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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fighting Foreign-Corporate Political Access: Applying Corporate Veil-Piercing Doctrine To Domestic-Subsidiary Contributions, Ryan Rott
Michigan Law Review
Campaign finance regulations limit speech. The laws preclude foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from participating in U.S. politics via campaign contributions. The unusual characteristics of corporations, however, may allow foreign corporations to exploit a loophole in the regulatory regime. A foreign corporation may contribute to political campaigns by acquiring a domestic subsidiary and dominating it. This Note addresses how these unusual corporate behaviors enable foreign corporations to illegally corrupt the political process. This Note concludes that to close the loophole without violating the free speech rights of domestic subsidiaries, Congress should enact legislation which would apply corporate veil-piercing theory to …
Back From The Dead: Reviving Transfer Pricing Enforcement, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Back From The Dead: Reviving Transfer Pricing Enforcement, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
The OECD has recently come to recognize that the transfer pricing system does not work as intended. In its report on base erosion and profit shifting 2013 WTD 140-17: Other Administrative Documents, the OECD recognizes that BEPS results in revenue losses that affect all states, especially poorer ones; that systematic tax avoidance by the richest and most powerful companies in the world undermines the general legitimacy of taxation; that it gives MNEs significant competitive advantages over purely domestic firms, resulting in inefficient allocations of investment and major distortions to economic activity; and that it skews the decisions of the MNEs …
Legal Entities As Transferable Bundles Of Contracts, Kenneth Ayotte, Henry Hansmann
Legal Entities As Transferable Bundles Of Contracts, Kenneth Ayotte, Henry Hansmann
Michigan Law Review
The large, modern business corporation is frequently organized as a complex cluster of hundreds of corporate subsidiaries under the common control of a single corporate parent. Our Article provides new theory and supportive evidence to help explain this structure. We focus, in particular on the advantages of subsidiary entities in providing the option to transfer some or all of the firm's contractual rights and obligations in the future. The theory not only sheds light on corporate subsidiaries but also illuminates a basic function of all types of legal entities, from partnerships to nonprofit corporations. We show that when, as is …
Transfer Pricing Disputes In The United States, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Transfer Pricing Disputes In The United States, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Book Chapters
In 1988, the US Treasury Department published a study of inter-company pricing (the 'White Paper') that included the following endorsement of the so-called arm's length standard (ALS) for examining the reasonableness of transactions between related parties for tax purposes: The arm's length standard is embodied in all U.S. tax treaties; it is in each major model treaty, including the U.S. Model Convention; it is incorporated into most tax treaties to which the United States is not a party; it has been explicitly adopted by international organizations that have addressed themselves to transfer pricing issues; and virtually every major industrial nation …
Symposium On International Taxation And Competitiveness: Introduction And Overview, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nicola Sartori
Symposium On International Taxation And Competitiveness: Introduction And Overview, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nicola Sartori
Articles
In February, 2012, the Treasury and White House unveiled President Obama's Framework for Business Tax Reform. A major proposal was to abolish the deferral on income earned by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations ("CFCs").
Back To The Future? The Potential Revival Of Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
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 …
Dividend Policy Inside The Multinational Firm, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
Dividend Policy Inside The Multinational Firm, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
Articles
This paper examines the determinants of profit repatriation policies for US multinational firms. Dividend repatriations are surprisingly persistent and resemble dividend payments to external shareholders. Tax considerations influence dividend repatriations, but not decisively, as differentially-taxed entities feature similar policies and some firms incur avoidable tax penalties. Parent companies requiring cash to fund domestic investments, or to pay dividends to common shareholders, draw on the resources of their foreign affiliates through repatriations. Incompletely controlled affiliates are more likely than others to make regular dividend payments and to trigger avoidable tax costs through repatriations. The results indicate that traditional corporate finance concerns …
The Silver Lining: The International Tax Provisions Of The American Jobs Creation Act - A Reconsideration, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Silver Lining: The International Tax Provisions Of The American Jobs Creation Act - A Reconsideration, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, passed by the US Congress on 12 October and signed into law by President Bush on 22 October 2004, has been greeted by general dismay by various critics. The Act has been described as overloaded with “pork” and giveaways to special interest groups like tobacco farmers. The critics contend that the only achievement of the Act, the repeal of the “extraterritorial income” (ETI) regime that was ruled by the WTO to be a prohibited export subsidy, is dwarfed by 633 pages of special interest legislation. Even the Bush Administration distanced itself from the …
Tender Offers By Controlling Shareholders: The Specter Of Coercion And Fair Price, Adam C. Pritchard
Tender Offers By Controlling Shareholders: The Specter Of Coercion And Fair Price, Adam C. Pritchard
Articles
Taking your company private has never been so appealing. The collapse of the tech bubble has left many companies whose stock prices bordered on the stratospheric now trading at small fractions of their historical highs. The spate of accounting scandals that followed the bursting of the bubble has taken some of the shine off the aura of being a public company-the glare of the spotlight from stock analysts and the business press looks much less inviting, notwithstanding the monitoring benefits that the spotlight purports to confer. Moreover, the regulatory backlash against those accounting scandals has made the costs of being …
Controlling The Controllers In Parent-Subsidiary Relations, James C. Bruno
Controlling The Controllers In Parent-Subsidiary Relations, James C. Bruno
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This article will examine the rights and responsibilities of a party in control of a corporation. The discussion of these rights and responsibilities focuses principally on the law of Michigan. However, passages on policy, discussion of the development of relevant Michigan law, and recommendations for changes in the law are pertinent to the general problem-area of parent-subsidiary relations encountered in all jurisdictions.
