Value-added tax:Analysis of the supply of cross border electronic services

Developments in technology have created a global market place for consumers. Consumers have the option of purchasing goods in a physical store or an online store. Consumers are no longer limited to shopping at physical stores in their own jurisdiction and can shop online from the convenience of their home. Consumers can acquire goods and services from any country in the world. Online shopping provides consumers with a wide selection of goods and services that may not be available in their own jurisdiction. Consumers favour purchasing online since the goods and services acquired from foreign suppliers are usually offered at better prices (price excludes VAT/GST). This creates an unfair advantage for foreign suppliers over local suppliers. The problem with selling a product to a consumer over the internet is that no physical product crosses through any physical border post. These products are not physical goods and are therefore referred to as services. Certain jurisdictions such as South Africa refer to these services as electronic services. Electronic services are remotely supplied by foreign suppliers to recipients resident in the Republic. Tax administrations lose revenue since there are no border posts acting as agent to collect VAT/GST and remitting the VAT/GST to the revenue authority. The foreign supplier would charge no VAT/GST on the supply and the consumer will fail to self‐declare the VAT/GST to the revenue authority. 1 April 2014, National Treasury introduced electronic services which required foreign suppliers of electronic services to register as vendors in the Republic. However, the implementation was postponed to 1 June 2014 to allow foreign suppliers to update its business systems. In 2015, further amendments were made to the electronic services provisions. However, in 2015 the Davis Tax Committee issued the first interim report on VAT to the Minister of Finance which highlighted concerns about the uncertainty and inconsistency in the application of the electronic services provisions outlined in the Regulations. This study aims to analyse the supply of cross border electronic services in the Republic. Any benefits and shortcomings will be assessed in a South African and international context. The VAT Act is based on the New Zealand GST Act. The GST Act will be analysed to identify areas of recommendation to improve the VAT Act, subject to the socio‐economic conditions in South Africa. The BEPS Report and VAT/GST Guidelines will be analysed to identify how the South African electronic services provisions have been adapted for a developing country based on developed country principles

Symptoms of social anxiety, depression and stress in parents of children with social anxiety disorder

Objectives: It has been suggested that elevated maternal social anxiety may play a disorder specific role in maintaining childhood Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), but few studies have examined whether mothers of children with SAD are more socially anxious than mothers of children with other anxiety disorders (ANX). This study set out to examine whether symptoms of social anxiety were more severe amongst mothers of 7-12 year old children presenting for treatment with SAD (n=260) compared to those presenting with ANX (n=138). In addition, we examined whether there were differences between these two groups in terms of maternal and paternal general anxiety, depression and stress. Method: Parents of 7-12 year old children referred for treatment of SAD or ANX completed self-report questionnaire measures of emotional symptoms. Results: Compared to mothers of children with ANX, mothers of children with SAD reported significantly higher levels of social anxiety, general anxiety, and depression. In addition, fathers of children with SAD reported significantly higher levels of anxiety, stress and depression than fathers of children with ANX. Conclusions: This study is one of the few existing studies that have examined mothers’ and fathers’ psychopathology across different childhood anxiety disorders. Compared to parents of children with ANX, parents of children with SAD may have poorer mental health which may inhibit optimum child treatment outcomes for children with SAD. Thus, targeting parental psychopathology may be particularly important in the treatment of childhood SAD

The structure of paranoia in the general population

Background Psychotic phenomena appear to form a continuum with normal experience and beliefs, and may build on common emotional interpersonal concerns. Aims We tested predictions that paranoid ideation is exponentially distributed and hierarchically arranged in the general population, and that persecutory ideas build on more common cognitions of mistrust, interpersonal sensitivity and ideas of reference. Method Items were chosen from the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders (SCID-II) questionnaire and the Psychosis Screening Questionnaire in the second British National Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity (n = 8580), to test a putative hierarchy of paranoid development using confirmatory factor analysis, latent class analysis and factor mixture modelling analysis. Results Different types of paranoid ideation ranged in frequency from less than 2% to nearly 30%. Total scores on these items followed an almost perfect exponential distribution (r = 0.99). Our four a priori first-order factors were corroborated (interpersonal sensitivity; mistrust; ideas of reference; ideas of persecution). These mapped onto four classes of individual respondents: a rare, severe, persecutory class with high endorsement of all item factors, including persecutory ideation; a quasi-normal class with infrequent endorsement of interpersonal sensitivity, mistrust and ideas of reference, and no ideas of persecution; and two intermediate classes, characterised respectively by relatively high endorsement of items relating to mistrust and to ideas of reference. Conclusions The paranoia continuum has implications for the aetiology, mechanisms and treatment of psychotic disorders, while confirming the lack of a clear distinction from normal experiences and processes

