The paper reviews some publications of domestic researchers, covering the application of information technologies in tax administration. It is concluded that most directions of tax administration in Ukraine, which were stipulated in the national Tax Code and are used in foreign countries with well-established taxation systems, were in a number of ways implemented over 2010-2013. The above specifically concerns public awareness efforts and services delivered to payers, exchange of tax information etc. It is however mentioned that information about a tax (...) payer in our country is actualized in the tax information system only when he or she has begun to carry on business as an economic entity and submit tax accounts. In this context the experience of Germany is analyzed, where information about an economic entity is analytically processed yet on the stage of its registration as a tax payer. Some other aspects of the use of information technologies in administration of tax payments abroad are also covered and it is pointed out that learning the experience reviewed and assessment of the potentiality of its adaptation in the national taxation system would allow to save the budget of Ukraine from losses of revenues due to unfair conduct of potential tax payers and promote more efficient tax administration. (shrink)

In the last decade, advances in technology have significantly disrupted the way firms provide goods and services. At the forefront of this technological disruption is the sharing economy, where individuals earn income by providing services or sharing assets through peer-to-peer platforms. With global revenues in the sharing economy projected to increase substantially in the next decade, income from this economy will continue to be an important source of tax revenues for governments around the world. However, sceptics argue that the sharing (...) economy inherently lends itself to dishonest reporting of taxable income. We employ an online experiment, using 746 taxpayers, to observe whether the prosocial benefits often promoted by P2P platforms reduce honest reporting of taxable sharing economy income. Consistent with moral licensing theory, we find that earning income from a prosocial-oriented P2P platform liberates taxpayers to dishonestly report their sharing economy income, and this result is fully driven by taxpayers whose personal values are incongruent with values promoted by the P2P platform. Our paper contributes to the limited but growing research on the sharing economy and its implications for ethical decisions. It also adds to the moral licensing literature by identifying value congruency as an important moderator for moral licensing effect. (shrink)

Table 3 was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

Federal, state, and local laws shape the use of health information for public health purposes, such as the mandated collection of data through electronic disease reporting systems. Health professionals can leverage these data to better anticipate and plan for the needs of communities, which is seen in the use of electronic case reporting.

Population obesity and associated morbidities pose significant public health and economic burdens in the United Kingdom, United States, and globally. As a response, public health initiatives often seek to change individuals’ unhealthy behavior, with the dual aims of improving their health and conserving health care resources. One such initiative—taxes on sugar‐sweetened beverages (SSB)—has sparked considerable ethical debate. Prominent in the debate are arguments seeking to demonstrate the supposed impermissibility of SSB taxes and similar policies on the grounds that they interfere (...) with individuals’ freedom and autonomy. Commentators have often assumed that a policy intended to restrict or change private individuals’ consumption behavior will necessarily curtail freedom and, as a corollary, will undermine individuals’ autonomy with respect to their consumption choices. Yet this assumption involves a conceptual mistake. To address the misunderstanding, it’s necessary to attend to the differences between negative liberty, freedom of options, and autonomy. Ultimately, concerns about negative liberty, freedom, and autonomy do not provide strong grounds for opposing SSB taxes. (shrink)

This is the conundrum that gives rise to the issue of tax avoidance: Although governments always seem to lack sufficient funds to support the needs of society, tax codes are often written that offer “a way out” of paying taxes for some but not all constituents. The ways out are referred to as loopholes that allow taxpayers to avoid taxes. This paper first defines the basic terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion and then offers an ethical review of the (...) morality of aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance is then addressed in relationship a corporate entity’s tone at the top. The conclusion is drawn that use of the letter of the law to avoid payment of taxes sorely needed by governments for the good faith provision of public goods and services is ethically unacceptable. Several suggestions for change are provided, including a new financial statement disclosure and the possibility of a published corporate ethics report. (shrink)

This paper develops two new measures of labor tax avoidance based on social contribution expenses reported in financial statements and tests them and their determinants within a sample of 224 Italian firms defined as legally registered Mafia firms due to having been confiscated at some point by judicial authorities, in relation to alleged connections with Italian organized crime. Overall, our results reveal that before confiscation LMFs engage more in LTAV than lawful firms do, whereas after confiscation there is no significant (...) difference between both types of firm. Furthermore, we find that several factors have a significant influence on the probability of engaging in such a practice. This study can enhance further research on the effectiveness of our measures and on the determinants of LTAV in other contexts and for other types of firms. Moreover, these measures can be added to the other direct and indirect methods commonly employed to measure and detect undeclared work representing a primary means of LTAV. Finally, our study allows inferring conclusions on the relation between corporate social responsibility and tax avoidance, suggesting that socially irresponsible firms, such as LMFs, are more likely to adopt this practice. (shrink)

