Transfer pricing, tax havens and global governance

"Tax-motivated transfer pricing has attracted world attention owing to the existence of low-tax jurisdictions and the volume of the activities of multinational corporations (MNCs). MNCs have many instruments for shifting profits through transfer pricing, and tax havens provide ample opportunity for this. Tax havens pose the threat of capital flight and income shifting from high-tax countries. At present, there are two ways of tackling this problem: by applying the arm’s length principle to determine the tax payable by MNCs in a particular jurisdiction or by using a formula to allocate tax payable by MNCs between countries. Based on various studies conducted so far, this paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of these methods in solving the problem of profit-shifting by MNCs. The predicament is truly global in nature, and no single country or group of countries can hope to resolve it. It is high time a global institution was set up to calculate MNCs’ worldwide income and to provide tax authorities with timely information." [author's abstract

Color Laplacian energy of some cluster graphs

The color energy of a graph G is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the color eigenvalues of G. The graphs with large number of edges are referred as cluster graphs. Cluster graphs are obtained from complete graphs by deleting few edges according to some criteria. Bipartite cluster graphs are obtained by deleting few edges from complete bipartite graphs according to some rule. In this paper, we study the color Laplacian energy of cluster graphs and bipartite cluster graphs obtained by deleting the edges of complete and complete bipartite graph respectively.Publisher's Versio

Seroprevalence of Human Herpesvirus 8 among Zambian Women of Childbearing Age without Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) and Mother-Child Pairs with KS

The seroprevalence of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) among a group of Zambian women of reproductive age and among mother-child pairs in which either one of them has Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) was determined. A cross-sectional group of 378 pregnant women was randomly recruited into the study, and 183 (48.4%) had HHV-8 antibodies. Among the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1–infected women, 51.1% were HHV-8–seropositive, whereas of HIV- 1–negative women, 47.3% were HHV-8–seropositive. In addition, 21 women index patients with KS and 5 young children index patients with KS were studied. All children with KS had mothers who were HHV-8–seropositive, while not all children whose mothers had KS were infected with HHV-8. Our study suggests that there is a high HHV-8 seroprevalence among Zambian women, and the rate is almost the same in HIV-1–positive and –negative women. This high seroprevalence may be a contributing factor toward the increased frequency of KS in this population