Tax Law Commons^™

A New Framework For Taxing Cryptocurrencies, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Mohanad Salaimi

Articles

This article describes a proposal to tax cryptocurrencies based on their unique features.It argues that while various ways of earning or receiving crypto tokens (for example, mining in proof-of-work (PoW) protocols like bitcoin and staking in proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols like ether) generate taxable income, the tax results should take into account positive and negative externalities. It also claims that because of its volatility, crypto should not be taxed until tokens are exchanged for real-world items like fiat currency or goods and services. Finally, this article argues that when crypto tokens are exchanged for fiat currencies or goods and services, they …

Tax Harmony: The Promise And Pitfalls Of The Global Minimum Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Young Ran (Christine) Kim

Law & Economics Working Papers

The rise of globalization has become a double-edged sword for countries seeking to implement a beneficial tax policy. On one hand, there are increased opportunities for attracting foreign capital and the benefits that increased jobs and tax revenue brings to a society. However, there is also much more tax competition among countries to attract foreign capital and investment. As tax competition has grown, effective corporate tax rates have continued to be cut, creating a “race-to-the-bottom” issue.

In 2021, 137 countries forming the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS passed a major milestone in reforming international tax by successfully introducing the framework …

New Developments In Us Treaty Overrides, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

This note discusses the reservations added in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the US-Chile tax treaty and their implications for the treaty override debate.

Making Tax Law Work: Improvisation And Forgotten Taxpayers In Partnership Tax, Andrea Monroe

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

There is a growing awareness that federal tax law caters to a small number of wealthy and well-advised taxpayers without regard for the rest of the taxpaying public, and partnership tax is a prime example. This Article explains how complexity and indeterminacy have transformed partnership tax, harming millions of forgotten taxpayers who struggle to comply with their annual filing obligations. A root cause of this phenomenon is the professional culture among elite practitioners, policymakers, and scholars at the heart of the partnership tax system.

The most troublesome provisions of partnership tax are also its most fundamental—namely the allocation rules that …

Shining A Bright Light On The Color Of Wealth, A. Mechele Dickerson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans—and How We Can Fix It . By Dorothy A. Brown.

A New Framework For Digital Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Karen Sam

Law & Economics Working Papers

The international tax regime has wide implications for business, trade, and the international political economy. Under current law, multinational enterprises do not pay their fair share of taxes to market countries where profits are generated because market countries are only allowed to tax companies with a physical presence there. Digital companies, like Google and Amazon, can operate entirely online, thereby avoiding market country taxes. Multinationals can also exploit existing tax rules by shifting their profits to low-tax jurisdictions, thereby avoiding taxes in the residence country where their headquarters are located.

Recently, a global tax deal was reached to tackle these …

Taxing Nomads: Reviving Citizenship-Based Taxation For The 21st Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The COVID pandemic and the rise of zooming has increased the ability of many people (primarily the rich) to work remotely. This in turn has led to more people moving to other countries to benefit from the ability to work remotely while enjoying other benefits such as lower housing prices, a more leisurely lifestyle, and in some cases greater political stability. Many Americans have used their newfound freedom to move overseas, e.g., to Italy. They and others like them are the new nomads.

Such a move is not tax motivated because Italy has higher personal tax rates than the US. …

No New Tax Cuts? