Taxation in the Digital Economy

A robust and efficient tax administration in a modern tax system requires effective tax policies and legislation. Policy frameworks should cover all aspects of tax administration and include the essential processes of capturing, processing, analyzing, and responding to information provided by taxpayers and others concerning taxpayers’ affairs. By far the greatest challenges facing tax administrations in all countries are those posed by the continuing developments in the digital economy. Whereas societies are grappling to come to terms with the transitions from the third industrial or digital revolutions, revenue authorities grapple with the consequences for the sustainability of their tax bases and the efficient administration and collection of taxes. This book presents a critical review of the status of tax systems in Asia and the Pacific in the era of the digital economy. The book suggests how countries can maximize their domestic resource mobilization when confronted by the challenges that digitalization inevitably produces, as well as how they can best harness or take advantage of aspects of digitalization to serve their own needs. The full implications of the COVID-19 crisis are still too uncertain to predict, but it is clear that the crisis will accelerate the trend towards digitalization and also increase pressures on public finances. This, in turn, may shape the preference for, and the nature of, both multilateral and unilateral responses to the tax challenges posed by digitalization and the need to address them. This book will be a timely reference for those researching on taxation in digital economy and for policy makers.

Overcoming constraints to innovation : a study of Tanzanian entrepreneurial firms in the food and beverage industry

Entrepreneurial firms operating in resource-constrained and uncertain environments find it difficult to engage in innovation activities due to challenging innovation constraints. Innovation constraints may block potential innovative firms from getting their innovation efforts off the ground or prevent them from engaging in innovation activities in the first place. Despite facing several challenges still some firms can innovate and bring to the market innovative products, and even penetrate new niche markets by utilizing varied sources of ideas and information. These firms appear to have strategies to overcome a variety of innovation constraints and the critical question is how they overcome those challenges. Using empirical data drawn from the Tanzanian food and beverage industry, this study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach to understand innovation behaviour of entrepreneurial firms in the context characterised by scarcity of resources and uncertainties. Three separate but inter-related research questions were examined and they sought to understand the factors constraining innovation efforts of the Tanzanian food and beverage manufacturers and how the constraints were overcome. The quantitative phase employed structural equation modeling technique to investigate the impact of financial, knowledge, market and regulatory constraints on innovation and firm performance, and the role of bricolage in overcoming innovation constraints. The findings indicated that financial, market and regulatory constraints collectively hindered innovation of potentially innovative enterprises in the industry. However, the relationship of knowledge constraints with innovation was negative but insignificant which suggested that knowledge constraints were perceived as of little importance by innovative firms. Entrepreneurial bricolage which is defined as firms’ long-term behaviour of creating something from nothing by utilizing practical knowledge and creatively combining and transforming resources at hand into something new played a partial role in overcoming financial and market constraints, but such effects were absent in regulatory constraints. The implication for these results was that entrepreneurial bricolage was not a sole strategy that innovative firms employed to deal with various innovation constraints. Further qualitative research, with emphasis on uncovering other mitigation strategies was conducted and the results offered additional insights into innovation constraints that innovative firms considered important, how they affected their innnovation efforts, what caused them and how they were overcome. The study adds to the theory of bricolage by suggesting that innovation in resource-constrained and uncertain environment is an outcome of a mix of bricolage and conventional strategies. Recommendations for practice and policy are given to improve firm innovativeness

INTERNAL AUDIT CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALITY OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION IN NIGERIA

The basic goal of Accounting is to provide enabling accounting information for reliable decision-making. The quality level of this accounting information comes from the company's governance practices, thereby emphasizing the importance of corporate governance in companies. Recently, following the financial crises resulting in accounting scandals, attention has been moving towards Internal Audit Function as an important factor in the structure of Corporate Governance. This paper therefore examined the extent of the relationship between internal audit function and the quality of accounting information of companies. The study adopted the Survey research design. The research instrument employed was Questionnaire which was administered to internal auditors of the “Big Four”. Linear regression analysis was employed in the analysis of the data collected with the use of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between the internal audit characteristics and the quality of accounting information. It was recommended that in order to provide credibility to the financial statement, there should be a law in place mandating attachment of internal auditors report to the financial statemen

