Law Commons^™

Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The international tax reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on November 19 contains several significant innovations that promise to define the terms of the debate for the foreseeable political future. (Prior coverage: Tax Notes Int’l, Nov. 25, 2013, p. 691.) It is therefore worth examining in detail even if it seems unlikely that progress toward meaningful reform can be achieved very soon.

Transfer Pricing: Un Guidelines -- Brazil, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The UN Practical Manual on Transfer Pricing for Developing Countries endeavors to provide “clearer guidance on the policy and administrative aspects of applying transfer pricing analysis.” Chapter 10 is particularly noteworthy. It sets out specific country practices. The rules in Brazil, China, India and South Africa are offered as templates for developing countries to follow.

This article considers the Brazilian contribution to Chapter 10. Although some writers believe that developing countries should adopt the Brazilian model this article suggests otherwise. Even though it is a theoretically simple system, some aspects of the Brazilian model consistently work to the fiscal disadvantage …

Are Cryptocurrencies 'Super' Tax Havens?, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

I describe the mechanisms by which cryptocurrencies — a subcategory of virtual currencies — could replace tax havens as the weapon-of-choice for tax-evaders. I argue such outcome is reasonably expected in the foreseeable future due to the contemporary convergence of two processes. The first process is the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin is the most widely recognized example. The second process is the transformation of financial intermediaries to agents in the service of tax authorities, as part of the fight against offshore tax evasion. Financial institutions are faced with increased governmental pressure to deliver information about account holders, …

Dice – Digital Invoice Customs Exchange, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Goran Todorov

Faculty Scholarship

A digital invoice customs exchange (DICE) is a technology-intensive tax compliance regimen for VAT/GST that utilizes invoice encryption to safeguard transactional data exchanged between seller and buyer in both domestic and import/export contexts while simultaneously notifying concerned jurisdictions of the transaction details.

DICE facilitates real-time VAT/GST enforcement as well as real-time commercial contract verification. It is a commercial invoice validation system that prevents tax evasion, most notably missing trader fraud and the non-declared import of trade-able services. DICE mimics the most effective administrative enforcement effort ever undertaken by the US IRS – the requirement to disclose the social security numbers …

Tackling Vat Fraud: Thirteen Ways Forward, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In a May 31, 2006 Communication to the Council, the European Parliament, and the European Economic and Social Committee, the European Commission indicated a need to develop a coordinated strategy to improve the fight against fiscal fraud [COM (2006) 254 final]. Although the Communication considers fiscal fraud broadly (VAT, excise duties and direct taxes) the most pressing need seems to be for a VAT strategy that will effectively deal with carousel fraud.

This paper considers thirteen proposals that deal with missing trader intra-community fraud (MTIC):

(1) Common VAT (origin system) (2) Vanistendael’s foreign tax offices proposal (3) CVAT (Compensating VAT) …

The Taxation Of Cloud Computing And Digital Content, David Shakow

All Faculty Scholarship

“Cloud computing” raises important and difficult questions in state tax law, and for Federal taxes, particularly in the foreign tax area. As cloud computing solutions are adopted by businesses, items we view as tangible are transformed into digital products. In this article, I will describe the problems cloud computing poses for tax systems. I will show how current law is applied to cloud computing and will identify the difficulties current approaches face as they are applied to this developing technology.

My primary interest is how Federal tax law applies to cloud computing, particularly as the new technology affects international transactions. …

Leveling The International Playing Field With The Marketplace Fairness Act, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Boryana Madzharova

Faculty Scholarship

Quill v. North Dakota unbalanced the American retail market with its preference for out-of-state over in-state sellers. The preference under Quill is that sellers without physical presence in a state cannot be compelled to collect the sales tax. If the buyer does not voluntarily remit the complementary use tax, the purchase is effectively tax-free. As a result, Quill is seen as facilitating tax avoidance and driving business to sellers who have no in-state nexus, notably e-businesses. Revenue losses are estimated in excess of $10 billion per year.

