Law Commons^™

Anonymous Withholding Agreements And The Future Of International Cooperation In Taxing Foreign Financial Accounts : Testimony Before The Finance Committee Of The German Bundestag, September 24, 2012 (Statement By Associate Professor Itai Grinberg, Geo. U. L. Center), Itai Grinberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Chairwoman Reinemund and members of the Finance Committee, this testimony will make three key points:

• Automatic information exchange is superior to anonymous withholding for the purpose of combating tax evasion involving the use of foreign financial accounts.

• German ratification of the Swiss-German anonymous tax withholding agreement would stifle the emergence of a multilateral automatic information exchange system. As a result, Germany would be less able to address its own concerns with tax evasion through foreign accounts over the medium term. By ratifying this agreement, Germany would also slow the development of a multilateral system that would allow many …

The Battle Over Taxing Offshore Accounts, Itai Grinberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The international tax system is in the midst of a contest between automatic information reporting and anonymous withholding models for ensuring that nations have the ability to tax offshore accounts. At stake is the extent of many countries’ capacity to tax investment income of individuals and profits of closely held businesses through an income tax in an increasingly financially integrated world.

Incongruent initiatives of the European Union, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Switzerland, and the United States together represent an emerging international regime in which financial institutions act to facilitate countries’ ability to tax their residents’ offshore …

The Use Of Voluntary Disclosure Initiatives In The Battle Against Offshore Tax Evasion, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The federal government has engaged in a number of well-publicized enforcement efforts in an attempt to collect back taxes owed on offshore bank account and other offshore assets. Among those efforts are special offshore “voluntary disclosure” initiatives — essentially tax amnesties — offered by the Internal Revenue Service. One such program closed in September 2011, and another opened in January 2012. After discussing the history of voluntary disclosure programs, particularly the offshore initiatives of 2003, 2009, 2011, and 2012, this essay evaluates the government’s approach to voluntary disclosure of offshore evasion in light of the literature on optimal tax amnesties. …