Predictive Process Monitoring for Lead-to-Contract Process Optimization

Äriprotsesside toetamiseks on üha laiemalt kasutusele võetud ettevõtte ressursside planeerimise (ERP) tööriistad, sealhulgas CRM süsteemid müügiprotsessi jaoks. ERP süsteemid salvestavad oma töö käigus protsesside logisid, mille oskuslik käsitlemine võimaldab efektiivistada äriprotsesse. Protsessilogide analüüsimiseks on välja töötatud protsessikaeve meetodid, mis oskavad logidest pöördprojekteerida tegelikult käivitatud protsesside mudeleid. Neid meetodeid on rakendatud koos ennustava seire meetoditega protsesside tulemuste soovitud ja soovimatute tulemuste varajaseks tuvastamiseks.\n\rKuigi ennustav seire on hiljuti rohkelt tähelepanu saanud ja leidnud rakendamist soovitusmootorites, mis pakuvad välja soovitusi äriprotsesside parendamiseks, ei ole seni palju uuritud kontekstiandmete, nt müügisüsteemi kirjetes klientide finantsandmed, mõju ennustava seire tulemustele soovituste kontekstis.\n\rKäesolevas magistritöös uuritakse kontekstiandmete mõju ennustava seire mudelite kvaliteedile müügiprotsessi optimeerimise kontekstis. Eksperimendid näitavad, et välistel kontekstiandmetel on pigem negatiivne mõju, samas kui sisemistel, protsessi käigus kogutud kontekstiandmetel on positiivne mõju mudelite kvaliteedile. Muuhulgas selgub eksperimentidest, et juba kolme esimese sündmuse baasil saab müügiprotsessis ennustada müügi õnnestumist.Business processes today are supported by enterprise systems such as Enter-\n\rprise Resource Planning systems. These systems store large amounts of process execution\n\rlog data that can be used to improve business processes across the organization. The\n\rprocess mining methods have been developed to analyze such logs, which are capable of\n\rextracting process models. These methods, in turn, have been applied in conjunctions\n\rwith predictive monitoring methods for early differentiation of desired and undesired\n\routcomes. Although predictive monitoring approach has recently caught attention and\n\rfound application in recommendation engines, which suggest cases to improve business\n\rprocess outcomes, there is no much research on how contextual data, such as clients fi-\n\rnancial indicators and other external data, may improve the quality of recommendations.\n\rThis thesis examines whether including the external data with the event data affects the\n\raccuracy of predictive monitoring for early predictions positively. More specifically, this\n\rthesis reveals usage of context data had the adverse effect on the performance of learned\n\rmodels. Furthermore, the study indicated that the usage of first three events from the\n\revent logs with internal data is sufficient to predict the label of an opportunity in the\n\rsales funnel

Breaking the ice between government and business: from IT-enabled control procedure redesign to trusted relationship building

Tan, Y.H. [Promotor]Butter, F.A.G. den [Promotor

The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on Company Income Tax Collection in Nigeria

