THE TAXPAYER AS AN ELEMENT OF CORPORATE INCOME TAX: THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF AND OPTIONS FOR FUNDAMENTAL REFORM

Jadranka Djurovic Todorovic¹, Marina Djordjevic¹ and Milica Ristic Cakic²

¹University of Nis, Faculty of Economics, Nis, The Republic of Serbia
²Innovation Center of the University of Nis, Nis, The Republic of Serbia

Although a complex taxation system can affect a company’s operations, its negative effects can be significantly greater at the macroeconomic level. Given the fact that it can make it more difficult to attract investments and collect revenue, the corporate income tax system has been the subject matter of numerous research studies for many years now. Modern business conditions initiated their frequent reforms, as well as the numerous dilemmas related to them. The paper deals with the taxpayer as an element of corporate income tax. Although numerous papers investigate the (dis)unity of tax systems in defining corporate income taxpayers, few authors examine the economic effects of these discrepancies. Also, most research studies are focused on examining the other elements of this tax form, such as the tax rate or tax incentives. In this paper, an effort is made to find a connection between the form of the organization of a business entity and the tax burden in the domain of corporate income tax. The research study aims to indicate the importance of the economic effects of this tax element and to propose its reform. The research has confirmed the initial assumption, respectively; it has shown that different forms of the organization of business entities bear different burdens of paying corporate income tax, which affects the amount of the tax revenue that could be collected. The results have shown that the sampled companies paid less tax due to corrections and adjustments in tax balances and tax returns.

Keywords: corporate income tax, taxpayer, tax burden, tax revenues, Republic of Serbia

JEL Classification: E62, H20, O23