Law Commons^™

Ebay's Second Life: When Should Virtual Earnings Bear Real Taxes?, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Millions of people participate in virtual worlds. The popular virtual world Second Life is designed to be a platform for commerce. This essay argues that profits received in the form of Linden dollars (Second Life's currency) should be taxed in much the same way profits received via PayPal, a widely used electronic-payment system, are. Although Second Life profits could instead be taxed once the taxpayer cashes out, that would create a special exception for Second Life that does not exist for platforms such as eBay, which would facilitate abuse and distort economic activity.

Risks, Rents And Regressivity Revisited, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This article seeks to survey the debate in the United States about whether the tax base should be income or consumption, and then focus on some recent arguments that have been made in favour of a consumption tax. In the author's opinion, none of these arguments are convincing, and he would favour adopting a consumption tax in addition to, and not in lieu of, the existing income tax.

Tax Penalties And Tax Compliance, Michael Doran

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper examines the relationship between tax penalties and tax compliance. Conventional accounts, drawing from deterrence theory and norms theory, assume that the relationship is purely instrumental--that the function of tax penalties is solely to promote tax compliance. This paper identifies another aspect of the relationship that generally has been overlooked by the existing literature: the function of tax penalties in defining tax compliance. Tax penalties determine the standards of conduct that satisfy a taxpayer's obligations to the government; they distinguish compliant taxpayers from non-compliant taxpayers. This paper argues that tax compliance in a self-assessment system should require the taxpayer …

Tax Policy Challenges, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

In 1995, when the late, great Jack Nolan asked me to deliver the inaugural lecture in honor of Larry Woodworth, I was both honored and flattered. I had come to know Larry Woodworth beginning in 1969, when I was a rookie treasury tax policy staffer. At that time, he had already served the Joint Committee on Taxation for 25 years and had been the third Chief of Staff in its history beginning as chief of staff in 1964. Larry Woodworth was not only as knowledgeable about the tax law as anyone you would ever hope to meet, and as savvy …

Closing The International Tax Gap Via Cooperations, Not Competition, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Book Chapters

All three major goals of the Volcker task force — reducing tax evasion and loopholes, simplifying the code, and reducing corporate welfare — can be advanced by focusing on the international aspects of the tax gap. These aspects include both enforcement of existing U.S. law on U.S. residents earning income overseas (the evasion issue) and reforming deferral for U.S.-based multinational enterprises (the avoidance issue). To best advance the task force’s three goals, I would propose a change in each of these two major international areas.

How Globalization Affects Tax Design, James R. Hines Jr., Lawrence H. Summers

Articles

The economic changes associated with globalization tighten financial pressures on governments of high-income countries by increasing the demand for government spending while making it more costly to raise tax revenue. Greater international mobility of economic activity, and associated responsiveness of the tax base to tax rates, increases the economic distortions created by taxation. Countries with small open economies have relatively mobile tax bases; as a result, they rely much less heavily on corporate and personal income taxes than do other countries. The evidence indicates that a ten percent smaller population in 1999 is associated with a one percent smaller ratio …

Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst

Articles

The current system of taxing the income of multinational firms in the United States is flawed across multiple dimensions. The system provides an artificial tax incentive to earn income in low-tax countries, rewards aggressive tax planning, and is not compatible with any common metrics of efficiency. The U.S. system is also notoriously complex; observers are nearly unanimous in lamenting the heavy compliance burdens and the impracticality of coherent enforcement. Further, despite a corporate tax rate one standard deviation above that of other OECD countries, the U.S. corporate tax system raises relatively little revenue, due in part to the shifting of …

Tax Policy, Rational Acts, And Other Myths, Leo P. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tax Collection: Procedure And Strategies, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

No abstract provided.

Chapter 11, Section 10, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Role Of The Oecd In Developing International Tax Norms, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

On September 8–9, 2008, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) held a Special Conference commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the OECD Model Tax Convention (“Model Convention” or “Model”). The Conference was attended by over 650 participants from the private sector and the government, representing over 100 countries. Both the level of participation and the geographical diversity represented at the conference would seem concrete evidence of the perceived importance of the role of the OECD in developing international tax norms. In his remarks opening the conference, the OECD Secretary General noted that the success of the OECD Model was …

Handling A Case With Potential Criminal Problems, Including Dealing With Nonfilers, T. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

No abstract provided.

Leaving Money On The Table And Providing An Incentive Not To Pay -- The Story Of A Flawed Collection Device, Temple K. Fogg

T. Keith Fogg

As of September 30, 2007, the IRS had $282-billion of unpaid assessments on its books. Of that amount $58-billion, over 20 percent, represents the unpaid payroll taxes due from employers. The majority of payroll taxes due from employers results from income and social security taxes collected by the employer and held in trust for the government. Internal Revenue Code section 6672 ("6672") gives the government the right to pierce the corporate veil to pursue collection of these payroll taxes. Because it creates personal liability, 6672 can serve as a powerful tool in the fight against the growing tax gap.

Unfortunately, …

What Is Wrong With Tax Evasion?, Stuart Green

Stuart Green

This talk, originally delivered at a University of Houston symposium on tax crimes, asks why the norms that underlie our laws against tax evasion are so seemingly unstable. Ten reasons are offered: (1) tax evasion is difficult to distinguish from tax avoidance, (2) the conduct that underlies the crime of tax evasion is complex, (3) choate and inchoate liability are conflated, (4) a heightened mens rea of "willfulness" is required, (5) the level of enforcement is low, (6) enforcement practices are arbitrary and uneven, (7) criminal and civil violations are not clearly distinguished, (8) there is a sense that "everyone …

It Down And Count The Cost:" A Framework For Constitutionally Enforcing The 501(C)(3) Campaign Intervention Ban, Benjamin Leff

Benjamin Leff

I.R.C. § 409a And The Small Business, Michael Hussey

Michael Hussey

No abstract provided.

The Gap In The Employment Tax Gap, Richard Winchester

Richard Winchester

No abstract provided.