One of the most significant changes in modern healthcare delivery has been the evolution of the paper record to the electronic health record (EHR). In this paper we argue that the primary change has been a shift in the focus of documentation from monitoring individual patient progress to recording data pertinent to Institutional Priorities (IPs). The specific IPs to which we refer include: finance/reimbursement; risk management/legal considerations; quality improvement/safety initiatives; meeting regulatory and accreditation standards; and patient care delivery/evidence based (...) practice. Following a brief history of the transition from the paper record to the EHR, the authors discuss unintended or contested consequences resulting from this change. These changes primarily reflect changes in the organization and amount of clinician work and clinician‐patient relationships. The paper is not a research report but was informed by an institutional ethnography the aim of which was to understand how the EHR impacted clinicians and administrators in a large, urban hospital in the United States. The paper was also informed by other sources, including the philosophies of Jacques Ellul, Don Idhe, and Langdon Winner. (shrink)

This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions (...) of the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances. (shrink)

In the bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto (2008: 2) defines an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Many have since defined a bitcoin as a chain of digital signatures. This latter definition continues to appear in reports from central banks, advocacy centers, and governments, as well as in academic papers across the disciplines of law, economics, computer science, cryptography, management, and philosophy. Some have even used it to argue that what we now call bitcoin is not the real (...) bitcoin. The definition fails, however. This is important because the Chain Definition obscures Satoshi’s solution to a dilemma in the design of electronic cash, as well as the truth about bitcoin’s privacy and fungibility. In this article, I explain why the Chain Definition fails and what Satoshi likely endorsed instead. Along the way, I untangle some issues around bitcoin fungibility and clarify some others around the ontology of digital assets. (shrink)

Reform of the federal income tax system has become a perennial item on the domestic policy agenda of the United States, although there is considerable uncertainty over specifics. Indeed the recent report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended not one but two divergent policy directions. In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the (...) answers are known, unknown--or unknowable. The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. The book opens with chapters that discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and political feasibility of these options. Other chapters consider the effect of tax reform on businesses, especially their investment behavior, and include a discussion of possible problems in any transition to a consumption-based tax; international taxation issues arising in an era of globalization; and individual behavioral response to tax reform, including a view of the topic from the perspective of the relatively new field of behavioral economics. ContributorsRosanne Altshuler, Alan J. Auerbach, John W. Diamond, Harry Grubert, Arnold C. Harberger, Kevin A. Hassett, Thomas J. Kniesner, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Edward J. McCaffery, Kathryn Newmark, David Rapson, Daniel Shaviro, Joel Slemrod, James P. Ziliak, George R. ZodrowDiscussants James Alm, Henry J. Aaron, Charles L. Ballard, Leonard E. Burman, Robert S. Chirinko, Robert D. Dietz, Malcolm Gillis, Roger H. Gordon, Jane G. Gravelle, Timothy S. Gunning, James M. Poterba, Thomas S. Neubig, Alan Viard, George Yin John W. Diamond is Edward and Hermena Kelly Fellow in Tax Policy and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University. George R. Zodrow is Professor of Economics and Rice Scholar at the Baker Institute and International Research Fellow at the Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University. (shrink)

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are organized around two kinds of statements: those reporting observations made, and those reporting acts performed. In neither case does the record involve any direct reference to what such statements are actually about. They record not: what is happening on the side of the patient, but rather: what is said about what is happening. While the need for a unique patient identifier is generally recognized, we argue that we should now move to an (...) EHR regime in which all clinically salient particulars – from the concrete disorder on the side of the patient and the body parts in which it occurs to the concrete treatments given – should be uniquely identified. This will allow us to achieve interoperability among different systems of records at the level where it really matters: in regard to what is happening in the real world. It will also allow us to keep track of particular disorders and of the effects of particular treatments in a precise and unambiguous way. We discuss the ontological and epistemological aspects of our claim and describe a scenario for implementation within EHR systems. (shrink)

Health authorities increasingly request that general practitioners use information and communication technologies such as electronic patient records for accountability purposes. This article deals with the use of EPRs among general practitioners in Britain. It examines two ways in which GPs use the EPR for accountability purposes. One way is to generate audit reports on the basis of the information that has been entered into the record. The other is to let the computer intervene in the clinical process through prompts. (...) The article argues that GPs' ambivalence toward using the EPR makes them active in finding ways that turn the EPR into a meaningful tool for them, that is, a tool that helps them provide what they see as good care. The article's main contribution is to show how accountability and autonomy are coproduced; less professional autonomy does not follow from more requests to document one's work. Instead, new forms of autonomy are produced in the sociotechnical network that is made up by health policy and local engagements with patients and technology. (shrink)

