Law Commons^™

Current Tax Reading, Robin Boadway, Kim Brooks, Jinyan Li, Alan Macnaughton

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Canadian Tax Journal publishes research in, and informed comment on, taxation and public finance, with particular relevance to Canada. To this end, the journal invites interested parties to submit manuscripts for possible publication as peer-reviewed articles, and it especially welcomes work that contributes to the analysis, design, and implementation of tax policies.

Current Tax Reading, Robin Boadway, Kim Brooks, Jinyan Li, Alan Macnaughton

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Canadian Tax Journal publishes research in, and informed comment on, taxation and public finance, with particular relevance to Canada. To this end, the journal invites interested parties to submit manuscripts for possible publication as peer-reviewed articles, and it especially welcomes work that contributes to the analysis, design, and implementation of tax policies.

Legislated Interpretation And Tax Avoidance In Canadian Income Tax Law, David G. Duff, Benjamin Alarie

All Faculty Publications

Predictable statutory interpretation helps ensure the reliable operation of contemporary systems of taxation. Tax liabilities that are not clearly expressed and articulated by legislatures lead to over-reliance on litigation as a means to enforce and clarify legislative intent. For this reason, modern legislatures continually amend and draft new tax provisions, reformulating existing rules and introducing new ones to address ever-changing social and economic environments. Moreover, legislatures also respond with amendments directed at judicial decisions with which they disagree, as well as the transactions and arrangements at issue in these cases. As these amended and new rules are then subject to …

Gaars And The Nexus Between Statutory Interpretation And Legislative Drafting: Lessons For The U.S. From Canada, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Amir Pichhadze

Articles

Rules targeting specific known schemes are not the only tools available in the battle against tax avoidance. Legal systems also use measures that apply generally. The U.S. for example has tended to rely heavily on general doctrines. One such doctrine which is discussed in part 2 of this chapter is the “economic substance” doctrine. Yet as Xiong and Evans recently pointed out “although such judicial doctrines can be used to deal with various aspects of complicated tax abuse judges tended sometimes to limit and sometimes to enlarge the scope of jurisprudential interpretation leading to substantial uncertainty and risk.” One way …

Legitimate Expectations In Canada: Soft Law And Tax Administration, Sas Ansari, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter examines the relationship between legitimate expectations and soft law. In what circumstances can an agency’s guidelines create law — or at least legally enforceable expectations? At first glance, the answer would appear obvious. The key reason for developing soft law is to provide guidance and transparency as to the process (and sometimes the substance) of administrative action. Soft law by its nature gives rise to expectations. Whether those expectations, in turn, give rise to legal effects is decidedly less clear. In fact, this question has vexed Canadian administrative law. Nowhere are questions of soft law and legitimate expectations …

Registered Savings Plans And The Making Of Middle Class Canada: Toward A Performative Theory Of Tax Policy, Lisa Philipps

Articles & Book Chapters

Politicians across Canada’s political spectrum strive to position themselves as defenders of the middle class, and tax policy is a prime vehicle for making this pitch. Any tax reform proposal can be examined critically to evaluate its likely distributional impacts and how well these map onto specific definitions of the middle class. This article attempts, however, a different project. Drawing on the ideas of Judith Butler, it analyzes instead how tax policy produces middle-class identity through the very process of claiming to advance middle-class interests. The case study for this purpose is the rise of tax incentives for saving as …

Decentralizing Family: An Inclusive Proposal For Individual Tax Filing In The United States, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

The debate in the United States over individual versus joint federal income tax filing is at something of a crossroads. For decades, progressive - and, particularly, feminist - scholars have urged us to abolish the joint return in favor of individual filing. On the rare occasion when scholars have described what such an individual filing system might look like, the focus has been on the ways in which the traditional family must be accommodated in an individual filing system. These descriptions generally do not take into account - let alone remedy - the tax system’s ongoing failure to address the …

Carbon Taxation In British Columbia, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

Among alternative public policies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), environmental taxation represents a promising but often under-utilized approach-particularly in North America where the introduction of any new tax involves enormous political challenges. In Canada, however, British Columbia became the first North American jurisdiction to implement a consumption-based environmental tax specifically designed to reduce GHG emissions when BC's provincial government enacted a carbon tax effective July 1, 2008.

This paper provides a general overview and initial evaluation of British Columbia's carbon tax, explaining the background to the announcement of the tax in the Provincial Government's …

Justice Iacobucci And The 'Golden And Straight Metwand' Of Canadian Tax Law, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

The article examines the contributions of Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci in the Canadian tax jurisprudence. The traditional Anglo-Canadian and American judicial approaches to tax statutes was taken into account. Key information about significant tax decisions made by Iacobucci is presented. On the other hand, his judicial restraint and legislative supremacy was also evaluated.

Negotiated Sovereignty: Intergovernmental Agreements With American Indian Tribes As Models For Expanding First Nations’ Self-Government, David H. Getches

Publications

Constitutional issues related to First Nations sovereignty have dominated Aboriginal affairs in Canada for a considerable period. The constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal self-government has, however, received a setback with the recent failure of the Charlottetown Accord in October of 1992. Nonetheless, day-to-day issues must be accommodated, even while this more fundamental constitutional question remains unresolved. This paper illustrates the American experience with negotiated intergovernmental agreements between tribes and individual states. These agreements have, for example, resolved jurisdictional disputes over taxation, solid waste disposal, and law enforcement between state governments and tribal authorities. The author suggests that these intergovernmental agreements in …