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Consumption Tax, Double Taxation And The Taxes And Levies (Approved List For Collection) Act (Amendment) Order 2015: The Lingering Labyrinth, Okanga Ogbu Okanga

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Nigeria has a long history of legal conflict on fiscal federalism. One dimension borders on who has the power to tax the consumption of goods and services. Although the Nigerian Constitution prescribes how taxing powers are to be exercised between the federal government and the federating units, controversy remains as to the extent of taxing powers exercisable by each tier of government. This is because, apart from the Constitution, a peculiar military-era statute, the “Taxes and Levies Act” prescribes what taxes each tier of government can collect and appears to circumscribe their constitutional taxing powers. The federal government and the …

The Known Unknowns Of The Business Tax Reforms Proposed In The House Republican Blueprint, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

In 2002, referring to Iraq and its relationship to terrorism, Donald Rumsfeld declared "that there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. We also know that there are known-unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things that we do not know, but there are also unknown-unknowns – the ones that we don't know we don't know."

A Technological Approach To Reforming Japan's Consumption Tax, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Significant change has been forecast for the Japanese Consumption Tax. Revenue needs are pressing, and the Consumption Tax appears to be underutilized. Should the rate be doubled from 5% to 10%, or more? If so, will rate increases necessitate further structural changes – recasting this annual credit-subtraction levy into a European style credit-invoice VAT? These options have not proven to be politically palatable, but they are directions that have been under active consideration.

On October 1, 2013 the Japanese Cabinet Office announced that the Consumption Tax would rise from 5% to 8% effective April 1, 2014. The rate will increase …

Zappers: Tax Fraud, Technology And Terrorist Funding, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

"Zappers," or automated sales suppression devices, have brought unheard of efficiencies and economies of scale to a very simple tax fraud - skimming cash sales at point of sale (POS) terminals (electronic cash registers). Until recently the largest tax fraud case in Connecticut, also the "largest computer driven tax-evasion case in the nation," was a zapper case. Stew Leonard's Dairy in Norwalk Connecticut skimmed $17 million in receipts and hid the cash in St. Martin (a Caribbean island). Talal Chahine and his wife, Elfat El Aouar, owners of the La Shish restaurant chain in Detroit Michigan have the dubious honor …

Digital Consumption Tax (D-Ct), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Modern technology is dramatically changing the way consumption taxes are collected, but it is also changing the way policymakers assess the operation and impact of these taxes. Whether the design is a standard credit-invoice value added tax (VAT) of European design, or a retail sales tax (RST) of American design, or the credit subtraction VAT without invoices type of consumption tax (CT) of Japanese design, technology is having a profound impact.

Government certified transaction software is in place in the United States. The Streamlined Sales Tax offers taxpayers in 18 states the option of having their retail sales tax determined …

The Taxing Power, The Sixteenth Amendment, And The Meaning Of ‘Incomes,’, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This article examines the debates leading to the enactment of the 1894 income tax, which the Supreme Court struck down in 1895, and the Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, and concludes that an income tax and a tax on consumption were understood to be fundamentally different types of taxes. The author argues that the term “taxes on incomes” in the Sixteenth Amendment should be interpreted with that distinction in mind. The Amendment was intended to make a “tax on incomes,” and only a tax on incomes, possible without the apportionment that would otherwise be required for a direct tax. For …

The Three Goals Of Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The current debate in the United States about whether the income tax should be replaced with a consumption tax has been waged on the traditional grounds for evaluating tax policy: efficiency, equity, and administrability. For example, Joseph Bankman and David Weisbach recently argued for the superiority of an ideal consumption tax over an ideal income tax on three grounds: First, that the consumption tax is more efficient because it does not discriminate between current and future consumption,' while both income and consumption taxes have identical effect on work effort. Second, that the consumption tax is at least as good at …

The Report Of The President's Advisory Panel On Federal Tax Reform: A Critical Assessment And A Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

ON November 1, 2005, The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform ("Panel") submitted its report ("Report") to the Secretary of the Treasury.1 At 272 pages, this is the most important and wide-ranging plan to reform the United States federal tax system since Blueprints for Basic Tax Reform (1977).2 While prospects for immediate action appear dim, the Report will no doubt be the basis of discussion of federal tax reform for a long time to come.

Tax Transitions, Opportunistic Retroactivity, And The Benefits Of Government Precommitment, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

What if the current federal income tax laws were repealed and replaced with a simple flat tax? What if the entire Internal Revenue Code (with its graduated rates and countless deductions, exclusions, and credits) were scuttled in favor of a broad-based consumption tax? Only a few years ago, such proposals would have seemed radical and extremely unlikely to be adopted. But times are changing. Calls for a drastic overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code have become commonplace, even at the highest levels in the tax-policy community. In addition, proposals that would replace the income tax with a flat-rate broad-based consumption …

The Taxation Of Borrowing, William D. Popkin

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.