Friendly persuasion, in contrast to deterrent measures like tax audits and penalties on underreported taxes, is a positive and possibly a cost effective method of increasing taxpayer compliance. However, prior studies have failed to show that friendly persuasion has a significant impact on compliance (Blumenthal et al., 2001; McGraw and Scholz, 1991). In our study, in contrast to prior studies, we examine the impact of generating and reading reasons supporting compliance as friendly persuasion on individuals' income reporting behavior as (...) well as control for gender effects. Specifically, we predict an interaction effect between friendly persuasion and gender on compliance behavior. We carried out a 2 (friendly persuasion and control) × 2 (men and women) full factorial experiment, where participants earned $30 by completing two questionnaires. Participants in the friendly persuasion group were required first to generate and second to read a list of reasons why they should comply fully. Afterwards, participants in both groups were asked to report the income they earned and pay tax on the reported income. The results show a significant main effect for gender as well as a significant interaction effect between gender and friendly persuasion on income reported. Women in the friendly persuasion group reported significantly higher income compared to men in that group. Other comparisons were not significant. Policy implications for increasing taxpayers' ethics and compliance are highlighted. (shrink)

BackgroundThe research shows a growing trend in using an electronic platform to supplement or replace traditional paper-based informed consent processes. Instead of the traditionally written informed consent document, electronic informed consent may be used to assess the research subject’s comprehension of the information presented. By doing so, respect for persons as one of the research ethical principles can be upheld. Furthermore, these electronic methods may reduce potential airborne infection exposures, particularly during the pandemic, thereby adhering to the (...) beneficence and nonmaleficence principle. This scoping review aims to identify the ethics related criteria that have been included in electronic informed consent processes and to synthesize and map these criteria to research ethics principles, in order to identify the gaps, if any, in current electronic informed consent processes.MethodsThe search was performed based on internet search and three main databases: PubMed, SCOPUS and EBSCO. PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews : Checklist and Explanation guideline was used to report this work.ResultsOf 34 studies that met the inclusion criteria, 242 essential original constructs were collated, and 7 concepts were derived. Digital content showed the highest percentage of collated original constructs followed by accessibility, comprehension engagement, autonomy, confidentiality, language, and parental consent. Twenty-five new items were synthesized for eConsent criteria which may provide guidance for ethical review of research involving eConsent.ConclusionThe current study adds significant value to the corpus of knowledge in research ethics by providing ethical criteria on electronic informed consent based on evidence-based data. The new synthesized items in the criteria can be readily used as an initial guide by the IRB/rec members during a review process on electronic informed consent and useful to the future preparation of a checklist. (shrink)

This article examines perceptions of tax partners and non-partner tax practitioners regarding their CPA firms’ ethical environment, as well as experiences with ethical dilemmas. Prior research emphasizes the importance of executive leadership in creating an ethical climate (e.g., Weaver et al., Acad Manage Rev 42(1):41–57, 1999; Trevino et al., Hum Relat 56(1):5–37, 2003; Schminke et al., Organ Dyn 36(2):171–186, 2007). Thus, it is important to consider whether firm partners and other employees have congruent perceptions and experiences. Based on the responses (...) of 144 tax practitioners employed at CPA firms, the results show that tax partners rate the ethical environment of their firms as stronger than non-partner tax practitioners, particularly among those who describe a self-identified ethical dilemma. Tax partners also report having encountered more of the common examples of researcher-provided ethical dilemmas than non-partner tax practitioners, although non-partners perceive that certain ethical dilemmas occur at a higher rate than partners do. Overall, this study provides evidence of a disconnect between tax partners and non-partner tax practitioners with respect to perceptions of organizational ethics. Suggestions for potential remedies are offered. (shrink)

Obesity is one of the most common health problems facing children and society today. Since 1960, the obesity rate among adults has risen to 34% in the United States, and morbid obesity is up six-fold. In 1980, only 14% of adult Americans were obese, but this figure had skyrocketed to 31% by 2000. Two out of three Americans today are overweight or obese, and one in 20 suffers from extreme obesity. In 2012, Reuters reported that obesity in America added $190 (...) billion to annual national health-care costs, passing smoking for the first time.Following closely on the heels of this epidemic is an explosion in the number of cases of diabetes, particularly... (shrink)