The Nigerian economy is heavily dependent on oil as 80% of its revenue currently comes from this sector. However, tax revenue has never played a strong role in the country's management of fiscal policy and this is an issue of fundamental importance for development. Tax revenue is a predictable and sustainable source of income particularly given the high number of corporations operating in the country, some of which are multinational. Company Income Tax (CIT) can be a good source of government revenue, while also promoting economic growth, investment and the creation of job opportunities. Nigeria, like many developing countries, lacks an efficient tax collection system leaving a high proportion of company income tax uncollected as a result of avoidable leakages and corruption. The efficiency and effectiveness of company income tax collection depend on the medium of collection, and could be enhanced using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as a driver, as is currently the case in developed countries. Within the context of ICT integration in the public sector (e-government), this thesis identifies the impact of ICT on the collection of company income tax in Nigeria. Using the Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behaviour as the study’s underpinning frameworks, this research adopted a mixed method approach and collected data through 230 returned questionnairesand 4 in-depth semi-structured interviews. The data was entered and analysed in the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) programme (version 21) using non-linear Regression (correlation) for Propositions 1- 4 and multinomial regression for proposition 5. The study found that the level of effectiveness of revenue collection realized increased as a result of use of ICT in company income tax collection. This is due to the elimination of leakages and human error, and protection of revenue by transferring all payments to the Central Bank of Nigeria. The study also found that company income tax revenue increased in 2007 from N332billion to N846.6billion in 2012, and that the Federal Inland Revenue Service surpassed its 2014 target by N400 billion or 9.32 per cent, generating about N4.69 trillion. Of this, N1.18 trillion was collected from company income tax in 2014, compared to the N1.03trillion in 2013, based on a quarterly revenue report released in Abuja and reported by Customs Today on 31 January 2015. It found that the use of ICT in CIT collection has improved transparency; taxpayers pay into the designated banks online and obtain a receipt immediately. The Federal Inland Revenue Service’s software monitors the entire process and traces payments to ensure accuracy; the banks then transfer the money to the Central Bank of Nigeria. The e-tax payment system was found to give the federal government a real time, almost minute by minute, report on taxes paid by taxpayers and receipted by the Federal Inland Revenue Service. The findings revealed that ICT also has the potential to improve interactions between the tax authority and taxpayers, fostering transparency and accountability in the administration of company income tax collections. This study also found that information disseminates from the tax authority to company income taxpayers through radio and websites, publication and information requests submitted by the taxpayers and queries answered by tax officials. The results obtained indicated that using ICT facilitates the CIT collection process and predicted potential contribution to the effectiveness and efficiency in CIT collection in terms of the skills, opportunities and resources required. This study has contributed to the limited body of work in this area and employed an extended version of the much studied Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in order to produce insights into the impact of ICT on company income tax collection in Nigeria. The study model postulates that the adoption of ICT in CIT collection is determined by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, attitude, intention to use and accessibility in terms of affordability and infrastructure. There are obvious restrictions of time and inadequate funds as with other doctoral research works. This study was limited to the impact of ICT on company income tax collection, but other directions for future research are the impact of ICT on collection of other taxes such as petroleum profit tax collection in Nigeria

Application of Socio-technical Systems Analysis to Operational Auditing Methodology: Theory and Application

Internal auditing emerged early in the Twentieth Century as a subsidiary activity of accounting (Sawyer,1981, p.18). Internal auditors were usually employed in the accounting department and checked routine accounting activities. Their primary concern was compliance with financial accounting controls. Over more than five decades, internal auditors' responsibilities have grown to include evaluation of operations and management controls. This evaluation encompasses what have come to be known as the ''Three E 's" Efficiency, Economy, and Effectiveness (Morse, 1971; Nich, et al., 1987). According to Morse (1971) the purpose of Operational Auditing is "to identify opportunities for greater efficiency and economy or for improved effectiveness in carrying out procedures or operations." Internal Auditing has not, however, always succeeded in its new role as Operational Auditing. Nich, et al. (1987) state that two of the reasons for this lack of success are that "internal auditors are neither organizationally positioned nor particularly competent to play a broader role Cas operational auditors]" (p.4). Nich, et al. (1987) recognize the relevance of attempting to evaluate efficiency, economy, and effectiveness. They state, however, that operational auditors cannot always perform that function because of deficiencies in extant operational auditing methods. They believe that the deficiencies stem in part from the transactional orientation in Operational Auditing methods that has been carried over from Financial Auditing methods. One obvious solution to the problem of deficient methodologies, and one proposed by Nich, et al. (1987) is to adopt various methods of other, related disciplines. Two areas they suggest are Information Systems and Industrial Engineering. Other disciplines could be suggested. This paper, however, proposes the adoption of one particular methodology, Socio-Technical Systems Analysis (STSA), as an appropriate methodology for Operational Auditing. STSA is a design and analysis approach that attempts to jointly optimize both technical and social system needs of the organization. "The STS approach views the organizational control system as a network of interacting and interdependent subsystems'' (Thomas, 1985). The four steps of a Socio-Technical Analysis are the Organizational Scan, the Technical System Analysis, the Social System Analysis, and the Design, Analysis, Redesign Effort. The four steps systematically link a study of the organization's goals and objectives to an analysis of policies and procedures and, ultimately, an identification of problems and possible solutions. Chapter I of this paper will discuss in detail the extant operational auditing methodology. Chapter II will discuss in more detail the goals and objectives of operaiv tional auditing, and possible reasons why the goals and objectives are not currently being met. The progress of Operational Auditing toward a more systems oriented view of the organization is demonstrated. Chapter III of this paper will present the theory and background of STSA, and STSA is proposed as a methodology that could be incorporated into Operational Auditing methodology in order to alleviate some of the existing problems. Chapter III includes the rationale for proposing STSA as an Operational Auditing methodology. Chapter IV will present an example of the STSA process adapted for operational auditing use.Accountin

Towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) policy roll-out experience in South Africa : how and why policy-practice gaps come about in a UHC context

All countries world-wide are striving towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC). South Africa embarked on this bold and new direction, piloting National Health Insurance (NHI) in 2011. Two vehicles and strategic interventions selected to reach UHC are Primary Health Care (PHC) re-engineering and NHI. The goal of UHC is to ensure that everyone has access to appropriate, efficient and quality health services without the risk of impoverishment or financial catastrophe. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to a better understanding of policy implementation in a UHC context in one pilot district in South Africa. In order to explain how the policy-practice gap comes about, actor experiences were sought. Utilizing Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) as a framework for analysis, this thesis sought a more in-depth understanding on 1) What bottlenecks and challenges actors experienced in their current role as a UHC policy maker/ implementer? (Information, motivation, power, resources, interactions and others) 2) how and why policy-practice gaps come about from actors` policy implementation experience and 3) What needs to be done to reach UHC? The study was embedded in a broader project, Universal Coverage in Tanzania and South Africa (UNITAS). A qualitative case study design utilizing a theory of change approach was adopted and data was collected during three phases between 2011 and 2015. Our findings revealed a discrepancy between challenges health workers had on the ground and health systems strengthening initiatives that were being implemented. This is in part due to the non-involvement of front-line staff in policy making. To that end we developed and proposed a Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) Framework to aid the process of identifying needed HSS initiatives in a PHC context that is nurse led. Findings also revealed five groups of factors bringing about policy-practice gaps; (i) Primary factors stemming from a direct lack of a critical component for policy implementation, tangible or intangible (resources, information, motivation, power), (ii) Secondary factors stemming from a lack of efficient processes or systems (budget processes, limited financial delegations, top down directives, communication channels, supply chain processes, ineffective supervision and performance management systems), (iii) Tertiary factors stemming from human factors (perception and cognition) and calculated human responses to a lack of primary, secondary and or extraneous factors, as coping mechanisms (ideal reporting and audit driven compliance with core standards), (iv) Extraneous factors stemming from beyond the health system (national vocational training leading to national shortage of plumbers) and (v) an overall lack of systems thinking. Noteworthy among factors fuelling policy-practice gaps are human factors, perception and responses of actors in the system to a lack of resources, processes and systems, through among others, ideal reporting and audit driven compliance with core standards, bringing about an additional layer of unintended consequences, further widening that gap. Actors identified that current systems e.g. supply chain and supervision are obsolete as they were designed during a different time period demographically, epidemiologically and technologically. Actors are recommending health systems transformation rather than health system strengthening, meaning going back to the drawing board to design systems based on today’s challenges and scenarios. The current lack of progress and stagnation in the health system has been blamed on leadership gaps in all sectors. More research is needed to explore leadership development approaches that produce results on the ground. The findings also revealed that policy implementers do engage with policy upon receipt. They then do a policy-context audit after which they arrive at a decision and act either through policy adaptation, partial implementation to full implementation. In conclusion, this thesis shares some implementation experiences worth taking into consideration when implementing UHC policies. The first one is the role of leadership in implementation; hence we propose adding leadership to the CIT central tenets to become Information, Motivation, Power, Resources, Interactions and Leadership. Leadership was alluded to repeatedly by actors as a critical ingredient. We propose utilizing a systems approach to addressing health system challenges. Factors fuelling policy-practice gaps are multi-faceted and interrelated so much so that dealing with these systemically will go a long way in making UHC a reality