Audit Markets in the Six Member States of Gulf Co-Operation Council Countries (GCC): A Review and Synthesis of the Literature

Studies about the GCC countries’ markets have been ignored for decades in the past particularly because of the restrictions imposed into the foreign stock ownership, the lack of common accounting and auditing regulations, and uncertainty of economic and political conditions (e.g, Al-Shammari, Brown, and Tarca, 2008; Bley and Chen, 2006; Hussain, Islam, Gunasekaran and Maskooki, 2002). There are increasing openness and integration of GCC with the global economy which, in turn, has created push-and-pull factors that are contributing to changing the institutional framework environment, new regulated financial, accounting, auditing regulations, and corporate governance codes. In a like manner, external audit laws have been enacted in GCC to regulate the auditing profession (e.g., Hawkamah and IFC, 2008; Harabi, 2007; Al-Basteki, 2000; Shuaib, 1999; Arnett and Danos, 1979). Subsequently, after these recent developments, GCC is found to be a profitable business environment for local, regional, and foreign investors (e.g., Gulf Base, 2009; Al-Shammari et al., 2008; Al-Hussaini and Al-Sultan, 2008; Bley and Chen, 2006). We review theory and evidence relating to the earlier and recent issues on accounting and auditing in the marketplace of the six member states of the gulf co-operation council countries, namely; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. We offer a simple review of earlier and recent developments and the similarities and differences in the environments of these markets. It reveals that the institutional framework related to accounting and auditing in GCC is still under-development. Further, the existing institutional framework lacks of enforcement and it ignores the Arab-political and cultural settings

Tax Evasion as a Crime: A Survey of Perception in Yemen

This paper explores the perception of Yemeni citizens of the severity of tax evasion relative to other crimes and violations. Perception of tax evasion may somewhat explain the degree of non-compliance with the tax laws. Using data from a self- administered survey and a personnel structured interview, the results of mean and comparative analysis show that tax evasion items were ranked as the three least crimes of 30 listed crimes. Further, Tax evasion is categorized the least serious category out of six categories. The results of this study should be useful to policy makers in Yemen and elsewhere, as it was found that there is an alarming signal that tax evasion is relatively ranked as the least serious offence, which could lead to an environment where taxpayers may not be afraid of cheating on their tax returns