Application of the transaction costs theory in the context of the tax system reform in Ukraine

Abstract

Recently, there has been a rapid development of neoinstitutional economic theory, including, in particular, the theory of transaction costs. In the Western economic science this theory is widely applied for the study of the activities of the public sector. One of the transactions of the public sector includes taxation.

The aim of the research is substantiation of the approaches of the theory of transaction costs for fiscal management under conditions of reforming the system of state governance in Ukraine and gradual integration into European structures. We used general scientific methods: cognition, system analysis, analysis and synthesis, as well as comparison.

Taxation was studied as a specific act of the agreement between the state and the business. Filling the state budget by tax revenue, the state solves important issues of socio-economic development and has a resource for its own functioning. Entrepreneurs are interested in providing the state with financial resources because the state is the provider of public goods and efficient structure of business activity regulation. It was proved that the relationship between the state and the business have transaction character. In this case, the taxes are considered as certain transaction costs, i.e., the fee for the use of public benefits and the institutions that govern the business relationships and establish "rules of the game” in the market.

It was substantiated that the theory of transaction costs allows comprehensive researching into the interaction of state structures with taxpayers given the uncertainty, information asymmetry, limited rationality, opportunistic behavior, specificity of interests, contractual risks, etc. We established that this very theory provides a full description of mutual cooperation between the authorities and the businesses in the process of formation of tax policy and execution of tax management functions.

Scientific novelty of the research is provided by the proposed theory of transaction costs for scientific substantiation of tax management in the period of structural transformations of the economy.

The practical result is the use of institutional approaches to the formation of the reformation of the tax system in Ukraine and its transition from a purely fiscal to an investment model considering all participants of the process of taxation, as well as assistance in overcoming the contradictions between them and the opportunism in the behavior.

A promising direction for further research in this area is the use of neoinstitutional approach at micro–level for the analysis of transactions between taxpayers and government agencies, as well as overcoming information asymmetry in the process of implementing peculiarities of tax management.