Revision

Abstract

Thise research proposal provides for the reviews of the current situation and previous literature on the problem challenges of tax administration. The discovered issues include problems with communication between public authorities and citizens, lack of relevant information about the allocation and use of funds. The review of the previous studies considered the approaches to the optimization of tax administration. Within the behavioral concept, the implementation of the e-government programs deems reasonable and well grounded. The advanced digitalization and widespread use of the social media require integration of these tools to the public services. Among the benefits of such measures are increased transparency, effective communication, and cooperation between government and taxpayers, motivation and empowerment of the citizens. The research should be conducted with the help of online data collection. The methods include the online questionnaire and content analyses of social media posts. Comment by 作者: Connect e government with tax administration more clearly

Keywords: tax administration, e-government, social media.

Optimization of Tax Administration

Introduction

The issue of taxation is essential for any society as it constitutes a basis of a state and enables a government to perform its primary functions. The citizens should provide a part of their income to receive security, healthcare, education, and other related services. The history of American taxation system traces back its origin to the times of the Civil War when Congress introduced the Revenue Act in 1861 ("U.S. Senate: The Civil War: The Senate's Story", 2018). There was a considerable scarcity of resources preventing the fight for national values and ideals. It was necessary to impose obligations on people to put the all the possible efforts together and win the democracy. Some citizens opposed the taxation policy, but the majority supported it with patriotic spirit. The same happened during the period of the Great Depression and the Second World War when most Americans voluntarily agreed to pay high taxes and unite their efforts for the common purpose (King, 2017).

Currently, the taxation administration features some problems, including the just proportion of income tax, debates about progressive and regressive systems, overall compliance and due payment. People often complain about high tax rates and inefficient application of the collected resources. The United States has one of the most significant state debt (Chantrill, 2018). One of the main contentious issues relates to the transparency of the information about taxpayers and the use of the collected funds. The survey conducted in 2014 demonstrated that 88% of Americans reaffirmed they are diligent taxpayers and estimated that only 67% of the citizens observe the law (Williamson, 2017). It means that people suspect each other in concealing the real income and fraudulent schemes of avoiding tax. “Most Americans imagine that recent immigrants get more in government benefits than they pay in” (Williamson, 2017), but they contribute to the Medicare and Social Security funds. The businessmen with the annual incomes over million dollars consider themselves the primary providers of the tax budget, but middle-class payers are persuaded that they bear the harder burden.

Moreover, many citizens do not understand or do not know the principles of tax collection and blame the government for stealing their money. “Taxes are withheld from paychecks, hiding from plain sight the cost of federal spending and its relationship to our earnings” (Bedard, 2010). Consequently, the general problem relates to the necessity of optimization of the tax administration system, particularly the aspect of public informing and access to the relevant data.

The recent intensive development of innovative technologies enables the application of the electronic systems within legal practices. The modernization of the public services encompasses implementation of the e-government programs and social networks. Currently, people spend a lot of time browsing Facebook and Twitter and receive news and relevant information about political and related matters via these channels. It is reasonable to use the platforms with high users’ concentration for spreading data about taxation. Therefore, the narrower problem of the research is the possible employment of the social media for increasing the public awareness about collection and allocation of taxes.

Research questions

The ultimate goal of the research is to improve the tax administration. It would be good to state the questions.

The first question is aimed to figure out whether the implementation of the e-government program can foster citizens` willingness to pay taxes and enhance satisfaction with the quality of public service. Besides, it is necessary to investigate the situation with the local government as it can build closer and trustful relations with citizens.

The second question is whether improvements at the local level can lead to better results at the federal one. Regarding the widespread use of social media, it is needed to study their role in optimization of taxation.

The third question aims to identify the most effective forms of social media influence of providing relevant information to the society. Besides, it is necessary to study the relationship between citizens’ satisfaction and implementation of e-government.

