د. ميثم مالك راضي خيقاني

Previous studies suggest that CEOs may be incentivised to pursue actions aimed at restoring equity when pay deviates from the predicted CEO labour market compensation rate. This study investigates the effect of corporate governance (CG) quality on CEO pay deviation in an emerging economy characterised by weaker external corporate regulatory environment. Using a unique hand-collected data of 185 South African listed firms over a six-year period, We document that whereas CG quality impacts negatively on total CEO pay deviation, this is only conspicuous when the CEO is overpaid. CG quality has no effect on CEO compensation when the CEO is underpaid. We find that CEO underpayment reduces firm value in poorly-governed firms. In contrast, CEO overpayment has no effect on firm value irrespective of the level of CG quality. The findings imply that recent CEO pay level agitations have resulted in the design of CG mechanisms that reduces the tendency of CEO pay to adjust upwards. The results are robust to alternative econometric techniques and endogeneity concerns.

The issue of vertical and horizontal equity enhancements attributable to the taxation of capital gains is largely a settled matter, but it is commonly argued that such benefits come at some cost to economic efficiency. As there is almost singular agreement about the positive equity implications of a tax on capital gains, this research focuses on the conceptual consistency of CGT with capitalism. Arguments linking decrements in economic efficiency with CGT or CGT increases are misguided. This research consists of a review of the key arguments about the taxation of capital gains on efficiency grounds, reflecting on theoretical and empirical research on the matter. The conceptual and theoretical arguments linking CGTs to reduced economic growth are widely held to be “common sense”. This research qualifies this overstated confidence in the self‑evidence of such arguments. The conclusion of this process is that there is no compelling evidence that CGT materially decreases economic efficiency and that, conceptually, it is likely to increase economic efficiency.

There are those who hold the view that the compliance costs associated with capital gains tax (CGT) are prohibitive. Without conceding this point, the Tax Working Group Interim Report (September 2018) appears to accept that those costs are high. This discussion considers the costs associated with the current revenue‑capital boundary as a basis to infer that the incremental costs associated with the introduction of a comprehensive CGT may be exaggerated and principally relate to a cost identification bias. It is not possible to assess empirically the costs associated with a comprehensive CGT in the New Zealand context, but the case is made that the absence of this tax does not avoid many such costs. Conceptually, incentives to avoid the income classification, preferring the classification of items as capital, are greater under a taxing regime in which the tax differential is greater (zero for capital‑classified items) compared to a typically preferential rate under existing overseas comprehensive CGT regimes. It is quite possible that those arguments made in objection to the compliance costs associated with a comprehensive CGT are from self‑interest and that the self‑interested are comfortable incurring compliance costs to characterise income as capital gains in support of a zero tax rate.

The work aimed to explore the value relevance of sustainability reporting practices within the annual reports of the Iraqi tourism companies using a sample of Iraqi tourism companies listed in Iraq Stock Exchange. The research investigates whether sustainability information disclosed by the tourism companies add to the value of annual reports data. This research utilized a quantitative method using a sample of Iraqi tourism companies consist of 52 year-firm observations for the period between 2013-2018. To determine the value relevance of sustainability reporting, two market indicators were used are share price and traded shares. The findings indicate that the sustainability reporting is value relevant for the change in share price of the sample tourism companies, and there a significant positive correlation between sustainability reporting and share price. However, when we examined the value relevance with the traded shares, the results show insignificant correlation between sustainability reporting and traded shares. Thus, the results imply that the sustainability reporting is sensitive only to the share price and it is not reflected the size of the traded share of the companies.

هدف هذا البحث الى تسليط الضوء على اهمية المحاسبة القضائية والحاجة الملحة الى تفعيل وتطوير دورها في العراق للمساعدة في حل الكثير من المشاكل المالية والقضائية. اذ تلعب المحاسبة القضائية بخبرائها وادواتها وفي دول العالم دور مهم وفعال في اعطاء المشورات المالية المحاسبية المتخصصة للافراد وللجهات الرقابية والتحقيقية والقضائية في ما يخص عمليات الاحتيال وقضايا الفساد المالي المختلفة وفض النزاعات المالية والتجارية. تم صياغة هذا البحث من خلال الاعتماد على خمس فرضيات رئيسة وثلاث فرضيات فرعية. ركزت الثلاث فرضيات الاولى على اهمية الحاجة الى خدمات المحاسبة القضائية في العراق واهم القطاعات والمجالات التي يمكن الاستفادة من خدماتها فيها. في حين ركزت الفرضية الرابعة على المهارات الضرورية والمناسبة التي ينبغي ان يتمتع بها المحاسبين القضائيين لاداء عملهم بشكل كفوء وفعال. وقد ركزت الفرضية الخامسة على فاعلية التطبيق الجيد للمحاسبة القضائية واهمية دورها في الحد من ظاهرة الفساد المالي وزيادة جودة نظم الرقابة الداخلية والتقارير المالية. وقد تم اثبات صحة الفرضيات جميعها من خلال نتائج التحليلات الاحصائية لاجابات عينة متنوعة من الافراد وبالاعتماد على استمارة استبيان خصصت لهذا الغرض. وقد خرج هذا البحث بمجموعة من الاستنتاجات أهمها: ان الارتفاع الكبير في معدلات الفساد المالي والكم الكبير من القضايا والمشاكل المالية والقانونية في كافة مفاصل الدولة في العراق وعلى جميع الاصعدة والقطاعات يرجع سببه الى الغياب الكبير للاستعانة بالخبراء المحاسبين القضائيين واخذ دورهم المناسب في هذا المجال. وتشير النتائج وبشكل واضح الى الحاجة الملحة والضرورية في الوقت الحاضر الى تفعيل دور المحاسبة القضائية في العراق والاستفادة من خدمات المحاسبين القضائيين والخبراء في هذا المجال لما له من دور كبير في دعم الاقتصاد العام للبلد وتعزيز تطبيق العدالة والقانون. واخيرا توصل هذا البحث الى ضرورة ان تحظى المحاسبة القضائية بأهتمام واسع والتأكيد على اهمية ادراجها ضمن المناهج التعليمية للجامعات والمعاهد العراقية لتنمية مهارات وقدرات المحاسبين في هذا المجال. فضلا عن اهمية حث الجهات القضائية والحكومية المختلفة الى الاستعانة والاعتماد على الخبراء والمحاسبين القضائيين في ما يخص التحقيق في عمليات الفساد المالي وقضايا التلاعب والاختلاس والمشاكل المالية الاخرى.

Paper accepted at the 3rd i-Proclaim Annual Research Conference on Business, Humanity and Law (ARCBHL-2017) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 30-31 December 2017.