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Full-Text Articles in Law
Country By Country Reporting And Corporate Privacy: Some Unanswered Questions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Country By Country Reporting And Corporate Privacy: Some Unanswered Questions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
Corporate privacy is an oxymoron. Individuals have a right to privacy, which the Supreme Court has recognized at least since Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Warren and Brandeis’ famous defense of the right to privacy (1890) clearly applied only to individuals, because only individuals have the kind of feelings that are affected by invasions of privacy. Corporations are legal entities, and the concept of privacy does not apply to them, as the Supreme Court held in 1906. Thus, any objection to making corporate tax returns public cannot rest on the right to privacy. In fact, corporate returns were made public in …
The Devil In The Details: Reflections On The Camp Draft, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
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
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 …
Corporate Taxation And Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Corporate Taxation And Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
This Article will address the question of whether publicly traded U.S. corporations owe a duty to their shareholders to minimize their corporate tax burden through any legal means, or if instead, strategic behaviors like aggressive tax-motivated transactions are inconsistent with corporate social responsibility (“CSR”). I believe the latter holds true, regardless of one’s view of the corporation. Under the “artificial entity” view, such behavior undermines the constitutive relationship between the corporation and the state. Under the “real view,” such behavior runs contrary to the normal obligation of citizens to comply with the law (even absent effective enforcement). And under the …
Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
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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 …
Slicing The Shadow: A Proposal For Updating U.S. International Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Slicing The Shadow: A Proposal For Updating U.S. International Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
In the article Avi-Yonah proposed that the United States tax multinational corporations using a formulary apportionment system based solely on income derived from sales. The background for the article was drawn principally from Robert Reich’s The Work of Nations (1991), and the analysis was inspired by Stanley I. Langbein’s work on transfer pricing, especially his seminal article "The Unitary Method and the Myth of Arm’s Length," Tax Notes, Feb. 17, 1986, p. 625; see also Louis Kauder, "Intercompany Pricing and Section 482: A Proposal to Shift From Uncontrolled Comparables to Formulary Apportionment Now," Tax Notes, Jan. 25, 1993, p. 485.
Vive La Petite Difference: Camp, Obama, And Territoriality Reconsidered, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Vive La Petite Difference: Camp, Obama, And Territoriality Reconsidered, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
The recent tax reform proposals by House Ways and Means Committee Chair David Camp, R-Mich., and by President Obama seem to offer starkly contrasting visions of how to reform the taxation of foreign-source income earned by U.S.-based multinational enterprises.1 Both acknowledge the problem, which is that U.S.-based MNEs currently have more than $1 trillion of ‘‘permanently reinvested’’ income offshore, which they cannot bring back to the U.S. without incurring a 35 percent tax penalty. However, they seem to offer radically different solutions: Under the Camp proposal, a participation exemption will enable U.S.-based MNEs to bring back the income without paying …
The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav
The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav
Articles
The United States has the second highest statutory corporate tax rate in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) (after Japan).1 This has not always been the case. After the Tax Reform Act of 1986 lowered the U.S. rate from 46% to 34%,2 the United States had one of the lowest statutory corporate tax rates in the OECD.3 In the past twenty-five years, however, the U.S. rate has remained essentially unchanged (it was raised to 35% in 1993),4 while most other OECD countries reduced their statutory rate so that the OECD average statutory corporate tax rate is 25.1%.
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").
Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
On March 21, 2011, AT&T announced that it will buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. This transaction will be tax free to Deutsche Telekom (DT) not because it qualifies as a reorganization, but because DT is a foreign corporation and capital gains of nonresidents are generally not subject to U.S. taxation because they are deemed to be foreign source. Also, DT is protected from taxation by article 13(5) of the Germany-U.S. tax treaty, which provides that capital gains are generally taxable only by the country of residence.