Worries about being judged versus being harmed: Disentangling the association of social anxiety and paranoia with schizotypy

Paranoia is a dimension of clinical and subclinical experiences in which others are believed to have harmful intentions. Mild paranoid concerns are relatively common in the general population, and more clinically severe paranoia shares features with social anxiety and is a key characteristic of schizotypy. Given that subclinical manifestations of schizotypy and paranoia may predict the occurrence of more severe symptoms, disentangling the associations of these related constructs may advance our understanding of their etiology; however no known studies to date have comprehensively evaluated how paranoia relates to social anxiety and schizotypy. The current research sought to examine the association of paranoia, assessed across a broad continuum of severity, with 1) the positive and negative schizotypy dimensions and 2) social anxiety. Specifically, the study tested a series of six competing, a priori models using confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 862 young adults. As hypothesized, the data supported a four-factor model including positive schizotypy, negative schizotypy, social anxiety, and paranoia factors, suggesting that these are distinct constructs with differing patterns of interrelationships. Paranoia had a strong association with positive schizotypy, a moderate association with social anxiety, and a minimal association with negative schizotypy. The results are consistent with paranoia being part of a multidimensional model of schizotypy and schizophrenia. Prior studies treating schizotypy and schizophrenia as homogenous constructs often produce equivocal or non-replicable results because these dimensions are associated with distinct etiologies, presentations, and treatment responses; thus, the present conceptualization of paranoia within a multidimensional schizotypy framework should advance our understanding of these constructs. © 2014 Horton et al

Conceptualising paranoia in ASD: A systematic review and development of a theoretical framework

Paranoia, unfounded ideation that others deliberately intend harm, has predominately been studied in schizophrenia. Increasingly, it is recognised that there is a spectrum of severity of excessive mistrust across the general population. Relatively little is known about paranoia in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), but rates could be expected to be higher given both difficulties in understanding others’ mental states and frequent experiences of negative social interactions. A systematic search of English-language peer-reviewed publications was undertaken to synthesise empirical research about paranoia in ASD. Seven studies, comprising a total of 180 ASD participants, met the inclusion criteria. All the studies were cross-sectional, thereby limiting causal interpretations. Individuals with ASD were consistently found to have higher levels of paranoia compared to non-clinical controls, and lower levels than individuals with current psychotic experiences manifesting in the context of schizophrenia. Furthermore, the initial evidence indicates that paranoia in ASD may be linked with theory of mind performance, negative affect, and jumping to conclusions, but not to attributional style. As in typically-developing populations, causal and maintaining mechanisms for paranoia in ASD, against a background of genetic and environmental risk, most likely include cognitive and affective processes interacting with social factors. We hypothesise, however, that core ASD characteristics and associated neurocognitive impairments also serve to precipitate and perpetuate paranoia. A framework to guide further investigation is outlined

Phosphatidylserine targeting for diagnosis and treatment of human diseases

Cells are able to execute apoptosis by activating series of specific biochemical reactions. One of the most prominent characteristics of cell death is the externalization of phosphatidylserine (PS), which in healthy cells resides predominantly in the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane. These features have made PS-externalization a well-explored phenomenon to image cell death for diagnostic purposes. In addition, it was demonstrated that under certain conditions viable cells express PS at their surface such as endothelial cells of tumor blood vessels, stressed tumor cells and hypoxic cardiomyocytes. Hence, PS has become a potential target for therapeutic strategies aiming at Targeted Drug Delivery. In this review we highlight the biomarker PS and various PS-binding compounds that have been employed to target PS for diagnostic purposes. We emphasize the 35 kD human protein annexin A5, that has been developed as a Molecular Imaging agent to measure cell death in vitro, and non-invasively in vivo in animal models and in patients with cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Recently focus has shifted from diagnostic towards therapeutic applications employing annexin A5 in strategies to deliver drugs to cells that express PS at their surface