Pre-filled Income Tax Returns: Reducing Compliance Costs for Personal Income Taxpayers in Slovenia

Simplifying procedures and improving legislation generally lead to a reduction in the compliance costs. The introduction of pre-filled tax returns clearly simplifies the tax compliance procedure. Before the introduction of pre-filled tax returns for personal income taxpayers in Slovenia, tax legislation was also modified. This paper presents the results of research into the compliance costs for personal income taxpayers before and after the simplification of the compliance procedure in Slovenia, irrespective of tax legislation itself not being simplified. The results indicate that pre-filled tax returns reduce compliance costs for personal income taxpayers by around 73%. Nevertheless, this is only a tentative estimate, since several assumptions are taken into account.compliance costs, personal income tax, pre-filled tax return, Slovenia

E-public services: the case of e-taxation in Slovenia

The paper discuses e-taxation, one of the services offered by many governments in the world today. It argues that although this service can be developed well, according to the many benchmarking models in the world and become very familiar to members of the public , it can also be used poorly. The empirical results in the paper prove this. The case of Slovenia is presented, with a placement of Slovenia on the European map of e-government and a thorough description of the different electronic taxation services available to Slovenian citizens. Slovenia ranks above the EU average in online availability and in sophistication. The supply side of e-taxation services is then compared to the demand side and the results of different research studies and questionnaires are discussed and compared. Since e-taxation services, especially concerned with personal income tax, are still to be used more widely by Slovenian citizens, different existing approaches that have tried to correct the situation are analysed and new possibilities are suggested.e-government, e-taxation, citizens’ satisfaction, Slovenia

Income Tax Returns: Reducing Compliance Costs for Personal Income Taxpayers in Slovenia

Simplifying procedures and improving legislation generally lead to a reduction in the compliance costs. The introduction of pre-filled tax returns clearly simplifies the tax compliance procedure. Before the introduction of pre-filled tax returns for personal income taxpayers in Slovenia, tax legislation was also modified. This paper presents the results of research into the compliance costs for personal income taxpayers before and after the simplification of the compliance procedure in Slovenia, irrespective of tax legislation itself not being simplified. The results indicate that pre-filled tax returns reduce compliance costs for personal income taxpayers by around 73%. Nevertheless, this is only a tentative estimate, since several assumptions are taken into account

Performance Budgeting – the Slovenian Experience

Reform processes in the public sector include measures leading to greater transparency in public spending, greater public accountability, and measurement of efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector. These measures include results-oriented budgeting, or a focus on results, or performance budgeting. This method of monitoring spending requires budget-spending units to set priorities and plan spending over the long term. The purpose of this paper is to define the concept and provide a brief presentation of various approaches to performance budgeting in practice abroad and the development of the budget process in Slovenia, measures relating to the implementation of performance budgeting, and the realisation of those measures

Does tax competition make tax reform essential?

Tax competition is generally defined as competition between national economies to increase their competitiveness and attract foreign investment by means of tax policy. Tax policy measures that tax mobile or foreign capital at significantly lower rates are known as harmful tax competition. Some recent corrections to the tax code and proposed tax amendments in Slovenia represent an attempt to relieve the burden on the taxpayer. This paper compares the taxation of high income taxpayers, low income taxpayers, taxpayers with passive income, and the taxation of businesses in Slovenia and neighbouring countries. The comparison indicates that Slovenian taxpayers with a high income have a higher tax burden than in neighbouring countries, while low income taxpayers have one of the highest burdens. The same applies to passive income. The tax burden on businesses ranks in the middle

Environmental Taxation: New Evidence for Energy Taxes

The intensity of exploitation of natural resources has increased over the past decades, making environmental protection policy one of the most important priorities of government institutions. Various economic instruments, including taxation, may help policy makers in the EU meet environmental targets, among them a more secure and competitive green economy in Europe. The focus of this paper is on empirically investigating the direct effect of environmental taxes and the indirect effect of environmental expenditures sourced from environmental taxes on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the energy sector. The research applied the panel data analysis method to selected EU member states for the 1995–2010 period. The results show that the direct effect of environmental taxes on GHG emissions in the sector energy is statistically significant and negative. The indirect effects of environmental taxes resulting from environmental expenditures in the industrial and governmental sectors were found to be even stronger than the direct effect of taxes alone

