Legitimacy of public domain forest taxation, and combatting corruption in forestry
Taxation systems for publicly-owned forests should be founded on a government's constitutional right of radical tenure, simultaneously recognising the rights of forest-dependent stakeholders to share benefits and responsibilities. Complex taxes may be historically explicable but are
open to corrupt diversions. A systems approach may be essential for benefit sharing to really reach geographically or institutionally remote beneficiaries. The purpose of each tax should be justified and communicated to tax payers, including through participatory development of tax laws. Transparency
in justification and implementation of forest taxes helps to diminish corruption through replacement of administrative discretion by rule-based decision making. Strategists should be more aware of the links between criminality in various sectors.
Keywords: corruption; criminality; forest-dependent stakeholders; systems approach; taxation
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Senior Associate at the Forest Management Trust, Gainesville, Florida, USA. 2: Mellon Foundation post-doctoral fellow in international environmental human rights at Colby College, Maine, USA.
Publication date: 01 June 2010
- The International Forestry Review is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research and review papers on all aspects of forest policy and science, with an emphasis on issues of transnational significance. It is published four times per year, in March, June, September and December. Theme editions are a regular feature and attract a wide audience.
The IFR is part of The Global Forest Information Service - GFIS
International Forestry Review has an Impact Factor of 1.705 - Editorial Board
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