Law Commons^™

California Biometrics: A Second Proposal For California's Commission On The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This proposal takes a long view to revenue reform. It seeks to fundamentally align the sales tax with the digital foundation of the 21st Century economy.

The core policy question is whether California is willing to change the way it defines sales tax exemptions; is it willing to move from product-centric to person-centric exemptions. Certified tax determination systems can be relied upon. A key element in this proposal is the encryption of exemption certificates in IDs (smart cards with biometric identifiers that will allow the poor or handicapped to make certain purchases tax free).

This proposal suggests that (for example) …

Uk Car-Flipping: The Vat Fraud Market-Place And Certified Solutions, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud and its offspring carousel fraud and contra trading fraud are siphoning huge amounts of VAT revenue from the UK Treasury. This fraud is not a function of the goods involved. It is a function of the market-place. Recently another type of market-place dependent VAT fraud has taken hold in the UK - car-flipping.

In some instances the market-place where these frauds festers is a pre-existing or natural market-place, one that grows out of legitimate commercial practices. Fraudsters enter this market-place (so the argument goes) and take advantage of legitimate businesses who unwittingly get caught up …

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 …

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 …

Digital Vat And Development: D-Vat And D-Velopment, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This article suggests that the time is right for developing countries to consider adopting a comprehensive, fully digital VAT, (complete with certified software and trusted third party intermediaries who could assume all of the taxpayer's VAT responsibilities) within the limited group of enterprises encompassed by the large taxpayer group.

Since the e-commerce revolution began in the 1990's, tax policy discussions in developed economies have enlisted "e-solutions" to streamline consumption tax administration, as well as to resolve technical problems.

Inspiration came from the marketplace. Policy-makers observed widespread, business-initiated e-solutions to consumption tax compliance problems in a wide spectrum of jurisdiction. There …