Peer Reviewer Responsibilities

In general, the Journal of Tax Administration expects peer reviewers to follow the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Before agreeing to review an article or short note for the Journal of Tax Administration, please read the following sections carefully:

Suitability

JOTA’s editors always endeavour to find suitably qualified and experienced reviewers for each paper undergoing the peer review process. However, if you do not believe that you have the appropriate qualifications or expertise to review a manuscript assigned to you, please contact us as soon as possible. We will then reassign the paper to another reviewer.

Conflicts of Interest

If you discover that you have a conflict of interests (whether financial, academic, commercial, political, or personal) with regard to a paper assigned to you, you must declare this to the editors immediately. The editors will determine whether you can continue to review the paper or whether it would be more appropriate for you to withdraw from the process. If they decide that you can proceed and the paper is accepted for publication in JOTA, the editors will disclose the conflict of interest to readers when it is published.

In particular, as per COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, you should not agree to undertake a review for JOTA if:

You discover that you:

are currently employed by the same organisation/institution as any of the paper’s authors;
have mentored, been mentored by, collaborated with, or jointly held a grant with any of the manuscript’s authors within the preceding three years;

You have no intention of submitting a review;
The manuscript that you are agreeing to review is “very similar to one you have in preparation or under review” (COPE Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers [Version 2], 2017, p. 4).

Previously Reviewed Papers

If you receive a review invitation from the Journal of Tax Administration in respect of an article or short note that you have already reviewed for another publication, please let us know. The fact that you have already acted as a reviewer for that paper will not necessarily exclude you from reviewing it for JOTA. The editors will judge such situations on a case by case basis.

Confidentiality

We operate a double-blind peer review process, so we will not disclose the names of the authors of a paper that you have reviewed before it has been published unless legally obliged to. We will not disclose your name to the authors at any stage of the process unless legally obliged to. Please do not identify yourself to the authors at any time.

If you believe that you know the identity of the author or authors who wrote an article or short note that you have been asked to review, please notify the editors immediately. They will then decide whether to ask you to proceed with the review or not.

You must not disclose information about any work submitted to JOTA to anyone other than editors of the journal and those involved in the management, production, and publication of the journal without the managing editors’ explicit consent, unless that work has been published. This means that if you wish to consult a colleague about any matter relating to a paper, you must contact us and obtain permission from the editors first.

You must not use unpublished work submitted to the journal within your own research without the authors’ consent.

You must not retain any work or supporting documentation submitted to you once the review process is complete and must not make copies of these documents.

Timeliness

It is crucial that your review is delivered in a timely manner. We will provide you with a deadline when contacting you but would appreciate it if you could complete and submit your review sooner if possible.

If you do not believe that you will be able to deliver the review by the suggested deadline but could deliver it if given a little extra time, please inform the editors. They may be able to negotiate a new deadline with you. However, if you do not believe that you can provide the review in a timely manner, please notify the editors immediately and they will endeavour to find an alternative peer reviewer.

Should you agree to review a manuscript but then find that you are unable to meet the agreed deadline, please contact us immediately. You should either request a deadline extension and provide a date by which you will be able to submit the review or ask to withdraw from the review process. We would appreciate it if you could only ask to withdraw from the process in exceptional circumstances.

The Content of Your Review

When you receive a paper for review from the Journal of Tax Administration, please check to see that the documents that you have received appear to be in order. If anything appears to be missing, please email us as soon as possible.

Format of the Report

If everything is in order, please type your review on the form provided and mark the appropriate box on the recommendation checklist. We are also happy for you to annotate the paper if you wish to. However, please use Microsoft Word’s Track Changes and Comments facilities, and ensure that your comments and suggested amendments are anonymous. Please send your report (and, if appropriate, annotated paper) to us by email.

Factors to Consider When Writing Your Report

Your review should be objective, accurate, and justifiable. You should also ensure that your report is courteous and constructive. Please remember that your report will be passed on to the authors. If, in exceptional circumstances, you need to include confidential comments for the attention of the editors, you should do so within your covering email.

Your report should be as comprehensive as possible. Points to consider when assessing a manuscript include, but are not limited to, the following:

Does the subject matter fall within JOTA’s scope?
Does paper make a significant contribution to the field?
Do you consider the work to be redundant? (Please see the “Previously Published and Redundant Work” section of our Submissions Guidelines for further details).
Do the authors clearly state their objectives and meet these?
Is the article or short note of an appropriate length?
Does the paper’s title accurately reflect its content?
Does the abstract accurately summarise the article or short note?
Does the introduction contain appropriate information?
Do the authors explain their research methods thoroughly (including any sampling collection methods)?
Are the research methods (and sampling collection methods) appropriate?
Do you have any concerns about sample size, control variables, bias, time frames involved, repeatability etc.?
Do the results and the authors’ conclusions accurately reflect the research described?
Do any figures or tables included accurately reflect the data/results described in the text?
Do the authors mention their study’s limitations?
Do the authors present their work within the context of other work published within the field?
What are the key strengths and weaknesses of the authors’ arguments?
Is the article or short note written in appropriate academic language?
Is the paper structured appropriately?
Is the work original?
Do the authors cite their sources fully and accurately?
Are you aware of any other key works published on the topic that the authors should consider referring to?
Do you have any ethical concerns?

Academic Misconduct

If you suspect that there has been academic misconduct involved at any stage of the design, research, writing, or submission of a paper, please email the editors immediately. Academic misconduct includes plagiarism and self-plagiarism, as well as other irregularities.

Revised Papers

When agreeing to review an article or short note for JOTA, it is important to bear in mind that we may also need to ask you to review revised versions of it in future. The process for reviewing revised manuscripts is laid out in Stage 5 of our Peer Review Process. When writing a report on a revised manuscript, please consider whether or not the authors have satisfactorily addressed the issues that you raised in your initial report and whether any further revisions are required.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The Journal of Tax Administration does not accept papers that have been written using AI (including tools such as ChatGPT) and will not publish AI-generated images. Should you suspect that AI has been used to produce a paper that you are reviewing or to generate any images included in it, please notify the editors immediately and provide your reasons for believing this to be the case.

Please do not use AI tools when reviewing papers for JOTA. While AI capabilities are developing rapidly, the information that they produce cannot always be relied upon. In addition, many AI tools retain content uploaded to them within their databases. As a result, uploading a manuscript or any supplementary information provided to such a tool would breach the journal’s confidentiality policies and risk the dissemination of information contained within the paper.

See also: