Accounting Law Commons^™

Zappers And Phantomware: The Need For Fraud Prevention Technology, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

There is a demand-market for technology that facilitates tax fraud. By all accounts the providers in this market are working in a growth industry.

In the short term this is bad news for those concerned with tax policy and information privacy. In the long term however, the fight against technology-assisted fraud is stimulating the development of a more robust technology base within tax administrations, and this is good news for those who believe that a sophisticated technological infrastructure is needed to resolve difficult questions of tax design.

This paper focuses on two technology-accelerants of SME tax fraud - zappers and …

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 …

It-Apas: Harmonizing Inconsistent Transfer Pricing Rules In Income Tax - Customs - Vat, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In most jurisdictions there are three separate spheres of transfer pricing analysis - income tax, customs and VAT. Although they share policy objectives, terminology and frequently borrowing methodologies from one another these domestic transfer pricing systems are not in harmony.

Businesses find this lack of harmony costly, problematical, but also a planning opportunity. The door is open for arbitrage.

What if the transfer pricing rules within a jurisdiction were harmonized? The World Customs Organization (WCO) and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are considering this question.

This paper synthesizes the range of transfer pricing regimes currently in use, …

Car Flipping In The U.K.: The Vat Fraud Marketplace And Certified Solutions, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud and its offspring carousel fraud and contra trading fraud are siphoning huge amounts of VAT revenue from the UK Treasury. This fraud is not a function of the goods involved. It is a function of the market-place. Recently another type of market-place dependent VAT fraud has taken hold in the UK - car-flipping.

In some instances the market-place where these frauds festers is a pre-existing or natural market-place, one that grows out of legitimate commercial practices. Fraudsters enter this market-place (so the argument goes) and take advantage of legitimate businesses who unwittingly get caught up …

Taxing Services Under The Eu Vat And Japanese Consumption Tax: A Comparative Assessment Of New Eu Place Of Taxation Rules For Services And Intangibles, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Place of taxation rules are the seminal cross-jurisdictional provisions of any consumption tax regime. They determine where among competing jurisdictions a particular service is taxed. They are not important for transactions that are restricted to a single jurisdiction and to businesses or individuals belonging to that jurisdiction. However, when two or more jurisdictions are involved, these are the essential tools for revenue allocation and avoidance of double taxation.

It is therefore of considerable importance to Japanese businesses and consumers when the European Union (EU) undertakes a wholesale revision of the place of supply rules for services and intangibles. The European …

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 …

Carousel Fraud In The Eu: A Digital Vat Solution, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Recent reports from the UK's Office for National Statistics estimate (as of May 11, 2006) that Missing Trader Intra-community Fraud (MTIC) may exceed 10 billion pounds this year.

Carousel fraud, a variant of MTIC where the same goods are sold over and over again, exploits the lingering non-certified, non-digital attributes of the EU VAT. The UK believes that carousel fraud cost the Exchequer between 1.12 and 1.9 billion pounds in the 2004-05 financial year. This article proposes that carousel fraud be eliminated in the EU through selective insertion of Digital VAT functionality into the present system. In other words, it …

The Digital Vat (D-Vat), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The most sustained U.S. tax policy debate of the past 30 years concerns proposals to replace and/ or supplement the Federal Income Tax with a consumption tax. Public finance economists and legal tax policy scholars challenged and defended the current income tax system on grounds of fairness, efficiency, and simplicity.

This debate over revamping the national taxing scheme has not been argued purely in the academic forum. Concrete legislative proposals have been advanced for a national retail sales tax, a European-style Value Added Tax, as well as a whole host of what David Bradford calls "the two-tiered consumption taxes."

From …

Digital Vat And Development: D-Vat And D-Velopment, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This article suggests that the time is right for developing countries to consider adopting a comprehensive, fully digital VAT, (complete with certified software and trusted third party intermediaries who could assume all of the taxpayer's VAT responsibilities) within the limited group of enterprises encompassed by the large taxpayer group.

Since the e-commerce revolution began in the 1990's, tax policy discussions in developed economies have enlisted "e-solutions" to streamline consumption tax administration, as well as to resolve technical problems.

