What shapes attitudes toward paying taxes? Evidence from multicultural European countries

Objectives. Considerable evidence suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance. To resolve this puzzle of tax compliance, several researchers have argued that citizens' attitudes toward paying taxes, defined as tax morale, helps to explain the high degree of tax compliance. However, most studies have treated tax morale as a black box, without discussing which factors shape it. Additionally, the tax compliance literature provides little empirical research that investigates attitudes toward paying taxes in Europe. Methods. Thus, this article is unique in its examination of citizen tax morale within three multicultural European countries, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain, a choice that allows far more detailed examination of the impact of culture and institutions using data sets from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey. Results. The results indicate the tendency that cultural and regional differences affect tax morale. Conclusion. The findings suggest that higher legitimacy for political institutions leads to higher tax morale.

The digital economy bill and the UK’s creative industries : a perspective from China

The Digital Economy Bill has been heavily criticized by consumer organizations, internet service providers and technology experts on the grounds that it will reduce the public’s ability to access politically sensitive information, impinge on citizens’ rights to privacy, threaten freedom of expression and have a chilling effect on digital innovation. Its passage in spite of these criticisms reflects, among other things, the power of the rhetoric that has been employed by its proponents. This paper examines economic arguments surrounding the digital economy debate in light of lessons from one of the world's fastest growing economies: China.

Selection of solar energy for green building using superiority and inferiority multi-criteria ranking (SIR) method

Green energy is one of the key factors, driving down electricity bill and zero carbon emission generating electricity to green building. However, the climate change and environmental policies are accelerating people to use renewable energy instead of coal-fired (convention type) energy for green building that energy is not environmental friendly. Therefore, solar energy is one of the clean energy solving environmental impact and paying less in electricity fee. The method of solar energy is collecting sun from solar array and saves in battery from which provides necessary electricity to whole house with zero carbon emission. However, in the market a lot of solar arrays suppliers, the aims of this paper attempted to use superiority and inferiority multi-criteria ranking (SIR) method with 13 constraints establishing I-flows and S-flows matrices to evaluate four alternatives solar energies and determining which alternative is the best, providing power to sustainable building. Furthermore, SIR is well-known structured approach of multi-criteria decision support tools and gradually used in construction and building. The outcome of this paper significantly gives an indication to user selecting solar energy.

Submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee - Youth Justice (Boot Camp Orders) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012

This submission addresses the Youth Justice (Boot Camp Orders) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 which has as its objectives (1) the introduction of a Boot Camp Order as an option instead of detention for young offenders and (2) the removal of the option of court referred youth justice conferencing for young offenders. As members of the QUT Faculty of Law Centre for Crime and Justice we welcome the invitation to participate in the discussion of these issues which are critically important to the Queensland community at large but especially to our young people.

Legal Profession Act 2007 : entitlement to itemised bill – meaning of “client” – meaning of “third party payer”

In Legal Services Commissioner and Wright [2010] QSC 168 and Amos v Ian K Fry & Company, the Supreme Court of Queensland considered the scope of some of the provisions of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), including the definition of “third party payer” in s 301 of the Act.

Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2013

This submission relates to the proposed amendment of the Crown Use provisions in the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) (“the Patents Act”),which are contained in Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2013 (“The Bill”). Specifically, the submission relates to the method of calculation of the remuneration payable to the patent applicant/owner in circumstances where the Crown exercises its rights under Chapter 17 of the Patents Act.

Submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill

This submission addresses the Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 the objectives of which are to: 1. Permit repeat offenders’ identifying information to be published and open the Children’s Court for youth justice matters involving repeat offenders; 2. Create a new offence where a child commits a further offence while on bail; 3. Permit childhood findings of guilt for which no conviction was recorded to be admissible in court when sentencing a person for an adult offence; 4. Provide for the automatic transfer from detention to adult corrective services facilities of 17 year olds who have six months or more left to serve in detention; 5. Provide that, in sentencing any adult or child for an offence punishable by imprisonment, the court must not have regard to any principle, whether under statute or at law, that a sentence of imprisonment (in the case of an adult) or detention (in the case of a child) should only be imposed as a last resort; 6. Allow children who have absconded from Sentenced Youth Boot Camps to be arrested and brought before a court for resentencing without first being given a warning; and 7. Make a technical amendment to the Youth Justice Act 1992.

Dismantling worker categories: the primary duty of care, and worker consultation, participation and representation, in the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009

Late in 2009, the Australian Workplace Relations Ministers' Council endorsed the model Work Health and Safety Bill 2009, which is to be adopted by all Australian governments (federal, state and territory) from 01 January 2012. This paper describes and analyses two key sets of provisions in this model legislation. The first establishes a 'primary' duty of care imposed not on 'employers' but on persons conducting a business or undertaking, and owed to all kinds of workers engaged, directed or influenced by the person conducting the business or undertaking. The second encompasses broad duties on all persons conducting a business or undertaking to consult with workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking and who are directly affected by a work health and safety issue, and to facilitate the election of health and safety representatives representing all workers who carry out work for the business or undertaking. These provisions arguably make a significant contribution to solving a problem faced by occupational safety and health regulators around the world – modifying regulation to accommodate all forms of precarious work.

The anatomy of the bill tip of kiwi and associated somatosensory regions of the brain : comparisons with shorebirds

Three families of probe-foraging birds, Scolopacidae (sandpipers and snipes), Apterygidae (kiwi), and Threskiornithidae (ibises, including spoonbills) have independently evolved long, narrow bills containing clusters of vibration-sensitive mechanoreceptors (Herbst corpuscles) within pits in the bill-tip. These ‘bill-tip organs’ allow birds to detect buried or submerged prey via substrate-borne vibrations and/or interstitial pressure gradients. Shorebirds, kiwi and ibises are only distantly related, with the phylogenetic divide between kiwi and the other two taxa being particularly deep. We compared the bill-tip structure and associated somatosensory regions in the brains of kiwi and shorebirds to understand the degree of convergence of these systems between the two taxa. For comparison, we also included data from other taxa including waterfowl (Anatidae) and parrots (Psittaculidae and Cacatuidae), non-apterygid ratites, and other probe-foraging and non probe-foraging birds including non-scolopacid shorebirds (Charadriidae, Haematopodidae, Recurvirostridae and Sternidae). We show that the bill-tip organ structure was broadly similar between the Apterygidae and Scolopacidae, however some inter-specific variation was found in the number, shape and orientation of sensory pits between the two groups. Kiwi, scolopacid shorebirds, waterfowl and parrots all shared hypertrophy or near-hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus. Hypertrophy of the nucleus basorostralis, however, occurred only in waterfowl, kiwi, three of the scolopacid species examined and a species of oystercatcher (Charadriiformes: Haematopodidae). Hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus in kiwi, Scolopacidae, and other tactile specialists appears to have co-evolved alongside bill-tip specializations, whereas hypertrophy of nucleus basorostralis may be influenced to a greater extent by other sensory inputs. We suggest that similarities between kiwi and scolopacid bill-tip organs and associated somatosensory brain regions are likely a result of similar ecological selective pressures, with inter-specific variations reflecting finer-scale niche differentiation.

ACE research vignette 037 : Bill Gates’ mug shot : Is there a secret link between rule-breaking, crime, and entrepreneurship?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from international entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Dr. Martin Obschonka, considers the relationship between entrepreneurship and rule-breaking.