Law Commons^™

Biometrics, Certified Software Solutions, And The Japanese Consumption Tax: A Proposal For The Tax Commission, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Significant change is anticipated in the Japanese Consumption Tax. The Japanese Tax Commission is recommending that the rate should double, multiple rates should be employed, and the "bookkeeping method" of accounting should be abandoned in favor of the European "invoice method."

The Tax Commission faces a tax policy dilemma. The aging population drives the need for a tax increase (making the Consumption Tax an obvious target for revenue enhancement) at exactly the same time the population is shrinking in overall size, thereby reducing the number of working-consumers who can pay the higher tax.

These are dramatic changes for the Japanese …

Brief Amicus Curiae Of Professors Keith N. Hylton, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Mark F. Grady, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Mark G. Kelman, And Thomas Ulen In Support Of Respondents In Philip Morris Usa V. Mayola Williams, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

There is no dispute that the punitive damages award that was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court in this case satisfies the most rigorous law and economic standards for rationality. The Court need not credit the analysis of the undersigned amici on this score; the fact that Petitioner’s own amici – most notably law and economics scholars A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell – have been unable to find anything economically amiss in the decision below speaks volumes. To be sure, Professors Polinsky and Shavell have filed an amicus brief in support of Philip Morris in this case, just as …

Taxing Services Under The Eu Vat And Japanese Consumption Tax: A Comparative Assessment Of New Eu Place Of Taxation Rules For Services And Intangibles, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Place of taxation rules are the seminal cross-jurisdictional provisions of any consumption tax regime. They determine where among competing jurisdictions a particular service is taxed. They are not important for transactions that are restricted to a single jurisdiction and to businesses or individuals belonging to that jurisdiction. However, when two or more jurisdictions are involved, these are the essential tools for revenue allocation and avoidance of double taxation.

It is therefore of considerable importance to Japanese businesses and consumers when the European Union (EU) undertakes a wholesale revision of the place of supply rules for services and intangibles. The European …

Digital Consumption Tax (D-Ct), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Modern technology is dramatically changing the way consumption taxes are collected, but it is also changing the way policymakers assess the operation and impact of these taxes. Whether the design is a standard credit-invoice value added tax (VAT) of European design, or a retail sales tax (RST) of American design, or the credit subtraction VAT without invoices type of consumption tax (CT) of Japanese design, technology is having a profound impact.

Government certified transaction software is in place in the United States. The Streamlined Sales Tax offers taxpayers in 18 states the option of having their retail sales tax determined …

Some Observations On The Stock Option Backdating Scandal Of 2006, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

The corporate stock option backdating scandal has dominated business page headlines during the summer of 2006. The SEC is currently investigating more than seventy-five companies with respect to the timing and pricing of stock options granted during the boom years of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the number of firms caught up in the scandal seems to increase every day. This essay contributes to our understanding of the backdating phenomenon by analyzing the economics of backdating and the characteristics of the firms under investigation. Its main points are the following: First, given the high volatilities of the stocks …

Biometrics: Solving The Regressivity Of Vats And Rsts With 'Smart Card' Technology, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Biometric identifiers embedded in national identity cards puts a formerly impossible goal of consumption taxation within the grasp of policymakers for the first time. Never before has it been possible to design a broad-based, single rate consumption tax that is truly progressive.

No consumption tax has ever had all three of the critical attributes of a progressive consumption tax: a broad base, a single rate, and measured relief for those in greatest need. Although economists have urged that a broad base and a single rate be pursued over progressivity, most consumption taxes instead seek progressivity at the expense of both …

Carousel Fraud In The Eu: A Digital Vat Solution, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Recent reports from the UK's Office for National Statistics estimate (as of May 11, 2006) that Missing Trader Intra-community Fraud (MTIC) may exceed 10 billion pounds this year.

Carousel fraud, a variant of MTIC where the same goods are sold over and over again, exploits the lingering non-certified, non-digital attributes of the EU VAT. The UK believes that carousel fraud cost the Exchequer between 1.12 and 1.9 billion pounds in the 2004-05 financial year. This article proposes that carousel fraud be eliminated in the EU through selective insertion of Digital VAT functionality into the present system. In other words, it …

Property Rules And Liability Rules, Once Again, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, new articles presenting rigorous analyses of bargaining incentives have overturned some of the fundamental claims made by Calabresi and Melamed in their seminal article on property rules and liability rules published in 1972. In particular, the proposition that property rules are socially preferable to liability rules when transaction costs are low appears to be either no longer valid or severely weakened under the new analyses. This paper reexamines the property rule versus liability rule question in light of the contributions of the recent bargaining theory literature. In contrast to this literature, I find that the fundamental propositions …

The Digital Vat (D-Vat), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The most sustained U.S. tax policy debate of the past 30 years concerns proposals to replace and/ or supplement the Federal Income Tax with a consumption tax. Public finance economists and legal tax policy scholars challenged and defended the current income tax system on grounds of fairness, efficiency, and simplicity.

This debate over revamping the national taxing scheme has not been argued purely in the academic forum. Concrete legislative proposals have been advanced for a national retail sales tax, a European-style Value Added Tax, as well as a whole host of what David Bradford calls "the two-tiered consumption taxes."

From …