Inspiration came from the marketplace. Policy-makers observed widespread, business-initiated e-solutions to consumption tax compliance problems in a wide spectrum of jurisdiction. There …

The One-Stop-Shop For Vat And Rst: Common Approaches To Eu-U.S. Consumption Tax Issues, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In March 2004 the European Commission solicited comments on a proposal to simplify value added tax (VAT) obligations through a one-stop scheme. The proposal was modest in scope. It was designed to build upon the success of a similar scheme that dealt with non-EU established persons supplying digital products to non-taxable EU persons. That scheme is found in Article 26c of the Sixth VAT Directive.

In its March Consultation Paper the Commission proposed that businesses established within the EU be allowed to participate in a one-stop scheme that would be similar to the Article 26c scheme. Limited to B2C transactions, …

Global Changes In Regulating Corporate Auditors: A Comparative Assessment, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Auditor independence was a global concern of financial regulators in the 1990's. Some observers saw this in a positive light, a natural development. Adjusting auditor independence rules was a manifestation of global convergence in corporate governance structures. New rules, especially rules leaning toward a harmonized system were welcome.

There was a more sobering view. This view held that global regulators were less concerned with convergence than they were with a sense of impending disaster. Things had gone too far. Significant, maybe even radical change was needed. The independence of corporate auditors had eroded; trust had been fundamentally compromised in the …

Who's The Boss? Controlling Auditor Incentives Through Random Selection, David B. Kahn, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

It took the promise of knowledge to get Eve to yield to temptation. For people outside the Garden of Eden, money often does the job nicely. The U.S. capital markets are the locus of an enormous amount of money-and therefore of an enormous temptation for people who provide financial information to those markets to skew the reporting process to promote their own interests. The risk and potential consequences of skewed financial reporting are matters of grave concern.

Progress Report On Securities Law Harmonization, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Can Be Done About Stock Market Volatility, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

Volatility is as old as the financial markets. The bull market of 1986 and the crash that followed in 1987 were but the latest of periodic market gyrations that started with the South Sea Bubble and the Lombard Street run on commercial paper and have continued ever since.' Volatility in the financial markets would not be very important if market activity simply mirrored economic activity. Volatility would be much less important if the markets moved independently of the economy. But if we believe, as I do, that the markets and the economy are interdependent, and that their volatility is generally …

Accountable Accountants: Is Third-Party Liability Necessary?, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Should accountants be liable to third parties if they conduct an audit in negligent manner? A half century ago, in Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, Niven & Co., Cardozo argued that they should not, unless their performance could be characterized as fraud. In recent years, courts in a minority of jurisdictions have concluded that Cardozo's argument is no longer compelling and they have found that "foreseeable" third parties could bring a tort action for ordinary negligence against the accountants. In addition to being subject to tort actions, accountants may also be liable under federal and state securities laws.

Suits against …

A Delicate Assignment: The Regulation Of Accountants By The Sec, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Implications Of Minority Interest And Stock Restrictions In Valuing Closely-Held Shares, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The federal estate and gift taxes levy on the gratuitous transfer of wealth by both testamentary and lifetime disposition. The amount of the tax depends on the value placed on the property transferred by the decedent or donor. When the property transferred consists of shares of stock in a closely held corporation, there often exists no ready market to help in valuation. As a result, the value of the shares used to compute the federal estate or gift tax must be determined first by appraising the value of the enterprise, and then by allocating some portion of that value to …

Another Word On Child Care, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

Professors Schaffer and Berman have written a stimulating brief in support of a deduction for child care expenses in computing federal taxable income. But, in addition, by the range of considerations which their article takes into account, it illustrates the difficulty in opting for deductibility or nondeductibility on the basis of a rational consideration of income tax policies. The difficulty derives primarily from the fact that child care expenditures partake of both a personal (consumption) element and a business (income earning) element.¹ To the extent it represents the latter, it does not represent personal income appropriately subject to tax; …

Deductibility Of Expenses For Child Care And Household Services: New Section 214, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

It is increasingly common to find families composed of husband, wife and young children, where both husband and wife are gainfully employed. For some, this pattern is regarded as preferable to the older "ideal" family, where the husband was the sole breadwinner and the wife cared for the children, performed household chores and perhaps engaged in social or charitable activities. Where both spouses are gainfully employed, it is often necessary for the family to employ household help to care for the children and do the housework. These expenditures are "necessary" to the gainful employment of both spouses in the sense …