Taxation-Transnational Commons^™

The Other Eighty Percent: Private Investment Funds, International Tax Avoidance, And Tax-Exempt Investors, Omri Marian

BYU Law Review

The taxation of private equity managers’ share of funds’ profits—the twenty percent “carried interest”—received much attention in academic literature and popular discourse. Much has been said and written about the fact that fund managers’ profits are taxed at preferred rates. But what about the other eighty percent of funds’ profits? This Article theorizes that the bulk of such profits are never taxed. This is a result of a combination of three factors: First, private equity, venture capital, and hedge funds (collectively, Private Investment Funds, or “PIFs”) are major actors in cross-border investment activity. This enables PIFs to take advantage of …

Defending Worldwide Taxation With A Shareholder-Based Definition Of Corporate Residence, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay

BYU Law Review

This Article argues that a principled, efficient, and practical definition of corporate residence is necessary even if some form of corporate integration is adopted, and that such a definition is a key element in designing either a real worldwide or a territorial income tax system as well as a potential restraint on the inversion phenomenon. The Article proposes that the United States adopt a shareholder-based definition of corporate residence that is structured as follows: 1. A foreign corporation is a U.S. tax resident for any year if fifty percent or more of its shares, determined by vote or value, was …

Developing Countries In An Age Of Transparency And Disclosure, Diane Ring

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Foreign Tax Credit War, Bret Wells

BYU Law Review

The government has been involved in a sustained war against objectionable foreign tax credit transactions. This war has caused the U.S. foreign tax credit regime to be riddled with complexity that spawns incoherent outcomes. The complexity contained in section 901 was created due to a legitimate concern: the threats posed by objectionable transactions that artificially generate excess foreign tax credits represent real policy problems. Since at least 1975, Congress and the Treasury Department have been convinced that the cross-crediting of excess foreign tax credits arising from “objectionable transactions” required a response in addition to simply relying on section 904. Thus, …

Two Cheers For The Foreign Tax Credit, Even In The Beps Era, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay

Faculty Scholarship

Reform of the U.S. international income taxation system has been a hotly debated topic for many years. The principal competing alternatives are a territorial or exemption system and a worldwide system. For reasons summarized in this article, we favor worldwide taxation if it is real worldwide taxation – i.e., a non-deferred U.S. tax is imposed on all foreign income of U.S. residents at the time the income in earned. This approach is not acceptable, however, unless the resulting double taxation is alleviated. The longstanding U.S. approach for handling the international double taxation problem is a foreign tax credit limited to …

Beps And The New International Tax Order, Allison Christians

BYU Law Review

Nations across the world are currently engaged in a coordinated international effort, ostensibly to curb excessive tax avoidance by the world’s biggest multinational companies. This Article contends, however, that the most likely impact will be to entrench a monopoly held by a small number of rich countries over the policymaking processes that created the tax avoidance problem to begin with. To examine this contention and probe possible solutions to it, the Article considers the legal and institutional components of the coordination project, by situating them historically and analyzing their multi-functionality as both norm diffusion and institutional reinforcement mechanisms. The Article …

Inversions, Related Party Expenditures, And Source Taxation: Changing The Paradigm For The Taxation Of Foreign And Foreign-Owned Businesses, Julie A. Roin

BYU Law Review

The disconnect between the rules for the taxation of domestic businesses and foreign and foreign-owned businesses operating in the United States both diminishes the federal treasury and distorts taxpayer and business behavior. Yet bringing the sets of rules into closer coordination is no simple task. This Article examines many of the solutions proffered in the academic literature and details the difficulties and trade-offs that each entails.

The European Company, Pieter Sanders

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

Gcc Vat: The Intra-Gulf Trade Problem, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Musaad Alwohaibi

Faculty Scholarship

It seems reasonably clear that by January 1, 2018 events will be set in motion for the adoption of a community-wide 5% value added tax (VAT) in the six Member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The GCC’s Framework VAT document is expected to be published by the end of October 2016. One of the clearest, consistently placed observations is that the Arabian VATs will be destination-based and modeled on a European credit-invoice design. Intra-Gulf business-to-business (B2B) transactions will be effectively zero-rated by the supplier, and the buyer’s VAT will be directed to the destination jurisdiction. It is not …

Citizens Abroad And Social Cohesion At Home: Refocusing A Cross-Border Tax Policy Debate, Michael S. Kirsch

Michael Kirsch

Over the past decade, a number of scholars have addressed the United States’ continuing use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis upon which to tax the foreign-source income of individuals in the modern international setting. Some writers, including myself, have defended this citizenship-based taxation (“CBT”), while others have rejected it and proposed some form of residence-based taxation (“RBT”) for citizens.This Article considers the competing normative arguments raised in this context, and attempts to distill the strengths and weaknesses of each. In so doing, it attempts to highlight the most important factors upon which the debate hinges, and illustrates the importance …

Multinational Firms And Tax Havens, Anna Gumpert, James R. Hines Jr., Monika Schnitzer

Articles

Multinational firms with operations in high-tax countries can benefit the most from reallocating taxable income to tax havens, though this is sufficiently difficult and costly that only 20.4% of German multinational firms have any tax haven affiliates. Among German manufacturing firms, a 1 percentage point higher foreign tax rate is associated with a 2.3% greater likelihood of owning a tax haven affiliate. This is consistent with tax avoidance incentives and contrasts with earlier evidence for U.S. firms. The relationship is less strong for firms in service industries, possibly reflecting the difficulty of reallocating taxable service income.