Literature review

In general, two approaches to the optimization of tax compliance can be distinguished, namely economic and behavioral (Simon & Clinton, 2002). According to the economic concept, it is necessary to design strict rules set forth severe punishment measures to prevent the possibilities of evasions and force payers to observe the legislation. The economic approach is based on the premise of human rationality and desire to maximize personal income and wealth (Simon & Clinton, 2002). Consequently, the economic analysis is regarded as the main instrument within the concept. It considers evasion of tax payments as leading reason for failed tax compliance system. “They will not comply with the tax system unless the benefits of doing so exceed the costs of not doing so in the form of fines and penalties” (Simon & Clinton, 2002). Thus, the stricter law enforcement measures are applied to improve the situation.

In contrast, the behavioral approach presumes that there are other external and internal factors influencing personal motivation and intention to pay taxes. Among the factors are listed the following ones: social support, social influence, attitudes and certain background characteristics such as age, gender, race and culture (Simon & Clinton, 2002). The behavioral methods try to encourage voluntary willingness to pay taxes and develop the idea of good citizen and cooperation with the government. “Attitudes towards the state and revenue authorities are important, as are perceptions of equity” (Simon & Clinton, 2002). The realization of the behavioral concept includes providing citizens with a detailed explanation of the work of taxation systems, with access to the month and annual reports on the collection and expenditure of funds. The necessary level of transparency can be secured through the electronic systems because they enable convenient access to the open data for the millions of people, save time and resources required for the provision and obtainment of the requested data and are relatively simple to realize. The list of the e-government benefits includes reduction digital divide by providing equal access to information and empowerment of citizens by interacting with them (Kolachalam, 2003). “An increased number of countries have adopted cooperative compliance models and soft law instruments such as engaging taxpayers more in revenue management” (PwC, 2017). The reasons for launching e-government are understandable and well grounded. Still, the question of programs realization is more sensitive because of the complicated process of transformation, development of the appropriate software and provision of the hardware, and teaching people to work with and use new technologies. “The transformational impact of e-government requires mobilizing internal resources particularly people to implement changes through e-government initiatives” (Chatfield, 2009).

The process of digitalization of governmental structure can gradually result in establishing of e-governance. The transition from e-government to e-governance can occur via involvement of more modern technologies into this process. “E-governance includes various aspects of deliberation and policy-making connecting people with the political process and the way governmental bodies carry out decisions” (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017). The difference between e-government and e-governance is in the principle of power and control implementation. In case of e- governance, innovations perform the role of additional facilitators. When it comes to the e- government, it means that control and power are executed within electronic systems including all the public institutions. There are the following models of e-government and e-governance: citizen-centric and organization-centric. The citizen-centric e-government provides for achieving public goals in a transparent manner (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017). It means that different institutions shall notify people about all the news and reforms in beforehand maintaining the administratively correct manner. The needs and requirements of the population are placed prior to the purposes of the institution. On the contrary, the organization-centric model aims to ensure high efficiency of the authoritative agency. It is based on such key vales as productivity, standardization, and control, which are guided by a managerial logic. The citizen-centric e-governance is a mediation of the relations between people and different institutions. An organization-centric e-governance is related to the responses to the citizens` needs under the new conditions (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017).

The centralized digitalization of American public services stared in the previous century with the invention of the iInternet technology. Primarily, it focused on designing websites for governmental agencies and organs to cover their activity and establish communication with citizens. According to the report of 2008, 89% of state and federal sites had services that were fully executable online. However, the majority was not adjusted for disabled people neither translated to other languages. Another problem was difficult readability of the text and low clarity of the published information (West, 2008). Modern websites similarly are required to be more understandable and should contain more data to support the transparent accountability of the institutions. It is necessary to involve other available chances of transmitting information like social media.