The reach of the Quill decision is international. Preferred sellers can reside just …

Apple Hearing: Observations From An Expert Witness, J. Richard Harvey

Working Paper Series

The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a highly publicized hearing on May 21, 2013 to discuss Apple, Inc.’s international tax planning. As the first expert witness, I had a ring-side seat to the hearing and Apple’s international tax planning.

One purpose of this article is to clearly identify the two key tax policy issues that need to be addressed by policymakers both in the US and internationally. Because the discussion at the hearing was very U.S. centric, these two issues may have been lost in the rhetoric.

• Should the US and the rest of the world allow …

Territoriality: For And Against, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The tax on dividends from the active income of controlled foreign corporations meets the criteria for a bad tax: It raises little revenue but significantly affects taxpayer behavior in undesirable ways.

Arguments For And Against Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The tax on dividends from the active income of controlled foreign corporations meets the criteria for a bad tax: It raises little revenue but significantly affects taxpayer behavior in undesirable ways.

Stopping Mtic -- With A 3rd Invoicing Directive, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

A Third Invoicing Directive for the EU VAT seems to be a foregone conclusion. Corrections are needed in the Second Invoicing Directive. The hallmark of the next Directive will be its application of digital invoice technology. The Commission’s proposals will include adoption of tax-technology advances in invoice-control that are currently in use outside the EU. The next Invoicing Directive will require comprehensive e-invoicing, invoices that are digitally signed, and invoices that are fed into a system of relational databases that match transaction data across the Single Market. There will be real-time EU sales/purchases lists, and remote/real-time audit functionality.

This will …

Testimony Of J. Richard (Dick) Harvey, Jr. Before The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations May 21, 2013, J. Richard Harvey

Working Paper Series

Apple is an iconic US multinational corporation. In addition to demonstrating excellence in designing, building, and selling consumer products, Apple has been very successful at minimizing its global income tax burden. This expert testimony describes how Apple:

• allocates approximately two-thirds of its global income to Ireland, a country where only 4% of its employees and 1% of its customers are located,
• minimizes Irish tax by creating an Irish entity that is managed and controlled in the US, and
• avoids the US Subpart F rules.

More generally, the testimony illustrates techniques used by US MNCs to shift income …

Tax Court Find Stars Transaction Lacks Economic Substance, Robert D. Probasco, Lee S. Meyercord

Faculty Scholarship

In Bank of New York Mellon Corp. v. Commissioner, the Tax Court found that a structured trust advantaged repackaged securities (“STARS”) transaction entered into by BNY Mellon lacked economic substance, and disallowed foreign tax credits of $199 million as well as transactional expenses of $8 million. BNY Mellon is the first test case to emerge from the IRS’s attempts to disallow tax benefits to several financial institutions that participated in the STARS transaction.

The STARS transaction is one of a number of different transactions that the IRS refers to as “foreign tax credit generators.” These transactions generally rely on inconsistent …

Should The Us Dictate World Tax Policy? Reflections On Ppl, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in PPL offers it a unique opportunity to change the law regarding foreign tax credits that has significantly impeded the ability of other countries to engage in meaningful tax reform. In 1938 the Court said in dicta that to qualify for the FTC a tax had to be an income or excess profits tax (or a tax imposed in lieu thereof) under U.S. tax principles. This statement has led to an elaborate set of regulations defining what is an income tax, which has significantly hampered the ability of foreign countries to adopt …

Economic And Legal Arguments In Ppl V. Commissioner, Michael S. Knoll

All Faculty Scholarship

In late February 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in PPL Corp. v. Commissioner. The Court took that case, which involves a claim by a U.S. corporation for foreign tax credits for taxes paid in accordance with the 1997 U.K. Windfall Profit Tax Act, in order to resolve a conflict between the Third Circuit, which denied the credit in PPL, and the Fifth Circuit, which allowed the credit in Entergy Corp. v. Commissioner. Nominally, the U.K. Act imposed a tax on recently privatized regulated companies of 23 percent of the difference between their estimated …