Corporations - Corporate Seal - When Affixing Seal Makes The Instrument A Specialty, Edward D. Ransom
Corporations - Corporate Seal - When Affixing Seal Makes The Instrument A Specialty, Edward D. Ransom
Michigan Law Review
The plaintiff contracted to buy gasoline from a subsidiary of the defendant. The lengthy contract was signed at the end by the proper officers and in juxtaposition to the signatures were the corporate seals of both parties. The contract contained a recital of sealing. On a separate page, but attached to the contract, was a guaranty by the defendant of the subsidiary's performance. This also was sealed with the corporate seals of both parties adjacent to the signatures of the officers. No mention of sealing was contained in the guaranty. On default by the subsidiary, the plaintiff sued on the …
Corporations - Parent's Liability For Subsidiary's Obligations, Michigan Law Review
Corporations - Parent's Liability For Subsidiary's Obligations, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A parent corporation owned all the stock of a subsidiary which it had organized to hold real estate, its own business being mercantile. The directors and officers of both corporations were identical. The subsidiary sublet premises for ninety-nine years, in turn leasing them to the parent for ten years. Improvements were made in accordance with the subsidiary's contract, and "leasehold trust certificates" were issued by an assignee of the underlying lease. The parent quit the premises before the expiration of its lease, but paid the rent for the whole period. The subsidiary then defaulted on the ninety-nine year lease, having …
Corporations - Common Board - Fraud - Ratification By Majority Stockholders, Theodore R. Vogt
Corporations - Common Board - Fraud - Ratification By Majority Stockholders, Theodore R. Vogt
Michigan Law Review
Defendants were directors and officers of a managing corporation and its subsidiary. Both corporations paid defendants salaries, those from the managing corporation approximating the fees paid to it by the subsidiary for management services which were rendered by defendants. Held, payment of management fees by the subsidiary under such circumstances is fraudulent and recoverable from defendants, in a derivative suit by minority stockholders, despite a resolution of the majority stockholders of the subsidiary ratifying the payment. Eshleman v. Keenan, (Del. Ch. 1936) 187 A. 25.
Corporations-Subsidiary's Evasion Of Income Tax Law By Contract With Parent Company-Income Attributable To Business Transacted Within The State
Michigan Law Review
The Palmolive company sought to reduce to a minimum the amount of its income taxable in Wisconsin. Three companies were formed which, for convenience' sake, will be designated as: parent company, a Delaware corporation; plaintiff company, a Delaware corporation; and Wisconsin company, a Wisconsin corporation. The parent company acquired all the capital stock of the Wisconsin company, and then acquired all its assets outside the state of Wisconsin, surrendering therefor part of the stock of the Wisconsin company so acquired. The balance of the capital stock of the Wisconsin company the parent company transferred to plaintiff company in exchange for …
Corporations-Power To Delegate Management For Long Period
Corporations-Power To Delegate Management For Long Period
Michigan Law Review
The corporate parties contracted that in consideration of certain commissions to be paid to the plaintiff, the defendant insurance company should delegate to the plaintiff corporation complete and exclusive control and management of its entire business for a period of twenty years. In an action to recover commissions, held, that the contract was void on the ground of public policy, and that there could be no recovery. Sherman & Ellis, Inc., v. Indiana Mutual Casualty Company (C. C. A. 7th Cir.) 41 F.(2d) 588.