Formulary Apportionment: Myths And Prospects - Promoting Better International Policy And Utilizing The Misunderstood And Under-Theorized Formulary Alternative, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Ilan Benshalom
Formulary Apportionment: Myths And Prospects - Promoting Better International Policy And Utilizing The Misunderstood And Under-Theorized Formulary Alternative, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Ilan Benshalom
Articles
This article seeks to re-examine the formulary alternative to transfer pricing by inquiring whether partial integration of formulary concepts into current practices would offer a reasonable alternative to transfer pricing rules. We believe that the key to achieving an equitable and efficient allocation of MNE income is to solve the problem of the residual, i.e., how to allocate income generated from mobile assets and activities whose risks are borne collectively by the entire MNE group. These assets and activities generate most of the current transfer pricing compliance and administrative costs, as well as tax avoidance opportunities. A limited formulary tax …
Between Formulary Apportionment And The Oecd Guidelines: A Proposal For Reconciliation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Between Formulary Apportionment And The Oecd Guidelines: A Proposal For Reconciliation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
In the last 30 years, a debate has been raging in international tax circles between advocates of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines and the arm’s length standard (ALS) they embody, on the one hand, and advocates of formulary apportionment (FA) on the other. After the adoption of the 1995 regulations and the new OECD Guidelines, the debate became quieter for a while, because everyone was waiting to see whether the issue had been resolved. However, while there have been few decided cases, it is clear by now that the transfer pricing problem is as bad as it ever was. That …
Obama's International Tax Plan: A Major Step Forward, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Obama's International Tax Plan: A Major Step Forward, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
President Barack Obama last week personally introduced a set of proposals to reform U.S. international taxation that are the most significant advance toward preserving the income tax on cross-border transactions since the enactment of the subpart F rules by the Kennedy administration in 1962. (For prior coverage, see Doc 2009-10047 or 2009 TNT 84-1.) In essence, the Obama proposals introduce a 21stcentury version of the vision begun by Thomas Adams in 1918 and continued by Stanley Surrey in 1961: a world in which source and residence taxation are coordinated so as to achieve the underlying goals of the international tax …
Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst
Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst
Articles
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 …
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 …
The Internal Markets Of Multinational Firms, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
The Internal Markets Of Multinational Firms, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
Articles
The rising economic importance of multinational firms has been accompanied by significant changes in their structure and functioning. Multinational firms, historically characterized as webs of autonomous subsidiaries spread across countries, now represent globally integrated production systems serving worldwide customers. These changes are manifest in the rising significance of intrafirm trade and financial flows for these firms. While there is extensive analysis of aggregate patterns in intrafirm flows of goods and capital, few firm-based studies examine the workings of the internal markets of multinational firms, largely because of the difficulty in accessing the necessary data. A number of our recent projects …
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 …
Taxation And Multinational Activity: New Evidence, New Interpretations, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
Taxation And Multinational Activity: New Evidence, New Interpretations, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.
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In the midst of rapid integration and globalization, multinational firms still face tax systems that differ among countries, and these differences have the potential to affect major investment and financing decisions. This research covers a wide range of topics, including the impact of indirect taxes as well as of corporate income taxes, the sensitivity of financing decisions to tax rates, the effects of taxes on repatriation policies, the demand for, and impact of, tax havens, and the use of indirect ownership as a means of avoiding taxes. The behavior of US multinational firms as revealed by the evidence collected by …
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
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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 …
The Ingenious Kerry Tax Plan, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Ingenious Kerry Tax Plan, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
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The tax plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry at Wayne State University on March 26 is an ingenious set of ideas to encourage domestic job creation. Its greatest strength, however, may be its contribution to long-term economic growth, fairness, and tax law simplification. In this article I will first describe the Kerry proposal, then analyze its advantages, and finally address some counterarguments.
For Haven's Sake: Reflections On Inversion Transactions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
For Haven's Sake: Reflections On Inversion Transactions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
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This article discusses “inversion” transactions, in which a publicly traded U.S. corporation becomes a subsidiary of a newly established tax haven parent corporation. In the last three years, an increasing number of these transactions have been taking place, undeterred by the shareholderlevel tax imposed by the IRS on them in 1994. The article first discusses the reasons for the increasing popularity of the transactions and the tax goals they aim at achieving (primarily avoiding subpart F and U.S. earnings stripping). The article then discusses the tax policy implications of these transactions. In the short run, the article suggests that the …
The U.S. Treasury's Subpart F Report: Plus Ça Change, Plus C'Est La Même Chose?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The U.S. Treasury's Subpart F Report: Plus Ça Change, Plus C'Est La Même Chose?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Articles
On 29 December 2000, the U.S. Treasury Department released its long-awaited study of Subpart F, entitled “The Deferral of Income Earned through U.S. Controlled Foreign Corporations." This study was commenced in the aftermath of the controversy that ensued from the issuance and subsequent withdrawal of Notice 98-11. The study was originally expected to be issued in 1999 in response to the report published that year by the National Foreign Trade Council, which advocated significant changes in Subpart F. The Treasury Study’s delayed issuance at the end of the Clinton Administration means that it only has (at best) persuasive force for …