And Yet It Moves: A Tax Paradigm For The 21st Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

A central premise of tax scholarship of the last thirty years has been the greater mobility of capital than labor. Recently, scholars such as Edward Kleinbard have recommended that the US adopt a variant of the 'dual income tax' model used by the Scandinavian countries, under which income from capital is subject to significantly lower rates than labor income because of its supposedly greater mobility. This article argues that the premise upon which this argument is built is mistaken, because for individual US taxpayers (as opposed to corporations), there are significant limitations on their ability to avoid tax by moving …

Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The international tax reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) on November 19, 2013 contains several significant innovations that promise to define the terms of the debate for the foreseeable political future. It is therefore worth examining in detail even if it seems unlikely that progress toward meaningful reform can be achieved very soon. The major component of the proposal is a move toward territoriality coupled with two alternative anti-profit shifting options, option Y and option Z. This article will argue that option Y represents a significant step forward and can be the basis of adopting a territorial regime, …

Taxation Of Non-Residents On Business Profits, Jinyan Li

Articles & Book Chapters

The taxation of non-residents on business profits is important to developing countries in terms of raising revenue and encouraging foreign investment and trade. The source country has the legitimate right to tax business profits arising in its jurisdiction. Tax treaties impose no limits on such taxing rights, other than the obligation to tax net profits (instead of gross profits) in some situations, once the threshold for taxation is satisfied. As such, this source of tax revenue belongs to the source country. There is generally little expectation of the residence country of a non-resident taxpayer in sharing the tax revenue. It …

Doing The Math (And The English) In The Windfall Tax Cases, Stanley I. Langbein

Articles

No abstract provided.

Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) offers an opportune moment to consider proposals for corporate and international tax reform. With the debate over individual tax rates for the income and estate tax settled for the present, the President and Congress are free to consider broader reforms. Few observers doubt that such reforms are sorely needed, for several reasons. First, the long-term budgetary outlook is unsustainable. Second, the U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Third, the current system raises relatively little revenue and large amounts of …

Ppl, The Foreign Tax Credit, And The Gitlitz “Finger” Principle, Stanley I. Langbein

Articles

No abstract provided.

Unitary Taxation And International Tax Rules, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Any proposal to adopt Unitary Taxation (UT) of multinationals has to contend with whether such taxation is compatible with existing international tax rules and in particular with the bilateral tax treaty network. Indeed, some researchers have argued that the separate accounting (SA) method and the arm’s length standard are so embodied in the treaties that they form part of customary international law and are binding even in the absence of a treaty. In this paper we will argue that UT can be compatible with most of the existing tax treaties, and that developing countries in particular can implement it in …

Jurisdiction To Tax Corporations, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

Corporate tax residence is fundamental to our federal income tax system. Whether a corporation is classified as “domestic” or “foreign” for U.S. federal income tax purposes determines the extent of tax jurisdiction the United States has over the corporation and its affiliates. Unfortunately, tax scholars seem to agree that the concept of corporate tax residence is “meaningless.” Underlying this perception are the ideas that corporations cannot have “real” residence because they are imaginary entities and because taxpayers can easily manipulate corporate tax residence tests. Commentators try to deal with the perceived meaninglessness by either trying to identify a normative basis …

Does Swiss Bank Secrecy Violate International Human Rights?, Stephen B. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Prof. Stephen Cohen, whose academic specialty is taxation, also has an interest in international human rights and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter administration. In this comment, Prof. Cohen asks whether states like Switzerland, which provide bank secrecy for the offshore accounts of wealthy citizens of developing countries, violate internationally recognized human rights. The United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights explicitly recognizes rights to adequate food, clothing, housing, health care, clean water, sanitation, and education. Bank secrecy has a significant human rights impact if it deprives developing countries of tax …

Tax Advice For The Second Obama Administration, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

Delivered January 18, 2013 as the keynote address at a conference cosponsored by Pepperdine Law School and Tax Analysts.