1,720,976 research outputs found

    Tax Law Asymmetries and Income Shifting : Evidence From Japanese Capital Keiretsu

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    When positive and negative income are treated asymmetrically under a corporate income tax (CIT) without allowance for group taxation, a group of affi liated corporations may engage in tax avoidance by shifting income from profi table to unprofi table subsidiaries for the sole purpose of minimising the sum of tax liabilities of the group members. The aim of this paper is to offer systematic evidence on the behavioural response to a tax penalty that arises from doing business in multiple entities, in order to provide justifi cation for group tax systems such as consolidated fi ling and loss transfer. The setting for our investigation is the Japanese CIT before the introduction of a group tax system. We develop a theoretical model of a corporate group that predicts a difference in profi t reporting behaviour between subsidiaries above and below 100 million yen in paid-in capital due to the progressive feature of the Japanese CIT. We test the implications of the model with a company-level data on subsidiaries based on survey that covers over 1,700 corporate groups headed by large corporations. The sample consists of 33,340 subsidiary-time pairs from 1988, 1990, and 1992. We fi nd evidence consistent with a hypothesis that corporate groups shift income among group members. The fi nding underscores the importance of accounting for the group behaviour in the design of CIT.

    Will New Trends in Foreign Direct Investment Change the Structure of Intra-industry Trade between China and Japan?

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    It is generally believed that Japan's cost-oriented and export-oriented direct investment has introduced a bilateral intra-industry trade pattern in ChinaJapan trade through which China imports accessories from Japan, processes them and exports the product to Japan. Based on investment and trade data in the machinery sector, this paper discusses whether Japan's market-oriented investment in China since 2000 has changed the structure of the trade between two countries. We conclude that the vertical division of labour, as described by the flying-geese model and applied to the machinery industry, is gradually disappearing. In its place, no stereotypical East Asian vertical division of labour has been formed in transport machinery industry, despite it being the sector into which investment has grown fastest since 2000. Rather, factor endowment is the main determinant of intra-industry trade in the machinery industry between the two countries.trade, foreign direct investment, Japan, China, Intra-industry trade

    Can the New Antimonopoly Act Change the Japanese Business Community? : The 2005 Amendment to Antimonopoly Act and Corporate Compliance

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    It has been reported in the media that bid rigging is commonly practised in almost all public works projects in Japan. It was also said that the Japanese anti-trust authority, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), was a watchdog that did not bite, in spite of having a long history of enforcement since 1947. However, the situation is significantly changing because the Japanese Antimonopoly Act was amended in 2005 to greatly strengthen anti-trust enforcement. The JFTC has already succeeded in cracking down against bid rigging committed by big and famous companies under the new Act. For the present, the Japanese business community has to seriously address compliance problems. Can the AMA change the business community?

    The Response of Firms to Eligibility Thresholds: Evidence from the Japanese Value-Added Tax

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    It is common to defi ne benefi t eligibility for small business policies by restrictions on the fi rm size. This paper investigates the incentives for a large fi rm to masquerade as many small fi rms by separately incorporating business segments, focusing on the case of the Japanese value-added tax. The paper fi nds that the masquerading was pervasive and took place quickly after the introduction of tax incentives. Tax avoidance caused 3.4 per cent of the overall revenue drain in 1990, thus reducing horizontal equity, but the effi ciency consequence would not have been severe. This study suggests that the masquerading by fi rms may be commonplace in other settings.Tax avoidance; Business group; Value-added tax; Firm size distribution

    A tale of pork prices : evasion and attenuation of a Japanese tariff

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    This paper empirically examines the effectiveness of a safeguard tariff in the Japanese market for imported pork parts. The goals are, first, to consider a refinement to the traditional market-based method for evasion detection, and, second, to apply the method in a setting where evasion is suspected to be widespread. Utilising a within-pig variation in tariff burdens and the timing of safeguard invocations, I examine a panel of monthly wholesale prices on narrowly-defined pork products from 2001 through 2008. The results are consistent with a hypothesis that a widespread evasion nullified the safeguard tariff on pork, and are robust to a range of alternative explanations including the adjustment of profit margins by traders. Safeguard tariffs appear to be a simple mechanism, but behavioural responses can undo the policy intent.safeguard tariff, price disparity, tax incidence

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    A Tale of Pork Prices: Evasion and Attenuation of a Japanese Tariff

    No full text
    This paper empirically examines the effectiveness of a safeguard tariff in the Japanese market for imported pork parts. The goals are, first, to consider a refinement to the traditional market-based method for evasion detection, and, second, to apply the method in a setting where evasion is suspected to be widespread. Utilising a within-pig variation in tariff burdens and the timing of safeguard invocations, I examine a panel of monthly wholesale prices on narrowly-defined pork productions from 2001 through 2008. The results are consistent with a hypothesis that a widespread evasion nullified the safeguard tariff on pork, and are robust to a range of alternative explanations including the adjustment of profit margins by traders. Safeguard tariffs appear to be a simple mechanism, but behavioural responses can undo the policy intent.

    The Response of Firms to Eligibility Thresholds: Evidence from the Japanese Value-Added Tax

    No full text
    It is common to define benefit eligibility for small business policies by restrictions on the fi rm size. This paper investigates the incentives for a large fi rm to masquerade as many small firms by separately incorporating business segments, focusing on the case of the Japanese value-added tax. The paper fi nds that the masquerading was pervasive and took place quickly after the introduction of tax incentives. Tax avoidance caused 3.4 per cent of the overall revenue drain in 1990, thus reducing horizontal equity, but the effi ciency consequence would not have been severe. This study suggests that the masquerading by firms may be commonplace in other settings.
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