1,720,985 research outputs found
Taxing Honesty
Get PDFIt is commonly accepted that state use taxes, most notably those that are due on Internet purchases, are largely unenforceable against individual consumers. Consistent with that view, states have focused their enforcement efforts on forcing retailers to collect those taxes at the point of sale, and taxpayers have maintained nearly complete indifference toward remitting the tax of their own accord. This combination of factors has transformed the state use tax into a de facto tax on honesty—a tax with which only our most principled, risk-averse, or perhaps foolish even attempt to comply. The current structure of these taxes is further troubling because compliance is a practical impossibility. Unfortunately, however, academic attention to the state use tax has focused almost exclusively on whether and under what conditions states should be allowed to compel vendors to collect that tax. This Article takes a different approach and evaluates the current structure and enforcement of state use taxes from economic, moral, and psychological perspectives. That analysis establishes that states’ current vendor-centric approaches are problematic and that states must instead adopt consumer-centric approaches that focus on the design of the tax and on its enforcement against individual taxpayers. The Article concludes by addressing potential arguments against that approach and by outlining the precise changes that are required to salvage the validity of the use tax
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Expert alert: UNL’s Thimmesch on proposed state tax changes
Get PDFIn his State of the State address on Jan. 15, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman proposed sweeping changes to the Nebraska state tax system. One proposal would completely eliminate the state’s corporate and personal income taxes, while an alternative proposal would eliminate the corporate income tax but make more limited changes to the personal income tax. Both proposals include modifications to the state’s sales tax laws that are intended to offset the lost revenue from the income-tax reductions. The Governor should be applauded for putting tax reform at the forefront of this legislative session. With any major tax reform, however, many issues need to be considered. A few of those issues are discussed below
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
The Fading Bright Line of Physical Presence: Did \u3ci\u3eKFC Corporation v. Iowa Department of Revenue\u3c/i\u3e Give States the Secret Recipe for Repudiating \u3ci\u3eQuill\u3c/i\u3e?
Get PDFThe Supreme Court has long held that the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution prohibits states from imposing sales- or use-tax collection requirements on vendors that do not have a physical presence within their jurisdictions. That limitation on state power was challenged as an anachronism in the early 1990s, but the Supreme Court affirmed the continued validity of its physical-presence mandate in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota. Since that case, the legitimacy of the physical-presence test has been largely accepted for purposes of state sales and use taxes. However, states\u27 frustrations with that rule have only increased during that time. States\u27 growing frustrations with the physical-presence rule are due in large part to the explosive growth of the Internet in the two decades since Quill. That technological development has expanded the pool of vendors that are protected by the physical-presence rule from a relatively small group of retailers (principally mail-order vendors) to a much larger group that is buoyed significantly by Internet retailers. That expanded pool of protected vendors, together with widespread consumer use-tax noncompliance, has resulted in significant revenue losses for states across the nation. States have responded to these losses by aggressively and continuously lobbying Congress to legislatively overturn the physical-presence rule. Despite those efforts, however, Congress has not yet given states the reprieve that they seek.
States have responded to Congress\u27s inaction in this area by taking steps aimed at mitigating the impact of Quill\u27s physical-presence directive. Those actions include adopting statutory provisions attributing a physical presence to remote vendors, adopting unique information-reporting requirements that impose significant burdens on those vendors,\u27 and actively discussing challenging Quill\u27s ongoing validity in court.9 The Oklahoma legislature also recently boldly declared that the sales and use tax system established under Oklahoma law does not pose an undue burden on out-of-state retailers --a noted concern of the Quill court in affirming the physical-presence standard. 0 Ultimately, however, none of those efforts to mitigate Quill\u27s impact have provided states with any real relief from the physical-presence test. That test still requires that vendors have some physical presence in the taxing state, something that many Internet retailers lack
THE ILLUSORY PROMISE OF ECONOMIC NEXUS
Get PDFThe economic nexus standard has gained significant support during the last decade as the proper standard for determining the scope of states\u27 taxing powers under the Dormant Commerce Clause. Unfortunately, however, despite the widespread acceptance of that standard in the abstract, there is no uniform understanding of what economic nexus actually means. State courts that have adopted that standard have generally failed to explain its parameters, and those few courts that have actually addressed the scope of economic nexus have adopted artificially high standards that severely restrict its reach. Actions by state legislatures and revenue authorities have been much the same. Uncertainty reigns, yet those disparate approaches to the same constitutional standard have yet to receive scholarly attention. This Article seeks to fill that void by analyzing state actions in this area and by evaluating how states\u27 different formulations for economic nexus will likely develop over time. Such an analysis shows that states\u27 economic nexus formulations have little theoretical or jurisprudential grounding and will necessarily change and deteriorate over time. As a result, states\u27 actions in this area will be non-uniform and will maintain the significant uncertainty that currently exists. Federal attention to economic nexus is thus warranted to prevent state actions from undermining the goals of the Dormant Commerce Clause. This Article analyzes several potential federal responses and concludes that Congress should intervene and adopt a federal factor nexus standard based on the Multistate Tax Commission\u27s model formulation
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