The Tbt Agreement’S Failure To Solve U.S. - Cool, Elinore R. Carroll

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, Shilpa Balnadu

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter (Letter From The Editor, Masthead, Etc.)

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 6, No. 1 – Summer/Fall 2016

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Summaries For The Fourth Annual Irs/Sjsu Small Business Tax Institute, Padmini Yalamarthi, Fan Wang, Jie Shen, Xuan Hong, Marla Hampton Cpa, Mba, Aaron Grey

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Destination-Based Taxation In The House Republican Blueprint, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The House Republican Task Force on Tax Reform released its Blueprint for tax reform in June 2016, at the center of which is a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT) to replace the current federal income tax on corporations. The House GOP Blueprint represents the first time that the DBCFT has been promoted by political leaders. Initial commentators have stressed the capacity of such a tax (if adopted in the U.S.) to reduce U.S. companies’ incentives for international tax planning and profit shifting, and to allow the U.S. to “leapfrog to the front of the pack” in its tax competitiveness. This essay …

The Trade Act Of 1974: Soviet-American Commercial Relations And The Future, Kenneth Klein

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

International Tax Implications Of The Organisation For Economic Co-Operation And Development Proposal To Neutralize Hybrid Mismatch Arrangements, Dean Harris

Catholic University Law Review

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed a sixteen part plan titled Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). This comment focuses on the second part of that plan; Neutralizing Hybrid Mismatch Arrangements. Mismatches have become a useful tool for corporations to achieve double non-taxation in various jurisdictions. The comment begins by laying the groundwork of what a hybrid mismatch arrangement is and the current problems and complications with them in international tax. Next, this comment addresses various jurisdictional approaches to mismatches, including: Ireland, The United Kingdom, The United States, and Denmark. The paper moves forward onto a …

Hanging Together: A Multilateral Approach To Taxing Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The recent revelation that many multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay very little tax to the countries they operate in has led to various proposals to change the ways they are taxed. Most of these proposals, however, do not address the fundamental flaws in the international tax regime that allow companies like Apple or Starbucks to legally avoid taxation. In particular, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and is supposed to make recommendations to the G20, but it is not clear yet whether this will result in a …

Conference Summary: Problems And Prospects Of Trade With Eastern Europe And China, Chesterfield H. Smith, William C. Mott, William J. Casey, Philip M. Landrum, Jacobus T. Severiens, Dean Rusk, Evgeniy V. Bugrov, Andrzej B. Burzynski, Gabriel M. Wilner, Peter M. Flanigan, Benjamin Busch, Victor Hoa Li, Graham Metson, Donald Clark, Reg Murphy, Charles Hodgkins, C.C. Van Den Heuvel, Jeremy Russell, David Winter

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Book Review: International Tax Planning. By Barry Spitz. London, England: Butterworth & Co. Ltd., 1972. Pp. Xxiii, 159. $12.15 (U.S.)., Donald O. Clark

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Replacing Havoc: Creating Rules For Sovereign Default, Edward J. Kelley

Cleveland State Law Review

Sovereign debt is an ongoing threat to a State’s economic stability and its citizens’ standard of living. A single occurrence of default begins a cycle in which it becomes increasingly more difficult for an indebted State to pay its debts and ensure the survival of its citizens. Because central banking systems and direct spending are often inadequate methods to boost an indebted State’s economy, a more expansive solution to sovereign debt is required. The initial solution to the growing problem of sovereign debt is an international treaty that will allow the world economy to establish monitoring mechanisms to prevent debt …

Deep Dive, Chicago Style: A Roadmap For Understanding International Tax Reform, Michael J. Veneri Jr.

Global Business Law Review

This note discusses the potential alternatives for international tax reform and evaluates them based upon the Chicago school of economic theory principles and the ability to eliminate "tax plays." The United States could modify the existing international taxation system with (1) the 2015 Obama Administration proposals, (2) a modified territorial system as proposed by Rep. Dave Camp, (3) a credit system with source-of-income rules without the deferral privilege, or (4) formulary apportionment system based on either a single-factor or a three-factor system. By eliminating a U.S. multinational corporation's ability to participate in "tax plays," inefficient rent-seeking behavior can be curtailed, …

A Critique Of Saudi M&A Laws, Mulhim Hamad Almulhim

SJD Dissertations

This dissertation aims to elucidate Saudi Arabia’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) laws. The dissertation studies and analyzes current Saudi M&A laws with reference to comparative models from different countries and provides recommendations to improve the transparency and efficiency of Saudi Arabia’s M&A laws. Such improvements may help companies attempting to conduct M&A activity in Saudi Arabia address certain barriers and difficulties, which may in turn help to stimulate the Saudi Arabian economy.

Saudi Arabia is considered one of the world’s foremost emerging markets. Since Saudi Arabia joined the World Trade Organization, its stock market has been growing quickly, including rapid …

Book Review: The Gatt - Law And International Economic Organization. By Kenneth W. Dam. Chicago And London: The University Of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. Xvii, 480. $15.00., Pasco M. Bowman Ii

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments And Future Prospects Of The Common Market, Michael Waelbroeck

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Demanding Corporate Patriotism: A Regulatory Attempt To Curb International Corporate Inversions And Stop Tax Avoidance Schemes, David Khanjyan

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Tax Treaties-Reciprocal Exchange Of Information-Summons Power Contained In Irc Section 7602 May Be Used To Obtain Information From Domestic Sources For Use By Canadian Authorities In Investigating The Canadian Tax Liability Of A Canadian Company, Tim J. Floyd

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.