Law Commons^™

Rise Of The Digital Regulator, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

The administrative state is leveraging algorithms to influence individuals’ private decisions. Agencies have begun to write rules to shape for-profit websites such as Expedia and have launched their own online tools such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mortgage calculator. These digital intermediaries aim to guide people toward better schools, healthier food, and more savings. But enthusiasm for this regulatory paradigm rests on two questionable assumptions. First, digital intermediaries effectively police consumer markets. Second, they require minimal government involvement. Instead, some for-profit online advisers such as travel websites have become what many mortgage brokers were before the 2008 financial crisis. …

Trump & Vat: Nafta, Trade Barriers & Retaliatory Tariffs, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

During the first presidential debate President-elect Donald J. Trump argued that the value added tax (VAT) operated as a trade barrier to American business everywhere. He particularly pointed to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico was a special concern. China was also a concern, but in this instance Trump was troubled both by China’s VAT and by China’s alleged currency manipulation.

This paper can only consider the VAT aspect of Trump’s trade policy. There appears to be some confusion about the operation of the VAT, particularly the border adjustment mechanism, and how US tariffs could “level the playing …

Blockchain, Bitcoin, And Vat In The Gcc: The Missing Trader Example, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Musaad Alwohaibi

Faculty Scholarship

Blockchain is coming to tax administration and will cause fundamental change. This article considers the potential for blockchain technology as it applies to the introduction of a value added tax in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Blockchain technology disrupts centralized ledgers. Blockchain improves efficiency, security and transparency. Perhaps no centralized ledger system presents more challenges than that of the modern tax administration. The central data storage system of a modern tax authority contains all return, payment, and audit activity for all taxpayers arranged tax-by-tax for three years or longer periods of time.

It is likely that blockchain will come first to …