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The Tcja And The Questionable Incentive To Incorporate, Part 2, Michael S. Knoll Mar 2019

The Tcja And The Questionable Incentive To Incorporate, Part 2, Michael S. Knoll

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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has put the question should a business be organized as a passthrough entity or as a corporation at center stage. The TCJA eliminated much of the tax disadvantage from using the corporate form, but did Congress go so far that it advantaged corporations relative to pass-through entities? Some prominent commentators say yes. They argue that the federal income tax now encourages individual owners of pass-through businesses to restructure their business as subchapter C corporations, and they predict that the TCJA will lead to a cascade of incorporations. The principal driver of the shift …


The Tcja And The Questionable Incentive To Incorporate, Michael S. Knoll Mar 2019

The Tcja And The Questionable Incentive To Incorporate, Michael S. Knoll

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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has put the question should a business be organized as a passthrough entity or as a corporation at center stage. The TCJA eliminated much of the tax disadvantage from using the corporate form, but did Congress go so far that it advantaged corporations relative to pass-through entities? Some prominent commentators say yes. They argue that the federal income tax now encourages individual owners of pass-through businesses to restructure their business as subchapter C corporations, and they predict that the TCJA will lead to a cascade of incorporations. The principal driver of the shift …


Dual Residents: A Sur-Reply To Zelinsky, Michael S. Knoll, Ruth Mason Jan 2018

Dual Residents: A Sur-Reply To Zelinsky, Michael S. Knoll, Ruth Mason

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In this article, we respond to Professor Zelinsky’s criticism of our arguments regarding the constitutionality of New York’s tax residence rule. We argue that the Supreme Court’s decision in Wynne requires reconsideration of the New York Court of Appeal’s decision in Tamagni.


On The Disparate Treatment Of Business And Personal Salt Payments, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2018

On The Disparate Treatment Of Business And Personal Salt Payments, Michael S. Knoll

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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, would eliminate the federal income tax deduction for nonbusiness state and local taxes while maintaining the deduction for business state and local taxes. That disparate treatment has generated a storm of negative commentary. In this short essay, I consider whether the federal tax law should allow a deduction for business state and local taxes assuming that there is no deduction for nonbusiness state and local taxes. I argue that investors and businesses, including pass-through businesses, should be allowed to deduct state and local property and sales taxes, but not general income taxes.


Before International Tax Reform, We Need To Understand Why Firms Invert, Michael S. Knoll Sep 2017

Before International Tax Reform, We Need To Understand Why Firms Invert, Michael S. Knoll

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A wave of corporate inversions by U.S. firms over the past two decades has generated substantial debate in academic, business, and policy circles.

The core of the debate hinges on a couple of key economic questions: Do U.S. tax laws disadvantage U.S.-domiciled companies relative to their foreign competitors? And, if so, do inversions improve the competitiveness of U.S. multinational firms both abroad and at home?

There is unfortunately little, if any, empirical work directly determining whether U.S.-based MNCs are currently tax-disadvantaged compared to their foreign rivals, or measuring the amount by which (if any) U.S.-based MNCs improve their competitive position …


Taxation, Competitiveness, And Inversions: A Response To Kleinbard, Michael S. Knoll May 2017

Taxation, Competitiveness, And Inversions: A Response To Kleinbard, Michael S. Knoll

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In this report, I argue that the inversion situation is more nuanced, complex, and ambiguous than Edward D. Kleinbard acknowledges, and I challenge Kleinbard’s claim that U.S. multinationals are on a tax par with their foreign competitors.


What Is Tax Discrimination?, Ruth Mason, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2012

What Is Tax Discrimination?, Ruth Mason, Michael S. Knoll

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Prohibitions of tax discrimination have long appeared in constitutions, tax treaties, trade treaties, and other sources, but despite their ubiquity, little agreement exists as to how such provisions should be interpreted. Some commentators have concluded that tax discrimination is an incoherent concept. In this Article, we argue that in common markets, like the EU and the United States, the best interpretation of the nondiscrimination principle is that it requires what we call “competitive neutrality,” which prevents states from putting residents at a tax-induced competitive advantage or disadvantage relative to nonresidents in securing jobs. We show that, contrary to the prevailing …


Reconsidering International Tax Neutrality, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2011

Reconsidering International Tax Neutrality, Michael S. Knoll

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For decades, U.S. international tax policy has shifted back and forth between territorial-source-exemption taxation and worldwide-residence-credit taxation. The former is generally associated with capital import neutrality (CIN) and the latter with capital export neutrality (CEN). One reason why national tax policy has shifted back and forth between those benchmarks is because it is widely accepted that a tax system cannot simultaneously satisfy both CEN and CIN unless tax rates on capital are harmonized across jurisdictions. In this essay, I argue that the international tax literature contains two different and conflicting definitions for CIN. Under one definition, which goes back at …