The two-phase study reported here examined the content and communication function served by electronic bumper stickers. EBSs consist of the sayings that are included in an e-mail signature file following personal identifiers such as one's name, phone number, and postal address. In the first phase, 334 EBSs were gathered and content analyzed into one of five message categories. In order of frequency they were: wisdom, humor, advice, religious, and socio-political commentary. In the second phase, open-ended responses from 134 EBS (...) users were coded into one of six motives for interpersonal communication. The relationship between one's motive for using an EBS and the content of one's EBS was not statistically significant. The implications of EBSs and e-mail use for mediated communication competence are considered. (shrink)

On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility, the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies (CTSs) on corporate success with consumers. By means of two laboratory experiments (N = 150, 360), we analyze the effects of the CTSs on corporate reputation, consumer purchase intention, and the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our results suggest that aggressive CTSs diminish corporate success with consumers, whereas responsible CTSs enhance it. (...) Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax-planning companies, but rather punish aggressive tax-planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay. Finally, consumers’ tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables. Given the growing level of media interest in taxation, our findings are crucial for assessing consumer-related non-tax costs and the benefits of different CTSs. (shrink)

This study reports findings of gender differences in tax attitude changes influenced by better tax knowledge. Male students are more exposed to tax knowledge in a way that makes them reconsider more easily their attitudes towards their own tax evasion, i.e. tax ethics, than their female peers. Male students get a significantly stricter attitude towards their own tax evasion. On the other hand, female students are more exposed to tax knowledge in a way that makes them reconsider their attitude towards (...) other people's tax evasion than their male peers, i.e. they get a significantly stricter attitude towards others tax evasion. Improved tax knowledge significantly changed both male and female students attitude towards the fairness of the tax system, i.e. they considered the tax system to be more fair. Implications for ethical behaviour of taxpayers are highlighted. (shrink)

Tax havens and tax secrecy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda and may constitute the most important impediment for reducing inequalities. Moreover, complex corporate structures allow charging for services undertaken in various countries through one low-tax country. Transferring profits to low-tax jurisdictions will significantly reduce a multinational corporation’s overall tax burden. Individuals are assisted in opening shell corporations that officially own bank accounts where the real owner is not revealed. Reducing this practice of tax dodging has (...) proven to be difficult, despite substantial efforts by several international organizations and states over the last decade. It is too easy to be removed from the list of tax havens; mere membership in OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes qualifies. Tax dodgers add to global inequalities and severely weaken states’ capacity to undertake their task of creating a solid tax base, embedded in the principle that all actors are taxed according to the income generated in each country. A weak tax base will lead to less trust, more violence and more deaths. Keywords: country-by-country reporting, EU, OECD, tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax havens. (shrink)

This study examines how taxpayer support for government spending can improve tax compliance. While there is ample evidence on the deterrent effect of audit probability on taxpayer noncompliance, there is no evidence related to the moderating role that taxpayer support may have on compliance behavior. We also examine the moderating role that taxpayer ethics plays in compliance decisions. Results of our study indicate that the level of taxpayer support influences taxpayer compliance decisions, in that those with greater support for how (...) tax dollars are spent report higher amounts of taxable income. In addition, we find that audit probability influences taxpayer compliance decisions when there is support for the government’s use of tax dollars for non-welfare programs, such as defense. However, for welfare programs, such as healthcare, taxpayer support leads to increased compliance regardless of audit rate. When taxpayers do not support government programs, their compliance is lower regardless of the audit probability. This highlights the importance of gaining taxpayer support for government programs and indicates that attempts to align the interests of taxpayers with those of the government may increase voluntary compliance among taxpayers. Finally, we find that taxpayer ethics influences compliance such that, for individuals who have lower ethical standards, a high audit rate as well as support for a program may be necessary to improve compliance behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

AbstractMultinationals’ aggressive tax lobbying that involves free-riding behaviour and results in disproportional benefits to the disadvantage of other taxpayers, is problematic for several reasons. Such lobbying undermines the legitimacy of tax legislation and has a negative impact on trust in the tax system. Based on Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory, this article first suggests a new normative basis for a moral duty that requires multinationals and their leaders to be transparent about their political activities and tax lobbying. Next, it introduces a (...) new concept of transparency in respect of tax lobbying. ‘Deliberative transparency’ requires multinationals and their leaders not only to be open about their reasons for tax lobbying, but also to deliberate with stakeholders and, maybe even more importantly, to provide evidence supporting their lobbying positions. Finally, based on these new understandings, additional government interventions against aggressive tax lobbying are suggested, for example mandatory stakeholder consultation, reporting on stakeholder attitudes and perception, and evidence-based lobbying requirements. (shrink)

