Law Commons^™

The Devil In The Details: Reflections On The Camp Draft, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The discussion draft of the Tax Reform Act of 2014 (TRA 14) released by House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp, R-Mich., on February 26 represents a major effort for fundamental and far-reaching reform of U.S. tax law. Unfortunately, while many parts of the proposal seem sensible as an effort to bring back the spirit of 1986, the international tax reform proposals are deeply flawed and based on obsolete assumptions of the world that faces U.S. multinationals in 2014.

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 …

A Model Treaty For The Age Of Beps, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Oz Halabi

Law & Economics Working Papers

The OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project promises to bring about the most fundamental changes in the international tax regime since its inception in the 1920s. The fundamental idea behind the various BEPS projects is that the OECD has fully embraced the idea that double non-taxation can have as deleterious consequences as double taxation and that therefore the various aspects of the current rules that enable multinational enterprises (MNEs) to achieve double non-taxation should be reconsidered.

The BEPS Action Plan, adopted by the OECD in July 2013, sets an ambitious time table for the various items, which are …

Igas Vs. Maatm: Has Tax Bilateralism Outlived Its Usefulness?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Gil Savir

Law & Economics Working Papers

The main concern about the IGAs is that they enshrine the bilateral model of tax information exchange that has dominated the 20th century. Unfortunately, there are good reasons to believe this bilateral model does not work, especially when IGAs are signed with countries like the Cayman Islands who have no interest in reciprocity and every interest in making them not work.

Instead, there is an alternative. In response to the financial crisis and the outrage it caused in Europe about tax evasion by the wealthy, the OECD has proposed a Multilateral Agreement for Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAATM), which …

How Serious Is The Problem Of Base Erosion And Profit Shifting?, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

In recent years, the problem of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) by multinational corporations has entered the public consciousness as a potentially important impediment to tax collections. The purpose of this article is to identify the nature of BEPS, consider empirical evidence of its magnitude, and evaluate proposed policy responses. There is considerable evidence that multinational firms arrange their affairs in a tax-sensitive manner, from which it is easy—indeed, perhaps a little too easy—to infer that beps is a serious problem. There are journalistic accounts of apparently spectacular international tax-avoidance schemes used by multinational corporations, though these stories commonly …