The experience of the other countries of introduction e-government systems and e-tax filling should be analyzed. For example, the process of modernization with information technologies began in Spain in the early 1980`s. In Mexico and Canada, computerized systems developed about the decade later and were based more heavily on local networks and microcomputer technologies (Jenkins, 1996). Each country chose its own way of development and achieved different results. However, it is necessary to share the experience in order to have the examples of the problem solutions or more effective ways to implement decisions. In Spain, installation of the e-government systems has been rapid, centralized and enjoyed political backing. In effect, it reduced the taxpayers` cost of compliance, but did not enhance tax coordination (Jenkins, 1996). It can be explained by the difficulties faced by people, who did not know how to work with electronic systems. Measured by tax revenues collected, computerization has probably not increased compliance, but has not affected people`s perception of tax fairness (Jenkins, 1996). The early systems could not provide the same level of transparency and openness the modern ones can. The interfaces became more user-friendly an additional functions as e-tax filling was added. For instance, Japanese experience provides for implementation of a new “tax consultation” method. It established a platform for the consultation services necessary for taxpayers to file their returns voluntarily and correctly (Chatfield, 2009). The government applied the principle of cooperation with citizens creating for them favorable conditions to comply with the law. Indeed, many people can be unmotivated to pay taxes because of confusion or lack of understanding of complicated financial and bureaucratic procedures. The new method consisted of the following steps: first, taxpayers were invited to visit the governmental offices and the appointed date and time; second, tax officers answer taxpayers’ questions about accounting procedure or tax laws (Chatfield, 2009). The last visit was aimed to practical training and officers teach citizens to fill in accounting books and records, and calculate the sum of the tax. “The idea behind this new tax consultation method was to eliminate government influence and taxpayer dependence on the government by encouraging taxpayer selfservice in filing income tax returns” (Chatfield, 2009). In effect, it empowered citizens to put their effort for the development of the state and ensured them that their contributions are important and meaningful. The strength of the patriotic spirit promoted good relations between the people and public services. “By offering the “e-Tax” channel choice, Japan government intended to transform the bureaucratic tax public administration into a modern, citizen-centric “service” organization, regain citizen trust, and achieve the policy outcomes – better tax law compliance in the globalized industrial nation of ageing population” (Chatfield, 2009).

The innovative modifications in taxation field began in 1998 with the introduction of the “Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act” that was aimed to improve public perception of the agency (Pippin S. & Tosun, 2014). According to the report by the consulting company, despite visible achievements in the digitalization of taxation, further improvements are necessary. For example, US agencies do not have a VAT and invoice-reporting system is not maintained (Ernst & Young, 2015). The troubles of effective communication with citizens should also be urgently solved.

In 2012, the US legislators designed a comprehensive Digital Government Strategy aimed at delivering a better digital service to the Americans. It stipulates the implementation of the following projects of Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service, Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government ("Digital Government Strategy," 2012). The Executive Order mentions that Government should ensure “a high return on every tax dollar that is spent” (Executive Order 13576--Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government, 2011). However, to keep the guarantees is more complicated issue than declaring such intentions. The matters of greater transparency continue to worry American citizens. The cognitive dissonance could have occurred in result of the overwhelming information flows. People got used to receive any needed information through Google or other researchers. The governmental data differs from other public insights by its nature and meaning. Some information cannot be posted immediately as it is necessary to check it carefully or to proceed with several validation levels.

Regarding the integration of the social media into the process of e-government, it provides for similar benefits, but on a larger scale. Different social network, like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube can ensure a higher level of transparency and effective communication between authorities and citizens. The core matter pertains to the new quality of the connection as it has become faster, interactive, and personal. “The extent to which an organization disseminates information about its activities and their outcome and the inclination of the organization toward evaluation and critique by external groups and individuals” (Roy, 2014). The address to the Facebook page of some governmental institution resembles the real visit and face-to-face conversation with workers. The ability of social media to create immediately an interactive and real-time dialogue is beneficial for the improvement of the efficiency of bureaucratic systems eliminating long hours of waiting and unnecessary paper work. The application of the social media to public services has caused the transition from New Public Management influenced e-government practices, to a governance approach, spurred by the digitalization of society (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017). Public agencies employ tools common to private sector management to provide better satisfaction with the quality of service. These include business process re-engineering, total quality management, customer relationship management (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017).

