Public Finance and Management

Many Internet sellers are not required to collect sales tax on their Internet sales if they have no physical nexus in the state. Instead, the end-user is required to pay use tax on such items, but the compliance rate is low. as such, states are losing large sums of revenue, and would like to have the seller collect the tax and remit it to the state. Currently, the Commerce Clause, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, prohibits states from requiring remote sellers to collect the tax. Congress is loath to interfere, as doing so may require business to file thousands of sales and use tax returns each month. in response, states have joined together in the Streamlined Sales Tax Project to reduce the administrative burden on businesses, in hopes that Congress will require the remote sellers to collect and remit the tax to them.

Korea launched national e-procurement systems in September 30, 2002. the adoption of the e-procurement systems in the central government of Korea has been acknowledged as successful. This paper presents a case study describing the public e-procurement systems of Korea, analyzing the development process, and finding factors for successful adoption of the systems. Government e-Procurement Systems (GePS) is a portal site providing information on public procurement and an application service provider of public procurement. GePS advances procurement service by reducing paper work and red tape, expanding the range of commodity selection, and standardizing services. Government-wide support including the President had a crucial role for the adoption of GePS. High capacity of information technology and institutional collaboration among public agencies were other foundations for the successful establishment of GePS.

This paper describes state government web sites and their postings of budgeting information. Some questions are addressed, for example: What types of information are provided? How accessible is this information? How many links does it take to find state budgeting information? How detailed is this information? By researching all 50 states’ official web pages, we find that only two states, Alaska and California, posted a direct link on their home pages to the budget document. If the Internet is going to be a medium used to enhance citizen access to services, enhance knowledge, and increase participation, much work is necessary on behalf of the states as well as its citizens to achieve this goal.

There is a common understanding that e-government applications have the potential to transform governmental operations and services. Public managers in different countries are working to provide the benefits of information technologies to their agencies and clients. Budgeting is one of the most relevant and comprehensive government processes and electronic budgeting is a very necessary part of this new wave of reform. However, e-budgeting is not only a matter of how information technology can change the budgeting process, but also a question of how the government setting affects the kind of technology that can be implemented and used. This paper discusses how organizational dynamics and institutional arrangements affect the technology features of e-budgeting projects in Mexico.

A fundamental characteristic of the new German Budgeting and Accounting System (BAS) is the management process, which uses administration products as the basis. An important goal of monitoring and controlling is to guarantee the maintenance of the substance of the public infrastructure resources. to achieve this, the currently used cash resources concept will be extended to a total economic resources concept. Therefore the annual budget consists of two plans, a cash-based plan which registers cash receipts and payments and an accrual-based income plan which accounts for the revenues and expenses. This new BAS can develop its effectiveness for monitoring and controlling only by running Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. This is indispensable with regard to e-government applications.