Use tax collections

The article reports on a study which investigated the level of compliance with U.S. state use tax laws and the techniques employed by the states in order to enforce use tax. Most states utilize either of two forms of tax reporting and collection. These are: the introduction of a separate use tax form/return; or the use of a separate line on the state income tax return. It was observed that utilizing a separate line item on the state income tax return might cause a rise in the number of taxpayers

Tax Professionals\u27 Perceptions of Small Business Tax Law Complexity

The author’s report in this article on their study in questionnaire format that tested the perception of 89 small-business tax practitioners regarding the com- plexity of 37 tax provisions. They found overwhelming consistency on the five most complex and five least complex small-business tax provisions with partner- ships, estate and gift valuations, tax-deferred ex- changes, frequency of law changes, and retirement plans topping the hit parade. Progressive tax rates, estimated taxes, Social Security/self-employment taxes, corporate capital gain provisions, and cash ver- sus accrual method were uniformly and consistently perceived as the least complex. These results have tax policy implications. According to the authors, for ex- ample, a House bill to move S corporations to a part- nership regime may not be optimal from the simplifi- cation perspective. The authors question whether familiarity with an issue results in lower perception of complexity. There is some discussion in the tax policy literature about tiering (different tax rules for small versus large companies). That policy seems to have made certain tax areas (cash versus accrual, deprecia- tion, installment sales, and possibly corporate alterna- tive minimum tax and uniform capitalization (UNI- CAP) less complex for small-business practitioners

Business Process Maturity’s Effect on Performance

Recent adoption of the Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM) by the Object Management Group (OMG) provides a means for managers to benchmark and monitor business processes as well as a roadmap for process improvement. The expectation is that as maturity increases, the result is a positive impact on performance; however, little empirical research has examined to what extent, if any process maturity has on performance. We conduct a survey of manufacturing firms to study the effects of process maturity on performance for two boundary spanning processes: purchasing and order fulfillment. Our results indicate that organizations with more mature purchasing processes appear to have higher relative levels of efficiency process outcomes than those with less mature purchasing processes. Similarly more mature order fulfillment processes do appear to have higher relative levels of quality process outcomes than those with less mature order fulfillment processes

Using Peer Grading and Proofreading to Ratchet Student Expectations in Preparing Accounting Cases

Accounting educators struggle with ways to incorporate the development of critical thinking and communication skills into the curriculum. Case analysis is one tool for developing these skills. We examine whether students’ case analysis scores improve as a result of participation in peer grading and peer review. We find that students improve their ability to perform case analyses after both evaluating and being evaluated by student peers. Students initially experience an Expectation Ratcheting learning effect after evaluating the case of a peer. Subsequently, students experience an Enhanced Feedback learning effect from the comments and suggestions made by the peers who evaluated (proofread) their cases

Tax Complexity and Small Business: A Comparison of the Perceptions of Tax Agents in the United States and Australia

There is ongoing pressure in both the United States and Australia to simplify their respective tax systems, particularly in regard to small business taxpayers. In the case of both regimes, if substantial progress is to be made towards simplification, the areas of greatest need and the necessary reforms will require careful evaluation. The views of tax agents (practitioners) are highly relevant to the implementation of successful reform in that both regimes rely on self-assessment. It was considered that by undertaking a cross-jurisdictional comparison a greater understanding of complexity, from the perspective of tax agents, could be gained and that, the consideration of alternate treatments could better inform tax policymakers. That is, what can we learn from each other? The article; compares and contrasts the perceptions of practitioners on small business tax complexity based on a questionnaire instrument conducted in the US and an electronic survey and case study conducted in Australia. Tax practitioners in the US consistently rated the areas of partnerships, estate, and gift valuations, tax deferred exchanges, frequency of law changes and retirement plans as the most complex and progressive tax rates, estimated taxes, social security/self-employment taxes, corporate capital gain provisions and cash v accrual method as the least complex. In comparison, Australian practitioners found the frequency of change, the volume of legislative material and the effect of change on other aspects of taxation (including reporting) to be the major causes of complexity. Capital gains tax provisions were regarded as complex as were self-managed superannuation funds and trusts, but similar to US tax practitioners, Australian tax agents did not find the use of tax rates or accounting methods to be complex. The policy implications of these findings are discussed for both regimes, including the implications of having small business-specific rules. Reprinted by permission of the publisher

Molecular imaging: Moving towards infectious diseases

AbstractMolecular imaging has been advanced into the field of infectious diseases, which provides not only new insights for basic science, but also new strategies for the effective management of infectious diseases in clinical practice