If the future of human rights is dependent on the capacity of the state to fulfill them, then one must focus on how the private sector interfaces with public values—an interface that directly affects how billions of people survive both economically and with dignity. During the last few years reports about multinational corporations shielding phenomenal profits from meaningful taxation have troubled governments and individual taxpayers alike. But there has been little effort to associate such tax avoidance schemes with corporate abdication (...) of responsibility for advancing critical societal goals. Instead, much of the ensuing debate has centered on how to tax corporate profits fairly and more efficiently. While the ideas being marketed in this area are enlightening, there has been less discussion about why corporate taxation is a worthy public goal or what corporations should do voluntarily. The linkage between corporate tax avoidance and “corporate social responsibility” has not yet been clearly drawn, but the moment has arrived to bridge the gap. That task may necessitate changing, fundamentally, the ethical framework within which corporate officers, boards of directors, shareholders, tax advisers, and stakeholders in general operate. (shrink)

The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an (...) empirical study of opinion in Utah and Florida. A survey of accounting students was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest. Scores were compared between samples to determine whether the responses were significantly different. (shrink)

This paper reports on the development of a research instrument designed to explore ethical reasoning in a tax context. This research instrument is a version of the Defining Issues Test originally developed by Rest [1979a, Development in Judging Moral Issues ; 1979b, Defining Issues Test ], but adapted to focus specifically on the environment encountered by tax practitioners. The paper explores reasons for developing a context- specific test, and details the manner in which this was undertaken. The study on which (...) it is based aims to compare the reasoning of tax practitioners in the taxspecific context and in the general social context covered by the original DIT, and to compare this with the reasoning of non-specialists in these two contexts. The paper therefore also considers the issues that arise when using such tests to compare reasoning in different domains or to compare groups. The focus on instrument development to measure ethical reasoning in a specific domain will contribute to the literature on research methods in the area of the DIT and will facilitate cross-study comparisons. (shrink)

BackgroundThe landscape of clinical research has evolved over the past decade. With technological advances, the practice of using electronic informed consent (eIC) has emerged. However, a number of challenges hinder the successful and widespread deployment of eIC in clinical research. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the views of various stakeholders on the potential advantages and challenges of eIC.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 participants from 5 stakeholder groups from across 11 European countries. The stakeholder groups included physicians, patient organization (...) representatives, regulator representatives, ethics committee members, and pharmaceutical industry representatives, and all were involved in clinical research. Interviews were analyzed using the framework method.ResultsInterviewees identified that a powerful feature of eIC is its personalized approach as it may increase participant empowerment. However, they identified several ethical and practical challenges, such as ensuring research participants are not overloaded with information and offering the same options to research participants who would prefer a paper-based informed consent rather than eIC. According to the interviewees, eIC has the potential to establish efficient long-term interactions between the research participants and the research team in order to keep the participants informed during and after the study. Interviewees emphasized that a personal interaction with the research team is of utmost importance and this cannot be replaced by an electronic platform. In addition, interviewees across the stakeholder groups supported the idea of having a harmonized eIC approach across the European Member States.ConclusionsInterviewees reported a range of design and implementation challenges which needs to be overcome to foster innovation in informing research participants and obtaining their consent electronically. It was considered important that the implementation of eIC runs alongside the face-to-face contact between research participants and the research team. Moreover, interviewees expect that eIC could offer the opportunity to enable a personalized approach and to strengthen continuous communication over time. If successfully implemented, eIC may facilitate the engagement of research participants in clinical research. (shrink)

Historically, companies have communicated taxes as a burden, as the benefits provided by governments are not perceived to be in proportion to their payments. With sustainable development becoming central in many policy areas, new discourses including ‘fair’ or ‘sustainable’ tax have become omnipresent in public talk on taxes. This paper analyzes tax discourses in corporate annual reports within this changing context to examine the use of language in the construction of the meaning of tax. By analyzing tax reporting by (...) a state-owned multinational company over two decades, we observe that the communication of taxes increased in both number and types of discourses. Importantly, this highlights the shift in tax discourses from one dominated by codified accounting discourse reinforcing the monolithic representation of tax as an unfair expense, to one where tax is given a multidimensional meaning within a broader discursive context, where tax is a meaningful corporate responsibility to society. (shrink)

This paper reports the introduction of electronic handsets, like those used on the television show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' into the teaching of philosophical logic. Logic lectures can provide quite a formidable challenge for many students, occasionally to the point of making them ill. Our rationale for introducing handsets was threefold: to get the students thinking and talking about the subject in a public environment; to make them feel secure enough to answer questions in the lectures because (...) the system enabled them to do this anonymously; and to build their confidence about their learning by their being able to see how they were progressing in relation to the rest of the students in the class. We have achieved all of these and more. Our experience has revealed that the use of handsets encourages a more dynamic form of student interaction in an environment - the lecture - that can, in the wrong hands, be utterly enervating, but they also provide an opportunity for the lecturer to respond to students' difficulties at the time when they really matter. In this paper, we discuss our case of rapid adoption, our grounds for judging it a success, and what that success seems to have depended on. (shrink)

Boyer suggests that laws cannot account for ownership intuitions, but there may be situations when intuitions hew to laws almost perfectly. Laws granting governments taxation powers provide an interesting case study. We report data here suggesting that people's intuitions track law very closely, and are unaffected by manipulating a P() tag input. We propose two hypotheses to explain this finding.

Increasing the tax compliance of self-employed business owners—particularly of trade-specific service providers such as those involved in construction and repair work—remains an ongoing challenge for tax authorities. From a compliance point of view, cash transactions are particularly problematic when services are paid for on the spot, as these exchanges are difficult to audit. We present experimental evidence testing ten different policy strategies rooted in the enforcement, service, and trust/social paradigms, in a setting that allows payment either via a transaction that (...) directly reports income for tax collection purposes or in cash, where taxes are only collected on reported income. Our sample includes both a typical subject pool of students, as used in most previous studies, and non-students who are active within service industries characterised by the opportunity to engage in cash transactions. While our comparative results show that, for both student and non-student participants, interventions that rely on greater enforcement by the tax authority have the greatest effect on compliance in our cash economy setting, treatments involving cooperative elements may be similarly effective in enhancing tax compliance. Given their effectiveness, cooperative approaches should therefore be considered for addition to the policy mix if implemented at relatively low costs, making both carrot and stick approaches promising to increase compliance in an environment where cash-for-service payments offer a common benefit for small businesses and their customers from implicit collusion that enables tax evasion. (shrink)

ObjectivesThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether a self-report measure identifies prenatal substance use and predicts resulting adverse birth outcomes in a large cohort using electronic medical records.MethodsPregnant patients who were admitted between 2014 and 2015 at Christiana Care Health System and delivered singleton birth were included in the analyses. Participant demographic information, pregnancy comorbidities, self-reported substance use, and birth outcomes were retrieved from electronic medical records. Detailed descriptive analyses of prenatal substance use were conducted, (...) and logistic models were evaluated for the associations between substance use and each birth outcome.ResultsThe average maternal age was 30 years, 37% receiving Medicaid. Over 58% were White, 26% were Black, and 13% were Hispanic. Cigarette smoking only showed the highest prevalence among substance u... (shrink)

Although many physicians have been using the internet for both clinical and social purposes for years, recently concerns have been raised regarding blurred boundaries of the profession as a whole. In both the news media and medical literature, physicians have noted there are unanswered questions in these areas, and that professional self-regulation is needed. This report discusses the ethical implications of physicians’ nonclinical use of the internet, including the use of social networking sites, blogs, and other means to post content (...) online. It does not address the clinical use of the internet, such as telemedicine, e-prescribing, online clinical consultations, health-related websites, use of electronic media for clinical collaboration, and e-mailing patients (some of which are already covered in the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics). (shrink)

This paper reports on the development of a research instrument designed to explore ethical reasoning in a tax context. This research instrument is a version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) originally developed by Rest [1979a, Development in Judging Moral Issues (Univer sity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN); 1979b, Defining Issues Test (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)], but adapted to focus specifically on the environment encountered by tax practitioners. The paper explores reasons for developing a context-(and profession-) specific test, (...) and details the manner in which this was undertaken. The study on which it is based aims to compare the reasoning of tax practitioners in the taxspecific context and in the general social context covered by the original DIT, and to compare this with the reasoning of non-specialists in these two contexts. The paper therefore also considers the issues that arise when using such tests to compare reasoning in different domains or to compare groups. The focus on instrument development to measure ethical reasoning in a specific domain will contribute to the literature on research methods in the area of the DIT and will facilitate cross-study comparisons. (shrink)

Studies of academic dishonesty typically rely on potentially inaccurate self-reports or on actual behavior during less realistic tasks. Eliminating the drawbacks of such approaches, we assessed cheating during completion of actual coursework via electronic records of online behavior. Thirty-six college students completed unproctored, online quizzes. The majority of students responding to a follow-up questionnaire reported that they never considered consulting online sources during the quizzes. Computer logs reveal that although some students accessed relevant online information during the quizzes, many (...) did not: 6 instances over 72 quiz attempts are attributable to 3 or 4 individuals. Although online environments may offer more opportunities for academic dishonesty, electronic records of online activity provide a valuable and objective means of detecting such dishonesty. (shrink)

