Law Commons^™

The David R. Tillinghast Lecture: Taxing International Income: Inadequate Principles, Outdated Concepts, And Unsatisfactory Policies, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

It is a pleasure to be here today to deliver the first David R. Tillinghast Lecture of the 21st century, a lecture honoring a man who has done much to shape and stimulate our thinking about the international tax world of the 20th.

Our nation's system for taxing international income today is largely a creature of the period 1918-1928, a time when the income tax was itself in childhood. From the inception of the income tax (1913 for individuals, 1909 for corporations) until 1918, foreign taxes were deducted like any other business expense. In 1918, the foreign tax credit (FTC) …

The "Original Intent" Of U.S. International Taxation, Michael J. Graetz, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Scholarship

The Sixteenth Amendment took effect on February 25, 1913, permitting Congress to tax income "from whatever source derived," and on October 3rd of that year, Congress approved a tax on the net income of individuals and corporations. The United States regime for taxing international income took shape soon thereafter, during the decade 1919-1928. In the Revenue Act of 1918, the United States enacted, for the first time anywhere in the world, a credit against U.S. income for taxes paid by a U.S. citizen or resident to any foreign government on income earned outside the United States. The Revenue Act of …