenges New York faces are not unlike the challenges faced by communities, legislators, and plant owners during periods of deindustrialization of the late 1960’s through 1980’s, described in Section One below, which additionally provides: 1. An evaluation of case studies that address the process of retirement, decommissioning, remediation and preparation for redevelopment for future use, along with the state and federal policies and funding sources that made revitalization possible. 2. An overview of case studies that illustrate local government fiscal and workforce support to communities during periods of plant transformation. These periods encompass three historical phases: a. Deindustrialization of the 1960’s to1980’s; b. Federally Mandated Social Programs to Support Enforcement of Federal Regulations 1990’s to 2000; and c. Coal Plant Closures and Community Transition in the Age of Carbon Emissions Reductions: Federal and State Initiatives between 2000 to 2015; and Section Two examines four New York coal-fired generators, some of which are currently mothballed, retired, or struggling financially. In addition to providing profiles of each generator, Section Two also describes the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreements that these generators have entered into with the towns, school boards, and counties in whose jurisdictions they are located. Due to the plants’ finances, several of the generators have made reduced PILOT payments in recent years, creating “budget gaps” for some of the communities. Finally, Section Three describes state and federal funding and support mechanisms that may be available to the New York communities described in Section Two. Because each community faces unique challenges and opportunities, this report does not attempt to provide specific recommendations for any of the communities. Rather, Section Three lists a number of support mechanisms that each community could consider in developing its own transition plan. New York State leadership can capitalize on the legislative legacy of prior eras and develop comprehensive approaches to reinvest in communities with obsolete industrial facilities that were once the primary source of jobs and economic activity, and revenue to local budgets

The Role of Tradable Permits in Water Pollution Control

This paper was prepared as a conceptual framework to stimulate discussions on the role and applicability of tradable permits in water pollution control among participants of the Technical Seminar on the Feasibility of the Application of Tradable Water Permits for Water Management in Chile (13-14 November 2003 in Santiago de Chile). In Chile, water pollution is a major problem. Until recently, existing regulations to control water pollution consisted mainly of non-market based instruments. Innovative instruments are now being explored via a recent national law for tradable emission/discharge permits. The instrument of tradable discharge permits is one of several market-based instruments used in water management and pollution control. Tradable discharge permits are actually among the most challenging market-based instruments in terms of both their design and implementation. Experience to date with tradable discharge permits for water pollution control has been limited and mainly comes from several regions of the US and Australia. The paper at first introduces tradable permits as part of an overall taxonomy of economic instruments in the field of water management. In this context, three fundamentally different fields of application of tradable permits systems relating to water are presented: tradable water abstraction rights, tradable rights to water-based resources and tradable water pollution rights. The remaining of the paper deals exclusively with the latter category, i.e. tradable water pollution rights, their role and applicability in water pollution control

State Implementation of National Health Reform: Harnessing Federal Resources to Meet State Policy Goals

Discusses state options for maximizing coverage and access to care; reforming the health insurance market; holding insurers accountable for high-quality, affordable coverage; restructuring healthcare delivery and financing; and cutting budget deficits

Enforcement aspects of conservation policies: compensation payments versus reserves

This model explicitly incorporates the dynamic aspects of conservation programs with incomplete compliance and it allows landholders’ behavior to change over time. A distinction is made between initial and continuing compliance. We find that incomplete and instrument-specific enforcement can have a significant impact on the choice between subsidy schemes and reserves for conservation policies. The results suggest that it is useless to design a conservation scheme for landholders, if the regulator is not prepared to explicitly back the program with a monitoring and enforcement policy. In general, the regulator will prefer to use compensation payments, if the cost of using government revenues is sufficiently low, the environmental benefits are equal, and the cost efficiency benefits exceed the (possible) increase in inspection costs. If the use of government funds is too costly, the reserve-type instruments will be socially beneficial.monitoring and enforcement, policy instruments, conservation policy

Climate Change: National and Local Policy Opportunities in China

Climate Change poses a wide range of potentially very severe threats in China. This aggravates the existing vulnerability of China and is one of the big challenges faced by the Chinese government. Adaptation programmes and projects are being developed and implemented at national and local level. As China is engaged in heavy investment in infrastructure development as a consequence of the rapid process of development and urbanization, mainstreaming adaptation into such development process is a priority for China. China has also made positive contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through participations in the CDM under the Kyoto Protocol framework. Although mitigation is not a priority at national or local level, it has been integrated into national and local development plans explicitly. This paper addresses the following questions: What is the policy space for climate change mitigation and adaptation policy at national and local level and what is already being done? The three case studies at local level - Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai – presented here, highlight the local benefits in terms of local pollution of integrating mitigation policies into local development. However, financial constraints usually prevent such a positive policy integration. National policies and international cooperation aiming at bridging the financial gap and promoting technology transfer would help in integrating local pollution control and mitigation efforts in China today.Climate Change, Local Policy, National Policy, Mitigation, Local Pollution