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Full-Text Articles in Law

Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst Dec 2008

Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

The current system of taxing the income of multinational firms in the United States is flawed across multiple dimensions. The system provides an artificial tax incentive to earn income in low-tax countries, rewards aggressive tax planning, and is not compatible with any common metrics of efficiency. The U.S. system is also notoriously complex; observers are nearly unanimous in lamenting the heavy compliance burdens and the impracticality of coherent enforcement. Further, despite a corporate tax rate one standard deviation above that of other OECD countries, the U.S. corporate tax system raises relatively little revenue, due in part to the shifting of …


The Oecd Harmful Tax Competition Report: A 10th Anniversary Retrospective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Aug 2008

The Oecd Harmful Tax Competition Report: A 10th Anniversary Retrospective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Ten years ago the OECD published its report on Harmful Tax Competition: An Emerging Global Issue. This was followed by a series of concrete measures designed to limit some forms of harmful tax competition, such as preferential regimes in OECD countries and offshore tax havens. The OECD initiative has met considerable resistance and in some ways has fallen short of its goals. Nevertheless, this paper will argue that it has been a worthwhile effort and has achieved some measure of success. The paper will then go on to outline some future directions for the project.


Back To The Future? The Potential Revival Of Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jul 2008

Back To The Future? The Potential Revival Of Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Until 1993, the United States led the rest of the developed world in strengthening residence-based world-wide corporate and individual income taxation. However, since 1994 this trend seems to have been reversed, at least in part, and similar developments are taking place overseas (e.g., in France and the UK). Thus, there seems to be a trend to reduce the scope of residence jurisdiction, while increasing the emphasis on source jurisdiction. If this trend continues, it seems likely that both traditional territorial countries like France and traditional world-wide countries like to UK and the US would move toward territoriality and decrease emphasis …


A Coordinated Withholding Tax On Deductibility Payments, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jun 2008

A Coordinated Withholding Tax On Deductibility Payments, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Prof. Avi-Yonah proposes a 35 percent withholding tax on deductible payments made to a non-U.S. resident, in coordination with other OECD members. The tax is aimed at U.S. residents posing as foreign investors and would be refundable when the beneficial owner shows that the payments have been reported to tax authorities in the owner’s country of residence.


Corporate Taxation And International Charter Competition, Mitchell A. Kane, Edward B. Rock May 2008

Corporate Taxation And International Charter Competition, Mitchell A. Kane, Edward B. Rock

Michigan Law Review

Corporate charter competition has become an increasingly international phenomenon. The thesis of this Article is that this development in corporate law requires a greater focus on corporate tax law. We first demonstrate how a tax system's capacity to distort the international charter market depends both upon its approach to determining corporate location and upon the extent to which it taxes foreign source corporate profits. We also show, however, that it is not possible to remove all distortions through modifications to the tax system alone. We present instead two alternative methods for preserving an international charter market. The first-best solution involves …


Back To The Future? The Potential Revival Of Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2008

Back To The Future? The Potential Revival Of Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Since 1994, the trend in the United States and other developed countries appears to be to reduce the scope of residence jurisdiction and increase the emphasis on source jurisdiction. If this trend continues, these countries are likely to move toward territoriality and decrease the emphasis on their CFC rules. In the author’s opinion, the reason for this trend is political and economic, not legal. It is part of tax competition, specifically the competition to be the headquarters jurisdiction for multinationals. The author also thinks, however, that it is not necessary to go down this road because the solution to the …


Business Profits (Article 7 Oecd Model Convention), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing Jan 2008

Business Profits (Article 7 Oecd Model Convention), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing

Book Chapters

The 2006 OECD Report on attribution of profits to permanent establishments states that its recommendation "was not constrained by either the original intent or by the historical practice and interpretation of Article 7." Moreover, the Report recommends a redrafting of both the Article itself and the Commentary. Given this, it seems appropriate to begin by asking: If we were working on a clean slate, what would be the best way to tax MNEs at source in the light of 21st century business practices? The beginning point has to be that a modern MNE does not operate as if its constituent …


Commentary: More Open Issues Regarding The Consolidated Corporate Tax Base In The European Union, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing Jan 2008

Commentary: More Open Issues Regarding The Consolidated Corporate Tax Base In The European Union, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing

Articles

It is an honor to comment on the article by Jack Mintz and Joann Weiner.' Both of the authors have a deeply knowledgeable background in this area. The paper that Jack Mintz published (with Michael Smart) in 2004 on provincial taxation in Canada is one of the most careful and interesting papers in all of international taxation.2 And Joann Weiner has clearly been studying formulary apportionment for a very long time, from both U.S. and European perspectives.


Foreign Income And Domestic Deductions, James R. Hines Jr. Jan 2008

Foreign Income And Domestic Deductions, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

To what extent should taxpayers deduct expenses incurred domestically that contribute to foreign income production? It is widely believed that if the home country does not tax foreign income, then it also should not permit deductions for that portion of domestic expenses attributable to earning foreign income. This prescription is, however, inconsistent with the decision to exempt foreign income from taxation in the first place. The paper shows that, for any system of taxing foreign income, the consistent and efficient treatment is to permit domestic expense deductions for all expenses incurred domestically. This differs from the current U.S. regime, under …