WEEK 8-10

I’ve been busy with my assignments for a while now, so I haven’t had time to put together ideas for my thesis. My initial idea is in the direction of tax law and income inequality. My initial concern was to find out what strategies the US has used to reduce tax evasion that China could learn from by comparing tax law strategies between China and the US, using tax evasion as an intermediary. However, after JB’s advice I found that there are so many differences between China and the US that it was difficult to control the variables for a comparative analysis, and that the two countries are not the same, so it was not possible to cover many points in a master’s thesis. So I felt like shifting a thought. Putting time primarily into the analysis of China.

What I want to do next is to narrow down my research question on taxation as a redistributive tool in China to reduce wealth inequality. I also continue to focus on how China controls tax evasion, but this time I want to do so in the context of the digital and sharing economy. Are the country’s tax authorities able to detect the true income of large companies? Do corporate transactions in the context of the digital and sharing economy help companies to evade taxes? How should the country develop its tax policy to avoid corporate tax evasion?

For the methodology, I think I need to do data collection for certain sharing economy platforms in China, and then use statistical knowledge to analyse the data. Can the state effectively detect transactions on sharing economy platforms compared to traditional industries, are there any regulatory loopholes, and what aspects should I pay attention to when making future taxation?

For further more detailed plans, I will need some time to finalise them.

Reference：Uyar, A., Nimer, K., Kuzey, C., Shahbaz, M., & Schneider, F. (2021). Can e-government initiatives alleviate tax evasion? The moderation effect of ICT. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 166, 120597

Zhu, C. X. (2021). Analysis on Tax Collection and Management of Digital economy. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 253, p. 03046). EDP Sciences.

Babenko, V., Nehrey, M., Staresinic, B., Wang, S., au, F., Nehrey, M., … & Wang, S. (2021). Taxation issues for sharing economic business models. American Journal of Business and Operations Research, 4(1), 08-22.