The role of the government for the growth and development of the country in general, and of the under-developed sectors in particular, can be fulfilled through the collection of taxes from the public at large. On the other hand, the government, through tax policies, grants fiscal incentives that become handy to various development programs and improves the undeveloped sectors of the society. Tax has to be paid to the government by the citizens of the country, depending upon the residential status and incidence of tax. In Malaysia, a new system of self-assessment has replaced the departmental assessment, as one of the tax reforms policy. Under the self-assessment system, individual taxpayers are legally held responsible for the accuracy of the tax return that they declare. The burden of computing their tax liability has led a considerable number of taxpayers to seek advice from tax practitioners. The paper titled "A Study of Individual Taxpayer's Perception of Tax Practitioners in Malaysia", examines Malaysian taxpayers perception of their current tax practitioner and identifies the various attributes that an ideal tax practitioner must have. The study shows that the demographic factors such as gender, age and education level are significantly correlated with the attributes of their ideal tax practitioners. The study also reveals that females who are above the age group of 31 and are highly educated, tend to have a high priority for `low risk and no fuss' in contrast to males with low education whose priorities are `creative accounting, aggressive tax planning'. Hence, the later group seeks for a tax practitioner, who is familiar with the grey area, clever in tax minimizing and aware of what are the major areas that Inland Revenue Board are looking for. In total, the present study indicates that most of the taxpayers choose to `play safe rather than saving dollars'.

With the venture capital finance and private equity, the current trends in investment in the corporates with innovations are witnessing a high growth. Though venture capital and private equity are relatively risky investment vehicles, they have the potential for above average returns. In all likelihood, exploring the advantages of such financing has not been equitably distributed between the states in India. Due to advancement of information technology and infrastructure, states like Karnataka have acted as the launching pad for such type of financing in India. The picture of venture capital financing is quite gloomy in the entire North-Eastern Region (NER) in general, and Assam in particular. In trying to identify the reasons for low growth of venture financing in this part of the country, the paper titled "Growth and Development of Human and Social Capital vis-à-vis Venture Capital Financing in India: A Comparative Study of Assam and Karnataka", uncovers the averse attitude of the entrepreneurs towards such financing. The study is oriented towards an analysis of the growth and development of human and social capital in Assam, compared to Karnataka, along with the state of venture capital financing in both these states. The study also highlights the potential of venture capital financing in certain developed and developing areas, particularly in the state of Assam. The study emphasizes that only when the human, social and financial capital meet together, a conducive atmosphere for venture capital financing in the state would emerge.

`Maximizing shareholder value' has become a widely accepted corporate objective nowadays. There are only a few companiesHLL, Infosys Tech. Ltd., Satyam Computers Ltd., Hero Honda, etc.,which measure their shareholder value. Among them, Satyam Computer Services Ltd., as per the third BT-Stern Stewart study, is regarded as the best in the world, in terms of market value added (wealth creation) per unit of capital employed. This was done with the help of Economic Value Added (EVA) measures (though not scientifically), that explicitly assigns cost of equity capital and removes the distortions of accounting conventions, thereby deciding whether a firm is a value generator or a value diluter. Against this backdrop the paper titled, "Economic Value Added Reporting and Corporate Performance: A Study of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.", attempts to analyze and compare the EVA statement as disclosed by Satyam Computer Services Ltd., and the actual EVA created by it after considering all the adjustments, given by Stern Stewart & Company, the founder of EVA concept. In the process, this study compares the financial performance of Satyam, as depicted by the traditional performance parameters like ROCE, RONW, EPS, Growth in EPS, with the new value-based performance measure called EVA. The study reveals that traditional measures do not reflect the value creation for shareholders properly and hence, all the companies should present a scientifically calculated EVA statement in their annual report.

A firm's working capital consists of its investments in currents assets, which includes cash and bank balance, inventories, receivable and marketable securities. Inventory is one of the major components of current assets which reflects the investments of a firm's fund. Firms who fail to manage inventories efficiently do face serious problems relating to long-term profitability and may fail to survive. In an attempt to better emphasize inventory management, the paper titled "Inventory and Working Capital Management: An Empirical Analysis", tries to evaluate the effect of size of inventory and the impact on working capital through inventory ratios, working capital ratios, measuring the trends, computation of inventory and working capital, and liquidity ranking. The study suggests that the management of the companies like IFFCO & NFL need to make proper utilization of inventory so that, they can maintain the inventory as per the requirement without interrupting its liquidity.

- Vunyale Narender
Consulting Editor