Gedenkschrift Herbert Kofler

1. S. 382Introduction

Since the dawn of economics, public finance and tax economists as well as the disciples of managerial and financial accounting have been studying the concept of income for the following reasons: Since the Middle Ages it is claimed that taxes have been levied according to the ability-to-pay principle in the name of justice. Often income was looked upon as the prime standard for the taxpayer’s taxable capacity though in practice, cadastral taxes, property and wealth taxes, poll taxes, personal taxes, etc. were levied until the late 19^th century, due to administrative problems in assessing the taxpayer’s individual income. Since the first step of taxing income consists of its assessment, the following questions have to be answered: which inflows and outflows should determine total income and when should income changes be recognised or regarded as being realized.

In recent decades, the definition of net financial outcome has gained even greater significance since capital income taxation underwent major reforms in many countries. Germany and Austria, for example, widened the tax base by including capital gains (Treisch/Groever 2017, pp. 599-608). However, there are still s...