Ethics and Integrity | Revista de Direito Contabil Fiscal

Adopted frameworks

The RDCF adopts the ten Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the 16 Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME, 4th version, 2022) and the COPE flowcharts for handling cases. The tables indicate where each framework is applied in this policy.

COPE Core Practice	Where it applies in this policy
Allegations of misconduct	“Investigation of misconduct” and “Sanctions”
Authorship and contributorship	“Authorship and contributorship”
Complaints and appeals	“Complaints, appeals and ombudsperson”, in About the Journal
Conflicts of interest / Competing interests	“Conflicts of interest”
Data and reproducibility	“Availability of data, code and sources”, in About the Journal; “Fabrication, falsification and manipulation”
Ethical oversight	“Research involving human participants” and “Inclusive language and representation”
Intellectual property	“Licensing” and “Copyright”, in About the Journal; “Intellectual property and third-party material”
Journal management	“Governance and management” and Editorial Team page
Peer review processes	“Confidentiality”; “Editorial process and peer review”, in Author Guidelines
Post-publication discussions and corrections	“Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions and removals” and “Post-publication discussion and right of reply”

Principle of Transparency	Where it applies in this policy
1. Name of journal	“Identification”, in About the Journal
2. Website	“Identification” and “Policy management”, in About the Journal
3. Publishing schedule	“Frequency and publication model”, in About the Journal
4. Archiving	“Digital preservation”, in About the Journal
5. Copyright	“Copyright”, in About the Journal
6. Licensing	“Licensing”, in About the Journal
7. Publication ethics and related editorial policies	Ethics and Integrity page
8. Peer review	“Editorial process and peer review”, in Author Guidelines
9. Access	“Access model”, in About the Journal
10. Ownership and management	“Identification” and “Guarantees of independence”, in About the Journal
11. Advisory body	“Editorial structure and roles” and “Composition, diversity and terms of office”, in Editorial Team
12. Editorial team/contact information	“Identification”, in About the Journal; “Editorial structure and roles”, in Editorial Team
13. Author fees	“Fees and waivers”, in About the Journal
14. Other revenue	“Sustainability”, in About the Journal
15. Advertising	“Sustainability”, in About the Journal
16. Direct marketing	“Sustainability”, in About the Journal

The COPE flowcharts (publicationethics.org, Guidance section) guide the investigation of the following types of case:

Type of case (COPE flowcharts)	Where it applies in this policy
Plagiarism in a submitted manuscript or in a published article	“Plagiarism, similarity and text recycling” and “Investigation of misconduct”
Fabricated data or image manipulation, in a submitted manuscript or published article	“Fabrication, falsification and manipulation” and “Investigation of misconduct”
Redundant or duplicate publication	“Duplicate, redundant and salami publication; translations”
Changes in authorship and ghost, guest or gift authorship	“Authorship and contributorship”
Undisclosed conflict of interest	“Conflicts of interest”
Reviewer misappropriation of ideas or data	“Confidentiality”
Citation manipulation	“Citation integrity”
Peer review manipulation and systematic manipulation (paper mills)	“Systematic manipulation”

Authorship and contributorship

An author is a person who cumulatively meets the following criteria: substantial intellectual contribution to the conception, research or analysis; drafting or significant critical revision; approval of the final version; and agreement to be publicly accountable for the work. Those who do not meet all the criteria are mentioned in the Acknowledgments. Gift (honorary) and ghost authorship are not permitted. AI tools cannot be authors (“Artificial intelligence” item). The maximum number of authors per manuscript, applicable to the “Articles” section, is four. The other sections have no limit on the number of authors.

The contribution of each author is declared according to the CRediT taxonomy and published at the end of the article. Common roles in legal and accounting research:

CRediT role	Example
Conceptualization	Formulation of the problem, the hypothesis and the thesis defended.
Methodology	Definition of the method (doctrinal, empirical or comparative) and of the source selection criteria.
Investigation	Doctrinal, legislative and case-law research; data collection.
Data curation and formal analysis	Organization of databases of decisions or accounting data; calculations and modeling.
Supervision	Research supervision.
Writing – original draft / review and editing	Drafting of the first version; critical revision and rewriting.

