Kyscope - A kaliedoscope of business income taxation

A tool for creating and assessing a kaleidoscope of business income tax options

About the developer MyProject software Neutral tax paper Issues papers Rent taxes

For income tax....
policy
law
administration
research
revenue estimation

The Kyscope is a computer model that allows users to play around with changes to domestic and overseas income tax treatment of chosen investments. Through its linked set of Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets, users can:

see the impact of investment income tax changes on cash flow, tax revenue and rates of return

trace through the hard numbers produced for assets, entities and entity owners to get an integrated view of tax arrangements.

The Kyscope is designed to facilitate the development, implementation and evaluation of business income tax policy measures or to scaffold the exploration of theoretical considerations.

By opening or downloading the free files in the first 5 of the following 7 links, you can acquire a comprehensive understanding
of what the Kyscope can do and benefit from analyses of investment income tax issues that draw on use of the Kyscope.
The last two links takes you a business income tax model that complements the Kyscope and to papers on cash flow taxes.
Kyscope Brochure	This brochure describing the Kyscope is in Microsoft® PowerPoint (81Kb). Print the two PowerPoint slides on either side of the same piece of paper and fold the paper in two to produce the four-page brochure.
Kyscope Examples	This set of Kyscope 'runs' for you to 'test drive' is in WinZip format (5.6Mb). Download the file (KyscopePreview.zip) to your hard drive and unzip it to reveal the executable file KyscopePreviewSetup.exe. Click 'Start' (bottom left of your screen) then 'Run' , click 'Browse...', locate and 'Open' KyscopePreviewSetup.exe and finally click 'OK'. You will be invited to install Kyscope Preview. Accept all default settings. Double click the desk top Kyscope Preview icon, and click 'Enable macros' to see an illustration of the Kyscope's structure. Read the Kyscope copyright window, close and click 'The Examples'.
Kyscope Slide Show	This slide show is in Microsoft® PowerPoint and runs for about 28 minutes (447Kb). It explains what the Kyscope can do, how it represents a 'complete' business income tax system and how it offers a tax 'benchmark' against which to compare selected tax options. It refers to the Kyscope Examples above. Links provide additional information.
Kyscope Features	This paper is in Microsoft® Word (315Kb). It lists the pre-tax and tax options and associated applications offered by the Kyscope.
Issues papers using the Kyscope	This series of papers covering investment income tax issues analysed using the Kyscope is in Microsoft® Help format (14.7Mb). It includes papers providing a framework for taxing the income from investments (the tax base, entity taxation and international). It also includes a number of papers on topical investment tax issues like capital gains taxation, negative gearing, share buybacks, infrastructure taxation and financial assets and liabilities.
MyProject software download	MyProject is a computer package (49.7Mb download) that helps the user assess the financial viability of investment projects after the imposition of a wide range of income, capital gains taxes, royalties and resource rent taxes. Written in Microsoft® Visual Basic.Net®, MyProject offers an easy-to-use format for analysis of actual or hypothetical data with flexibility over the number of years of analysis, number of capital investments per year and number of products from each project. MyProject analyses the cash flow of projects regardless of the investor, in contrast to the Kyscope which can analyse the position of people investing via a chain of local or international entities and the position of these entities themselves.
Papers on cash flow taxes	Cash flow taxes seek to tax excess profits (economic rent) of investments. These papers look at the theory of cash flow taxes (Brown Tax and Resource Rent Tax) and common misconceptions concerning the design of resource rent taxes. MyProject may be used to analyse cash flow taxation, in the presence of income taxation if desired.

MyProject offers an easy-to-use, flexible format and, while being a stand-alone package, also complements the Kyscope package by:

determining NPVs (as well as rates of return used in the Kyscope)
allowing for cash flow taxes and royalties (as well as income taxation, including capital gains tax, handled in the Kyscope)
allowing the application of income taxation on a real basis (as well as the nominal basis in the Kyscope)
allowing analysis over a flexible number of years (rather than the 10 in the Kyscope), number of capital investments per year (5 in the Kyscope) and products lines from each project and by allowing actual project data to be used, including for above marginal projects (the Kyscope generates hypothetical data for marginal assets)
allowing analysis of the lease versus buy decision under practical taxation treatment of leasing ('standard', 'accrual' and 'sale and loan') - the Kyscope focusses on 'pure' taxation of leasing via the identification of all separate asset and liabilities involved.

In contrast to the Kyscope, MyProject undertakes analysis purely on a local project basis, regardless of the type of taxpayer investing in the project. The Kyscope can analyse the position of people investing via local or international entities (like companies and trusts) and the position of these entities which themselves might be investing via other local or international entities.

If you wish to ask questions, provide comment or discuss the question of workshops/presentations on concepts and design issues relating to the taxation of income or economic rent from investments drawing on the Kyscope and MyProject .