Unapređivanje rada javne uprave ulaganjem u ljudske resurse

The paper emphasizes that investments in human resources are one of the important factors for improving public sector performance. In strategic papers of Slovenian government and during the reform process of public administration, government stressed out that human resources are one of the most important factors for improving performance. This is originating point of research. The main hypothesis of presented research is that investments in human resources improve efficiency and effectiveness of public sector. For several reasons explained in the paper, tax administration was chosen to test the hypothesis. We used a number of training participations per employee as an indicator of investments in human resources. For determination of effi ciency and effectiveness, we used selected performance indicators and survey among taxpayers about their satisfaction. The main obstacle of the research is that not long-time series are used for better test of hypothesis since surveys among taxpayers are not regular. The results indicate a positive correlation between training and performance indicators and training and taxpayers’ satisfaction.U članku se istražuje da su investicije u ljudske resurse jedan od važnih činitelja unapređivanja djelovanja javnog sektora. U strateškim dokumentima slovenske vlade i tijekom reforme javne uprave, ljudski resursi ističu se kao jedan od glavnih činitelja poboljšanja djelovanja javne uprave. To je i temelj istraživanja. Glavna hipoteza istraživanja je, da ulaganje u ljudske resurse poboljšava efi kasnost i uspješnost javnog sektora. Pokazatelj ulaganja u ljudske resurse oblikovan je na temelju podataka o ukupnom broju obrazovanja uz rad po zaposlenom. Za determinaciju efikasnosti i uspješnosti odabrani su pokazatelji i ankete zadovoljstva poreznih obveznika, kao korisnika usluga porezne uprave, s radom te javne institucije. Glavnu prepreku u istraživanju predstavlja kratko vremensko razdoblje provjeravanja zadovoljstva korisnika poreznih usluga porezne uprave. Zbog toga, rezultate je moguće prezentirati s visokim statističkim rizikom. Ali rezultati nagovještavaju pozitivnu korelaciju između obrazovanja uz rad zaposlenih i pokazatelja djelovanja te zadovoljstva korisnika usluga porezne uprave s radom iste. To znači, da se rad javne uprave poboljšava s obrazovanjem uz rad zaposlenih i da poboljšano djelovanje javne uprave utječe na zadovoljstvo stranaka

Higher Education – Importance and Funding in Slovenia

Funding of education is becoming a particularly problematic issue, because public funding is no longer sufficient. The article considers the problems of funding higher education from the point of view of the sufficiency of funds and from the point of view of the importance of education. It illustrates methods of direct and indirect funding of education in Slovenia and presents the results of a survey in which students gave their opinions on the importance of education and on education funding. A large majority of respondents agree that the introduction of tuition fees would cause a reduction in participation in higher education and a consequent reduction in equal opportunities for education. Despite this, the largest share of respondents did not agree with the statement that in case of the introduction of tuition fees they would not enrol in education

E-public services: the case of e-taxation in Slovenia

The paper discuses e-taxation, one of the services offered by many governments in the world today. It argues that although this service can be developed well, according to the many benchmarking models in the world and become very familiar to members of the public , it can also be used poorly. The empirical results in the paper prove this. The case of Slovenia is presented, with a placement of Slovenia on the European map of e-government and a thorough description of the different electronic taxation services available to Slovenian citizens. Slovenia ranks above the EU average in online availability and in sophistication. The supply side of e-taxation services is then compared to the demand side and the results of different research studies and questionnaires are discussed and compared. Since e-taxation services, especially concerned with personal income tax, are still to be used more widely by Slovenian citizens, different existing approaches that have tried to correct the situation are analysed and new possibilities are suggested

Analysis of the Relationship of Professionals towards the Vertical Equity of the Slovenian Tax System and Its Comparison with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the USA

Vertical equity states that taxpayers whose positions are not the same should be treated differently while taking into consideration all the relevant characteristics. The main purpose of using the vertical equity principle is to require the redistribution of income in a way that reduces the income inequality of the society. The presented research aims to check the opinion of Slovenian tax system professionals on the principle of vertical equity. Slovenian results have been compared to a similar analysis carried out in Croatia, and partly with survey results from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States of America. The results show that the professional public agrees with the principle of vertical equity in the implementation of tax systems. All of the compared countries are similarly favourable towards vertical equity. However, this is also affected by the current tax arrangements of the individual countries