3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Tax implications of global electronic communication(2014-10-13) Nomafu, ZukileElectronic commerce is a new technology, which is growing rapidly and has the ability to create a truly global digital economy. The extraordinary growth of the internet in the last few years has led to the birth of a world without borders, a place where free communication, a competitive market and extensive comparison shopping are a matter of course. This apparent lack of geography in cyberspace has raised complex problems regarding government tax policy. The rapid rise in sales over the internet and the fact that most internet buyers pay no income tax on transactions has ignited a considerable debate over taxes and the internet. The nature of the internet and the globalisation of the world economy mean that developments in e-commerce create legal problems concerning security of transactions and legal jurisdiction of transactions. There is a general concern that e-commerce provides taxpayers with the ability to move transactions outside a country's jurisdiction and thus avoid paying tax in that taxing jurisdiction. The advent of ecommerce has also given dishonest taxpayers the ability to structure their affairs to reduce or avoid paying tax in their jurisdictions. Rules written specifically to address the unique characteristics of electronic commerce are few and must be creatively adapted to the unique needs of e-commerce. As the volume of e-commerce increases, however, so will the number of rules. Many government committees and commissions devoted wholly or partly to make proposals and write the rules for e-commerce, exist throughout the world. In the United States the highest profile commission is the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce. This commission has a mandate to recommend far-reaching changes to the taxation of electronic commerce, especially in the areas of sales and value-added tax ('Vat') and cross-border taxation. Research conducted by Austan Goolsbee has shown that applying the conventional tax policy to the internet commerce will reduce the number of buyers on the internet by up to 24 percent. Various countries are currently formulating their respective regulatory policies in an attempt to find solutions to problems posed by e-commerce.Item Survival in a collapsing economy: a case study of informal trading at a Zimbabwean flea market(2010-06-07T08:59:50Z) Tamukamoyo, HamadziripiAbstract The central concern of this study is the nature of informal economic activities among urban traders in Harare, Zimbabwe. The study focuses on a particular flea market and describes the precarious lives of a sample of informal traders. It is shown that, as through much of Africa, the market is a social as well as an economic nexus. It is not only the site of economic production and exchange constituting the survivalist activities that are increasingly important in the collapsing Zimbabwe economy, but also the site of diverse social relations. The thesis also shows that the formal and informal are part of the same deeply segmented economy and not two distinct, separate economies. The extended case study method is used to describe and analyse the nature of informal trading activities among traders dealing in four types of goods commonly found at the flea market: clothes and shoes, DVDs and video games, arts and crafts, and second-hand books. Primary and secondary sources, interviews with policy experts, researchers and activists, a total of 70 semi-structured interviews with traders and participant observation, over a period of one and a half years were used to obtain data on the nature of the informal economy in the current Zimbabwe crisis, and to profile these traders. The thesis describes the daily lives of the traders, their social characteristics and work histories, and the social relations of trust and reciprocity which enable them to source their goods. It is shown that the majority of the traders live an extremely precarious existence marked by low, unstable incomes. However, they should not be viewed as passive victims of the economic crisis, as they demonstrate qualities of resourcefulness and innovation. Nor are they totally excluded from global circuits of production and exchange. Global connections are identified and shown to be relevant to the sourcing and sale of goods. These connections suggest an alternative way of conceptualising globalisation.Item Nation building and globalisation in the visual arts: A case study of art projects of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council (GJMC)(2008-05-19T10:32:38Z) Duncan, JaneThis thesis explores the tensions between nation building and globalisation in relation to state-sponsored visual arts projects, focusing on the Biennale project of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council (GJMC). It explores the extent to which this project - aimed initially at internationalising and then globalising South Africa’s art world following the demise of apartheid in 1994 - was compatible with key nation building objectives for state funding of the arts, captured imperfectly in the country’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). It is found that the Biennale project was largely not compatible with the RDP’s objectives for state funding, namely to promote national unity while respecting the country’s cultural diversity, redress imbalances of the past in access to the arts, and promote culture as a component of South Africa’s development, in spite of the GJMC’s statements to the contrary. Rather the Johannesburg Biennale reproduced the dialectic of economic inclusion and exclusion endemic to the political project of globalisation, leading to the creation of economic and artistic ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ akin to the ‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ divide that the RDP warned against in its principle on nation-building, and proved to be an inappropriate use of state resources given the divided nature of the South African artworld. Furthermore, the GJMC imported uncritically an exhibition form associated with the discourse of internationalisation in the first Biennale, and then globalisation in the second, from other Biennales, based on contestable theoretical positions on nationalism and globalisation. This they did in an attempt to address a growing financial crisis in the city by using a ‘one size fit all’ set of policy prescriptions falling under the rubric of neo-liberalism, including culture-led methods of enhancing a city’s global status to attract foreign revenue. In particular, the Biennale did not learn the lesson that the shift in focus in other Biennales from internationalisation to globalisation, was also accompanied by growing discontent in these countries about the elitist nature of these events. I also consider whether it is possible to devise an alternative Biennale project that uses international contact to unite the South African artworld, rather than dividing it.