Besides better opportunities, the integration of the social media into to the governmental activity provides for some challenges. They are connected with the security measures and greater pressure on the public agencies. As public sector organizations, authorities are exposed to public scrutiny and are therefore held accountable in a broad scale by the citizens (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017). It is necessary to respond to all the citizens inquires to meet the demands and maintain positive public image. Another challenging aspect is credibility in the environment of easy manipulations. “Trust becomes an issue when ads on a government Facebook page undermine or run contrary to the message or goal of the page. Citizens may not know the difference between the social media source and the government agency using it” (Margo, 2012). Along with the digitalization of services, it is necessary to educate citizens on verification of credibility of the information. However, introduction of the validation sing in social media seems to solve this problem.

The successful case of information dissemination via Twitter is the spread of the announcements about the disease by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Former President Barack Obama popularized application of social media in politics when he based his election campaign on Facebook and Twitter platforms. He continued beyond the campaign, promoting transparency and openness in government (Magro, 2012). However, failure can also happen, and the expected results may cost high expenditures and reputation. For instance, Los Angeles County used Google mashups, but at the cost of loss of control and authenticity of their message (Magro, 2012).

The operation of the social media account can be based on the following models like an ideal one, rule compliance, civic virtue, bureaucratic efficiency, and empowerment (Kaur & Saini, 2016). Theoretically, the perfect model can be achieved, but in practice, it is difficult to realize. The matter of data security, appropriate technological basis, and skilled human resources are necessary for launching such a model.

The advantages of using social media by the local authorities include the mass redistribution of contents, making them more accessible and the establishment of an open corporate dialogue with citizens (Bonsón, Torres, Royo, & Flores, 2012). The publications on websites and social account of the agencies can be stored for an unlimited time and easily shared between users. People can add them to their bookmarks or save conveniently to find the information quickly when necessary. Creation of the blog for local politicians and citizens will secure useful discussion of the relevant problems and foster the solutions. The corporate dialog enables all the users to participate directly in the process of communication through the contribution of contents, comments, tagging (Bonsón, Torres, Royo, & Flores, 2012). The recent research of the efficiency of local government operation facilitated by social media demonstrated that the rates of representation, civic engagement, and social networking has significantly increased (Mergel, 2013).

Theoretical framework

Given the identified approaches of the tax administration optimization, the proposed research will apply the behavioral concept (Simon & Clinton, 2002), as it is aimed at developing strategies of improving voluntary compliance and building trustful relations with government and citizens. It provides for regarding people as clients and receivers of services to establish appropriate communication (Jenkins, 1996). Accordingly, it is necessary to employ the tool of investigation used by commercial structures to study the clients` behavior (Bergquist, Ljungberg, Remneland & Rolandsson, 2017). The marketing attributes including the user-friendly interface of the websites or applications, the sufficiency of instruction and regularity of notification and announcements should be researched. The behavioral approach also requires studying the clients` habits and peculiarities of using specific service. Consequently, for taxation improvement, it is necessary to define the periods of intensive use to prevent failures in operation and provide immediate response in case of emergency. Comment by 作者: What is the behavioral concept? Comment by 作者: Is this methodology?

Methodology

Settings Comment by 作者: What geographic location?

The study aims to examine the role of social media in the improvement of tax administration. The particular focus is placed on local tax bureaus, as citizens address them more often. Nowadays, every public office should have an official account at least in one social network to cover its activity and communicate with people. For this research, the following social media were chosen: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Facebook and Twitter are positioned as platforms for official communication of many companies and governmental agencies.

Consequently, the primary audience of these networks is adult citizens. YouTube features video content and is equally famous among people of different age. Instagram is popular mainly among young users, who are not taxpayers yet. Still, it is strategically essential to establish a reasonable basis for the prospective payers to encourage compliance and persuade them inconvenience use of tax services. Therefore, the settings of the proposed research include websites and social accounts of local public offices.

Sample Comment by 作者: What is the population?

The sample of the proposed research should encompass citizens, who pay taxes as they can evaluate their experience and point out issues that need improvement. However, the prospective taxpayers, namely students, can also be added to the list of participants, as they are regular users of social media and can suggest their expectation of appropriate online service. Non-taxpayers can provide information about the current image and perception of the tax administration in a social media environment. The size of the sample should be as large as possible because it will ensure the accuracy of the findings. The application of online technologies and social media allows collecting data from a significant number of users. Therefore, the sample should include at least one thousand members. The participants should feature geographical variety. It is important to compare practices of regular areas and large cities as well as of different states to evaluate variations between different kinds of conditions. The sample should be divided into groups of participants according to the gender, age, size of the taxed income, geographical location.

Consequently, personal information will be collected together with the necessary data about the user experience and quality of tax services. It is essential to approach citizens online to estimate the efficiency of spreading information through social media. However, the older segment of the population should also be regarded similarly as physically challenged people. Citizens of older age are not active users of Facebook or Twitter. Most of them do not have accounts on Instagram but can watch YouTube videos. The segment of physically challenged citizens often cannot use social media because they are not adjusted for them. It is necessary to explore their experience of using tax services and gathering information about them.

Research Design

The proposed research should be arranged in two phases. The first stage is an expert analysis of the websites and accounts of tax agencies. The number of the studied objects should be nearly one hundred. The usability of the websites, convenience of navigation, the clarity and sufficiency of the instructions and explanations or the possible transactions and procedures should be evaluated. The transition between the websites and social networks should also be examined. Usually, the icons with links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are placed on the top or bottom of the webpage. The excellent site for placement of the icons can be left or right side after the main information block. The signs are colored with their corporate colors for better distinguishing. Comment by 作者: How is this achieved?

On the other hand, official accounts should have links to the agencies websites. Another essential feature is a validation sign approving the official status. It is extremely desirable that users could be able to identify that the account is credible and belongs to the tax authorities. The content and individuals’ reaction to the posted information should also be analyzed. The second stage of the study is the analysis of the users' experience. It should be a practical experiment based on the collection and analysis of feedbacks.

Concerning the time limits of the study, it should take approximately several months to complete. The first stage should last for two-three weeks necessary for collecting and interpretation of the data. The researched period of the posts in social media should encompass the whole previous year. The second stage should last for five-six weeks to spread the feedback forms and process the collected data.

Data collection

The methods of data collection should be divided into two groups. The first one is a survey of the websites and social accounts of tax agencies by the specialists. They are expected to collect information from the open sources, process it and interpret the findings. Notably, the researchers need to browse social media pages, read posts and publications by the agencies and the comments by the users. The quantitative data, namely the number of the followers, replies, likes, and reposts should be fixed. The second group is the method of online questionnaires, which suggest users answer different questions to evaluate the quality of the communication with tax agencies, the convenience of using websites via computers and mobile phones, the sufficiency of information published at the official accounts in social media. The questionnaires should contain the grading scale from one to ten points. The respondents are required to evaluate the listed above attributes according to the range meaning one for the lowest mark and ten for the highest score. There also can be open questions asking for suggestions of possible improvement and users` habits, namely what social media they prefer to use, the time of visiting agencies` pages and for what purposes do they usually address the accounts of tax services. The online questionnaires can be spread through different channels including social media, official websites, traditional local media and printed versions at bureaus. It will help to identify the preferred channel of the particular group of people and suggest in what way to tailor information for them. Another benefit of employing the diversified channels for dissemination of the questionnaires is the possibility to reach people of different ages and physical abilities.

Variables Comment by 作者: This is where you can draw a research model

According to the theoretical framework, it is necessary to identify the dependent and independent variables of the research. “An independent variable is the variable that is changed or controlled in a scientific experiment. A dependent variable is the variable being tested and measured in a scientific experiment” (Helmenstine, 2018). Given that, the users' experience and satisfaction should be classified as dependent variables. Besides, the experts' evaluations of the quality of information, communication, and services should belong to the group of the dependent. They measure the clarity and sufficiency of the posted information, its usefulness for understanding the current situation with taxes as these attributes reflect users satisfaction with the activity of websites and social accounts. These variables are expressed as follows: "excellent" corresponds with 10-9 scores, "good" that is 8-7 scores, "acceptable" corresponds with 6-5 scores, "unacceptable" means 4-3 scores and "bad" is 2-0 scores. The attributes of the websites and social accounts fixed during the research period should belong to the independent group, as they determine the level of satisfaction. Mainly, the presence in the websites of the following items should be analyzed: links to the four social accounts (one point for each one and zero for absence), the explanations of the whole range of procedures related to tax payment, the regular monthly, quarterly and annually reports of the tax collection and funds distribution, the statistics of the efficiency of tax services and compliance policy.

Similarly, the availability (1 score) or absence (0 scores) of some aspects of social account should be measured. For Facebook, the independent items include the number of posts, the type of the content (news, notifications, reports, statistics, explanations), time of publications and average frequency for a day, week, month, quarter or year during the researched period, and the average time of reply. For Twitter, these should encompass the number of tweets, types of tweets, replies, followers, and frequency of publications. For Instagram, the independent variables are the number of posts and types of publications, number of followers, comments, and frequency. The same is for YouTube. Comment by 作者: Provide a table for variables and how they are measured

Data Analysis

According to the two stages of the research design, the data should be analyzed similarly into two phases. The first part collected by the experts from the open sources of websites and social accounts should be processed with a content analysis tool. It provides for quantitative and qualitative approaches. First, it is necessary to check the availability of the above-listed attributes of the websites (like transferring links, visible icons) and social network accounts (thematic publications about news, changes, reports) and calculate them (one score if available, zero scores if absent). Then the received results should be graded following the scale ranging from "excellent" to "bad." The final rank of all the website and social accounts of different local tax offices should be completed after that. The qualitative analysis of the collected data provides for reading the publications and comments, and identification of the clarity of information, sentiments of the users' replies. The results of the publications processing will demonstrate the level of sufficiency of information. The distinguished sentiments of comments and responses will show the level of satisfaction. In effect, the positive or negative perception and attitude towards tax administration within a social media environment can be estimated.

The data collected through the questionnaires should be analyzed with the statistical analysis. The rates of clarity and sufficiency of information received by citizens through social media should be calculated and then compared with the results of the previous review. The same procedure of the qualitative processing of the answers and suggestions should be held and the results compared with the experts' opinion. The correlation will demonstrate the statistical significance of the findings. The subsequent interpretation of the ultimate results is required. These data should be processed with methods of statistical analyses, and the obtained results should be interpreted and discussed.

Limitations

The limitations of the proposed research can be incorrect data provided by the respondents concerning their taxed income or other questions. It may distort the information about tendencies in tax compliance among the particular social group. Another point relates to the variety of survey participants. The questionnaire can be filled out mostly by active users of social media, and the opinion of other citizens will not be taken into account.

Ethics

Concerning the ethical aspect of the research, the questionnaires should be anonymous and include the possibility to skip questions. The appropriate security and confidentiality of the received data should be ensured. The preface of the surveys should contain a brief explanation of the purposes and procedure of the research to inform the participants. The request to give the informed consent should be placed after explanation.

References

Bedard, P. (2010). 10 Problems with the Income Tax. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/04/12/10-problems-with-the-income-tax

Bergquist, M. Ljungberg, J. Remneland, B. & Rolandsson, B. (2017). "From E-Government to Egovernance: Social Media and Public Authorities Legitimacy Work". In Proceedings of the 25th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Guimarães, Portugal, June 5-10, 2017 (pp. 858-872). ISBN 978-989-20-7655-3 Research Papers.

Bonsón, E., Torres, L., Royo, S., & Flores, F. (2012). Local e-government 2.0: Social media and corporate transparency in municipalities. Government Information Quarterly, 29(2), 123-132. doi: 10.1016/j.giq.2011.10.001

Chantrill, C. (2018). Government Debt in the United States - Debt Clock. Retrieved from https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/

Chatfield, A. T. (2009). Public Service Reform through e-Government: a Case Study of 'e-Tax' in Japan. Electronic Journal of e-Government 7(2), 135 – 146. Retrieved from www.ejeg.com

Digital Government Strategy. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/digitalstrategy/

Ernst & Young. (2015). Tax administration is going digital: Understanding the challenges and opportunities. Retrieved from https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-tax-administration-is-going-digital-understanding-the-challenges/$FILE/EY-tax-administration-is-going-digital.pdf

James, Simon & Alley, Clinton, 2002. "Tax compliance, self-assessment and tax administration," MPRA Paper 26906, University Library of Munich, Germany.

Helmenstine, T. (2018). Understand the Difference Between Independent and Dependent Variables. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/independent-and-dependent-variables-differences-606115

Jenkins, G. (1996). Information technology and innovation in tax administration. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.

Kaur, R., & Saini, D. (2016). Social Networking and e-Government: The Role & Its Impact. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology (, 5(3), 811-819. Retrieved from http://ijarcet.org/wp-content/uploads/IJARCET-VOL-5-ISSUE-3-811-819.pdf

King, E. (2017). Americans' Feelings About Paying Taxes Have Changed. Here's How. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4742304/american-tax-attitudes-evolution/

Kolachalam, S. (2003). An Overview of E-Government [Ebook] (pp. 1-12). University of Bologna. Retrieved from http://riviste.paviauniversitypress.it/index.php/ea/article/viewFile/1227/1334The White House. Executive Order 13576--Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government (2011). Washington.

Magro, M. (2012). A Review of Social Media Use in E-Government. Administrative Sciences, 2(2), 148-161. doi: 10.3390/admsci2020148

Mergel, I. (2013). Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the U.S. federal government. Government Information Quarterly, 30(2), 123-130. doi: 10.1016/j.giq.2012.12.004

Pippin S. & Tosun M. (2014). Electronic Tax Filing in the United States: An Analysis of Possible Success factors. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 12 (1), 22-38. Retrieved from www.ejeg.com

PwC. (2017). Digital Transformation of Tax Administration (pp. 1-35). Retrieved from https://www.pwc.nl/nl/assets/documents/pwc-digital-transformation-tax-oct2017.pdf

Roy, D. (2014). Role of Social Media in E- Government. New Man International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(4), 50-54. Retrieved from http://www.newmanpublication.com/br/08.pdf

U.S. Senate: The Civil War: The Senate's Story. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/RevenueAct_FeaturedDoc.htm

West, D. (2008). State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States [Ebook] (pp. 1-17). Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/0826_egovernment_west.pdf

Williamson, V. (2017). Americans are proud to pay taxes — except when they think others are cheating. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/18/americans-are-proud-to-pay-taxes-except-when-they-think-others-are-cheating/?utm_term=.4c63abcb2260

Prospectus Assessment

General Grading Criteria + = Excellent

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- = Needs work

Specific Areas of Assessment (With Some Variations on Individual Assignments)

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Prospectus Outline

Topic

Abstract

Problem

Purpose

Significance of the Study

Literature Review and Review of Dissertations

Theoretical Considerations

Research Questions

Methodological Considerations

Summary

References