Business Taxes And International Competitiveness: Understanding How Taxes Can Distort Capital Ownership And Designing A Nondistortive International Tax System, Michael S. Knoll Jul 2010

Business Taxes And International Competitiveness: Understanding How Taxes Can Distort Capital Ownership And Designing A Nondistortive International Tax System, Michael S. Knoll

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Around the world, policymakers are obsessed with the competitiveness of their domestic companies and domestically based multinational corporations (MNCs). Such concerns frequently influence policy, especially tax policy. In this paper, I develop a theory of how taxes affect the international competitiveness of businesses. I then use that theory to evaluate basic tax policy decisions, such as the choice between residence- and source-based taxation and the level of tax rates, and to understand the impact various provisions in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code are likely to have on the competitiveness of U.S.-based corporations and MNCs.


The Corporate Income Tax And The Competitiveness Of U.S. Industries, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2010

The Corporate Income Tax And The Competitiveness Of U.S. Industries, Michael S. Knoll

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Hit hard by the financial crisis and recession, U.S. auto producers are seeking a massive bailout from the U.S. Congress. Many reasons are given for the U.S. auto industry’s lack of competitiveness including the U.S. corporate income tax. Although it is regularly asserted that there is a direct connection between the corporate income tax and competitiveness, what that connection is has not been carefully spelled out. In this essay, I describe how the corporate income tax directly harms the competitiveness of U.S. industries. I show that the mechanism differs depending upon whether the U.S. industry is defined as the global …


Taxation And The Competitiveness Of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Do Taxes Encourage Sovereign Wealth Funds To Invest In The United States?, Michael S. Knoll Jan 2009

Taxation And The Competitiveness Of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Do Taxes Encourage Sovereign Wealth Funds To Invest In The United States?, Michael S. Knoll

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Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) control vast amounts of capital and have made and are continuing to make numerous large, high-profile investments in the United States, especially in the financial services industry. Those investments in particular and SWFs in general are highly controversial. There is much discussion of the advantages and disadvantages to the United States of investments by SWFs and there is an intense and ongoing debate over what should be the United States’ policy towards investments by SWFs. In the course of that debate, some critics have called upon the US government to abandon its long-held public position of …


International Competitiveness, Tax Incentives, And A New Argument For Tax Sparing: Preventing Double Taxation By Crediting Implicit Taxes, Michael S. Knoll Aug 2008

International Competitiveness, Tax Incentives, And A New Argument For Tax Sparing: Preventing Double Taxation By Crediting Implicit Taxes, Michael S. Knoll

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Tax sparing occurs when a country with a worldwide tax system grants its citizens foreign tax credits for the taxes that they would have paid on income earned abroad, but that escapes taxation by virtue of foreign tax incentives. The supporters of tax sparing argue that it is a form of foreign aid, an obligation owed to developing countries, and a legitimate means of improving the competitiveness of resident investors. Tax sparing, however, has long been opposed by the United States on the grounds that it is an expensive and problematic concession to developing countries, inconsistent with basic and fundamental …


The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang

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In this Article, I argue that tax and transfer policies are more efficient than immigration restrictions as instruments for raising the after tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect these native workers frol1'l immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. These immigration restrictions are especially costly given the disproportionate burden that they place on households with working women, which discourages fel1'wle participation in the labor force. This burden runs contrary …


Taxes And Competitiveness, Michael S. Knoll Dec 2006

Taxes And Competitiveness, Michael S. Knoll

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Around the world, the tax laws are shaped by concerns with competitiveness. This paper provides a general theory of how taxes impact competitiveness. As part of that theory, this paper also introduces the concept of tax-based competitiveness neutrality. A tax system is competitively neutral when taxes do not cause competitors to change their relative valuations of any investments. This paper then uses that theory to evaluate tax policy in two high profile and important areas. The paper begins by describing two models of competitiveness, called the conduit or new money model and the investor or old money model. The central …


Migration As International Trade: The Economic Gains From The Liberalized Movement Of Labor, Howard F. Chang Jan 1998

Migration As International Trade: The Economic Gains From The Liberalized Movement Of Labor, Howard F. Chang

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No abstract provided.


Indexing The Tax Code, Reed Shuldiner Jan 1993

Indexing The Tax Code, Reed Shuldiner

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No abstract provided.


Corporate Integration: Do The Uncertainties Outweigh The Benefits?, Reed Shuldiner Jan 1992

Corporate Integration: Do The Uncertainties Outweigh The Benefits?, Reed Shuldiner

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No abstract provided.


A General Approach To The Taxation Of Financial Instruments, Reed Shuldiner Jan 1992

A General Approach To The Taxation Of Financial Instruments, Reed Shuldiner

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No abstract provided.