Legal Responsibility of Forensic Accounting in Combating Corporate Income Tax Evasion in the Kurdistan Region (An Analytical Study)

Abstract

Income tax is a type of direct tax imposed on the income and wealth of individuals to meet the public needs of society and achieve tax justice. Companies as economic units play a role in the provision of the public needs of society by paying income tax. For this purpose, to impose tax on corporate income and profits, the company's final accounts must be reviewed by the legal accountant to ensure the accuracy of the company's financial information and documents, based on the information provided by the company to the legal accountant. According to the documents, the legal accountant determines the financial position of the company, the profit and loss ratio and prepares a report on it. Therefore, legal accountants are subject to professional, civil, and criminal liability. In case of non-compliance with the principles of professional conduct, domestic and international accounting standards, and applicable laws, must compensate the injured party when companies try to avoid paying taxes.

Legal accounting plays an important role in preventing tax evasion by monitoring and auditing the final accounts of companies and financial information in accordance with domestic and international accounting standards as well as applicable laws. Tax evasion is a serious economic crime that affects tax justice and the social aspects of citizens' lives because it creates a burden on citizens, results in the loss of people’s trust in tax system, hence, not contributing to the meeting of public needs. In addition, this will also lead to non-compliance with the tax laws. This is caused by the spread of tax evasion and light penalties for tax evasion or failure to punish criminals and failure to try to solve tax evasion. The continuation of this will ultimately prevents taxpayers and citizens from paying taxes and complying with tax laws.

Therefore, the legal accountant is subject to legal responsibility and punishment, so the penalties should be appropriate to the crime of tax evasion. The relevant tax authorities should also investigate and work more to combat the issue of tax evasion through amendments and developing a specific law of income tax that is in line with economic developments, the establishment of tax courts, through tax departments, and disseminate tax awareness to introduce the philosophy of taxes as a source of state revenue..