See the complete list of roles at https://credit.niso.org/. Roles may not be modified or added. If a contributor does not fit any of the roles, consider mentioning them in the Acknowledgments.

In cases of:

Change of authorship: addition, removal or reordering after submission requires the written agreement of all authors and the approval of the Editor-in-Chief; after publication, it is made through a corrigendum.
Disputes: are handled according to the COPE flowcharts; the journal does not adjudicate the merits of the dispute and may suspend processing until the matter is resolved by the parties or by the institution.
Deceased author: may be kept as an author, with a note, if they met the criteria; the corresponding author takes over the approvals.
Name change: authors may request that their name be updated in published articles, without a public note, with the metadata updated accordingly.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest exists when financial, professional, institutional, academic or personal interests may influence, or appear to influence, the preparation, review or decision on a work. A conflict does not prevent publication; failure to disclose it may lead to rejection, correction or retraction.

Type	Examples
Professional	Acting as lawyer, accountant, consultant, legal opinion writer, expert witness, government attorney, tax auditor or adjudicator in a case or matter related to the topic; text prepared at a client’s request.
Financial	Remuneration, equity interest, fees or funding from a party with an interest in the outcome.
Institutional	Ties to a public body, entity or company directly affected by the thesis defended.
Academic and personal	Supervision, recent co-authorship (3 years), same institution, family relationship, close friendship or declared rivalry.

Authors: declare conflicts in the Identification Sheet (“Mandatory statements” item, in Author Guidelines); the statement is published with the article.
Reviewers: decline the invitation in case of conflict or if they identify the authorship.
Editors: recuse themselves and transfer the manuscript (“Manuscripts by team members and by the institution” item, in About the Journal).

Confidentiality

Reviewers: treat the manuscript as confidential, do not share it, do not upload it to AI tools (“Artificial intelligence” item) and do not use its content before publication.
Editors: do not disclose information about manuscripts beyond those involved in the process and do not use unpublished data or arguments without the written authorization of the authors.
The identity of reviewers is not disclosed, except in consented open review (“Peer review model and exceptions” item, in Author Guidelines).

Originality and derivative texts

The journal publishes original, unpublished works that have not been published in a journal, book or proceedings and are not under review elsewhere. The following do not compromise originality, if declared: preprints (“Preprints” item, in About the Journal), oral presentations without publication of the full text and parts of a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation adapted to the article format. Texts that develop material already disseminated by the authors themselves (newspaper or blog articles, legal opinions, chapters or lectures) report this origin at submission and in a note in the article; the Editor-in-Chief decides whether there is sufficient original contribution.

Plagiarism, similarity and text recycling

All manuscripts are checked with similarity detection software during screening (Copyspider). The report is analyzed by the editor, with no automatic rejection threshold, since quotations of legislation and case law raise the index. Plagiarism is the presentation of the ideas, texts, data or structures of others without citation; text recycling (self-plagiarism) is the undisclosed reuse of texts previously published by the authors themselves. At screening, the manuscript is returned or rejected; after publication, the “Sanctions” and “Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions and removals” items apply.

Duplicate, redundant and salami publication; translations

Simultaneous submission, publication of the same work in more than one outlet and the artificial division of a study into several articles are prohibited. Translations of previously published texts are accepted only with the authorization of the rights holder, the approval of the Editor-in-Chief and identification of the original publication.

Citation integrity

Authors: cite only relevant works that they have consulted, list in the references all and only the works cited and avoid irrelevant self-citation.
Reviewers and editors: do not require citation of their own works or of works published in the journal without scientific justification (coercive citation).
Production staff check the correspondence between citations and references.

Fabrication, falsification and manipulation

Fabrication is the invention of data, sources, decisions or citations; falsification is the alteration of data, sources, excerpts of decisions or results; manipulation of images, tables or charts is any alteration that distorts information. These forms of conduct are investigated under the “Investigation of misconduct” item and lead to rejection or retraction.

Artificial intelligence

Authors: generative AI tools cannot be authors or generate data, sources, citations or results without verification. Their use to support writing, language editing, translation or reference management is permitted and must be declared (“Mandatory statements” item, in Author Guidelines). Authors are responsible for all content, including non-existent or incorrect references, decisions or legal provisions generated by these tools.
Reviewers and editors: uploading manuscripts or review reports to publicly accessible AI tools or to tools that use the data for training is prohibited. The use of secure institutional tools to revise the wording of one’s own review report must be reported to the editor. The assessment of merit is always carried out by humans.

Research involving human participants

Research involving interviews, questionnaires, focus groups or observation of people (for example, judges, lawyers, accountants or tax officials) complies with Resolution CNS No. 510/2016 of the Brazilian National Health Council, with approval by a Research Ethics Committee when required and documentation of consent. Personal data are processed in accordance with the LGPD, with minimization and anonymization. In analyses of court or administrative proceedings, personal data of the parties beyond what is necessary are avoided, especially data on individuals and information protected by tax secrecy.

Inclusive language and representation

Texts must use non-discriminatory language and avoid generalizations about social groups. When the research involves data on sex, gender, race or ethnicity, authors report how these data were obtained and defined.

Intellectual property and third-party material

The reproduction of tables, figures, images or lengthy excerpts by third parties requires citation of the source and, where applicable, authorization from the rights holder, submitted with the manuscript. Authors are liable for any infringement of rights.

Systematic manipulation

The journal adopts measures to identify and address paper mills, citation cartels, suggestion of fake reviewers and other forms of manipulation of the editorial process: verification of the identity and institutional e-mail of suggested reviewers, analysis of citation patterns and of similar submissions and notification of other journals and institutions when the conduct is proven.

Investigation of misconduct

Suspected misconduct may be reported by anyone to the Editor-in-Chief at any time. The procedure follows the COPE flowcharts:

recording and preliminary analysis, with confidentiality regarding the whistleblower;
request for clarification from the authors, with a deadline of 15 business days;
reasoned decision by the Editor-in-Chief, after consulting the Editorial Board in serious cases;
application of the measures in the “Sanctions” item and, where appropriate, in the “Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions and removals” item.

Sanctions

Severity	Possible measures
Minor (correctable error, without bad faith)	Guidance and correction of the manuscript or corrigendum.
Moderate (undisclosed conflict, improper authorship, text recycling)	Rejection of the manuscript; correction or expression of concern on the published article.
Serious (plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, systematic manipulation)	Rejection or retraction; ban on new submissions for up to 5 years; notification of the authors’ institution.

Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions and removals

Instrument	When it applies	Form
Erratum	Error by the journal that does not affect the conclusions.	Note linked to the article; corrected version with a record of the change.
Corrigendum	Significant error by the authors that does not invalidate the work.	Note signed by the authors, linked to the article.
Expression of concern	Well-founded suspicion of misconduct or serious error, with an investigation under way.	Note linked to the article until the investigation is concluded.
Retraction	Proven misconduct, error that invalidates the conclusions, duplicate publication or plagiarism.	Note stating the reasons; article kept with the “Retracted” mark and a link to the note.
Removal	Infringement of rights, court order, risk to third parties or improperly disclosed personal data.	Metadata kept, with an explanatory note.

Correction and retraction notices receive their own DOI and are registered with Crossref. The journal adopts Crossmark, a Crossref service that informs readers, through a button on the article page and in the PDF, whether corrections, retractions or other updates have been published. Withdrawals by authors are unrestricted until acceptance; thereafter, they require justification (“Acceptance, publication and withdrawal” item, in Author Guidelines).

Post-publication discussion and right of reply

Critical comments on published articles may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief and, if relevant, published as a commentary, with a reply from the authors of the article under discussion published simultaneously.