This Report examines the ethical implications of electronic communication, focusing on the use of electronic mail (e-mail), considers its impact on a previously established patient-physician relationship, and the limitations in using e-mail to create a new patient-physician relationship. In its recommendations, this report offers guidance to physicians who use electronic mail to communicate with patients and online users. These guidelines maintain that e-mail should not be used to establish a patient-physician relationship, but rather to supplement personal encounters. (...) When using e-mail, physicians hold the same ethical responsibilities to their patients as they do during other encounters and that information must be presented in a manner that meets professional standards. The report requires that physicians notify patients of e-mail's inherent limitations and that patients be given the opportunity to accept these limitations prior to the communication of privileged information. Finally, physicians should be aware of privacy and confidentiality concerns when using e-mail to communicate with patients. (shrink)

Dictionaries have long been seen as an essential contribution by linguists to work on endangered languages. We report on preliminary investigations of actual dictionary usage and usability by 76 speakers, semi-speakers and learners of Australian Aboriginal languages. The dictionaries include: electronic and printed bilingual Warlpiri-English dictionaries, a printed trilingual Alawa-Kriol- English dictionary, and a printed bilingual Warumungu-English dictionary. We examine competing demands for completeness of coverage and ease of access, and focus on the prospects of electronic dictionaries for (...) solving many traditional problems, based in particular on observations on the usability of a prototype interface developed in our project. The flexibility of computer interfaces can help accommodate different needs including those of speakers with emerging literacy skills, but they are not useful in communities where computer access is generally unavailable. (shrink)

Recent scandals involving accounting firms raise serious concerns about ethical attitudes in the provision of professional tax services. Enhancing the ethics education of prospective tax professionals presents a means through which this situation can be improved. In order to promote such educational development, this study describes the infusion of an ethics intervention in a tax planning course at a university in Hong Kong. Also, the findings of an exploratory survey into theeffect of the course on student attitudes towards the ethicality (...) of tax avoidance and evasion are reported. The findings show that student attitudes towards the ethicality of tax avoidance, but not towards tax evasion, became more critical following the course. Several opportunities for future research are proposed. (shrink)

In the last two decades we have witnessed considerable efforts directed towards making electronic healthcare records comparable and interoperable through advances in record architectures and (bio)medical terminologies and coding systems. Deep semantic issues in general, and ontology in particular, have received some interest from the research communities. However, with the exception of work on so-called ‘controlled vocabularies’, ontology has thus far played little role in work on standardization. The prime focus has been rather the rapid population of terminologies at (...) the level of fine detail. In this paper, we argue that more efforts are needed on the side of both research and standardization to ensure that the coding systems used in electronic healthcare records enjoy a semantics that is coherent with the semantics of the record. We propose realist ontology as a method to bring about this coherence by means of a robust system of top-level ontological categories. (shrink)

This article begins with a review of the literature on the ethics of tax evasion and identifies the three main views that have emerged over the centuries, namely always ethical, sometimes ethical, and never or almost never ethical. It then reports on the results of a survey of HK and U.S. university business students who were asked to express their opinions on the 15 statements covering the three main views. The data are then analyzed to determine which of the three (...) viewpoints is dominant among the sample population. Although it was found that HK scores were significantly different from the U.S. scores, both HK and U.S. respondents were opposed to the view that tax evasion is always or almost always ethical. The strongest arguments justifying tax evasion were in cases where the government was corrupt, the tax system was unfair and unaffordable. The weakest arguments for justifying tax evasion were in cases where there was a selfish motive. The underlying cultural differences are further explored in hope of accounting for differing perceptions of ethics of tax evasion. Policy implications for increasing people’s awareness of ethics on tax evasion are also highlighted. (shrink)

The ethics of tax evasion has been discussed sporadically in the theological and philosophical literature for at least 500 years. Martin Crowe wrote a doctoral thesis that reviewed much of that literature in 1944. The debate revolved around about 15 issues. Over the centuries, three main views evolved on the topic. But the business ethics literature has paid scant attention to this issue, perhaps because of the belief that tax evasion is always unethical. This paper reports the results of an (...) empirical study of opinion in Utah and New Jersey. A survey of business students was conducted to determine the extent of their agreement or disagreement with the 15 main issues that Crowe (1944) identified plus three more recent issues. The arguments that have been made over the centuries to justify tax evasion were ranked to determine which arguments are strongest and which are weakest. Scores were compared between samples to determine whether the responses were significantly different. (shrink)

This paper discusses the moral justification behind placing a tax on foods in correlation with their greenhouse gas emissions. The background is a report from 2016 by the Danish Council of Ethics promoting a national tax on the consumption of meat from ruminants as an initial step to curb the 19–29% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the food sector. The paper describes the contribution of food production and consumption to climate change and how a change in diet, (...) away from ruminant meat in particular, could lead to substantial reductions in GHG emissions from food production and consumption. We discuss whether, given the anticipated effects on humans and the nature of climate change, individual consumers have a moral responsibility to change their diet and/or whether governments are justified in restricting the individual consumer’s freedom of choice through taxation in order to effectively reduce emissions. The paper concludes that such an intervention is warranted and necessary, both from an efficiency perspective and from an ethical perspective. (shrink)

Despite the recent advances in information and communication technology that have increased our ability to store and circulate information, the task remains of ensuring that the right sorts of information reach the right sorts of people. In what follows we defend the thesis that efforts to develop efficient means for sharing information across healthcare systems and organizations would benefit from a careful analysis of human action in healthcare organizations, and that the communication of healthcare information and knowledge needs to rest (...) on a sound ontology of social interaction. We illustrate this thesis in relation to the HL7 RIM, which is one centrally important tool for communication in the healthcare domain. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to examine the individuals’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of the government’s electronic services. It also explores the effect of the social influences, as well as of the facilitating conditions, on the individuals’ intentions to use the government’s digital and mobile services. Design/methodology/approach The researcher has adapted various measuring items from the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and from the theory of acceptance model to investigate the participants’ utilitarian motivations to engage (...) with the government’s online services. The analysis involved a two-step, structural equation modeling approach that included a confirmatory factor analysis that verified the constructs’ validity and reliability. Findings There was a satisfactory fit for this study’s research model. The findings revealed that there were direct and indirect effects that predicted the individuals’ readiness to use the e-government services. The results suggest that the respondents’ perceived usefulness and ease of use of this digital technology were significant antecedents for their behavioral intention to use it. The strength of these relationships was affected by the moderating variables, including, age, gender and experience. Yet, these demographic variables did not have a significant effect on the link between social influences and behavioral intention. Originality/value This study reported that the citizens felt that the e-government systems were useful and easy to use for them. The research participants indicated that they will continue accessing their government’s online services. Therefore, this research implies that the public services should continue improving the facilitating conditions, including the provision of service quality and capability; as well as secure the accessibility to their e-government systems via digital and mobile technologies. In conclusion, this contribution identifies possible research avenues to academia. (shrink)

This paper reports on-going work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) directed to the research and development of electronic landscapes for public use. Our concern here is to elucidate a sociologically informed approach towards the design of electronic landscapes or virtual worlds. We suggest — and demonstrate through ethnographic studies of virtual technologies at a multimedia art museum and information technology trade show — that members sense of space is produced through social practices tied (...) to the accomplishment of activities occurring within the locations their actions are situated. Space, in other words, is socially constructed and shaped through members’ practices for accomplishing situated activities. We explicate, by practical examples, an approach to discovering social practices in and through which a sense of space is constructed and outline how such understandings may be used to formulate requirements for the design of electronic landscapes. In explicating our ethnographically informed approach, we outline how future technologies may bedeveloped through the situated evaluation of experimental prototypes in public use. (shrink)

Ethical research conduct is a cornerstone of research practice particularly when research participants include vulnerable populations. This study mapped the extent of reporting ethical research practices in studies conducted among refugees and war-affected populations in the Arab World, and assessed variations by time, country of study, and study characteristics. An electronic search of eight databases resulted in 5668 unique records published between 2000 and 2013. Scoping review yielded 164 eligible articles for analyses. Ethical research practices, including obtaining institutional (...) approval, access to the community/research site, and informed consent/assent from the research participants, were reported in 48.2, 54.9, and 53.7% of the publications, respectively. Institutional approval was significantly more likely to be reported when the research was biomedical in nature compared to public health and social, when the study employed quantitative compared to qualitative or mixed methodologies, and when the journal required a statement on ethical declarations. Institutional approval was least likely to be reported in papers that were sole-authored, when these did not mention a funding source, or when published in national journals. Similar results were obtained for access to the community site and for seeking informed consent/assent from study participants. The responsibility of inadequacies in adherence to ethical research conduct in crisis settings is born by a multitude of stakeholders including funding agencies, institutional research boards, researchers and international relief organizations involved in research, as well as journal editors, all of whom need to play a more proactive role for enhancing the practice of ethical research conduct in conflict settings. (shrink)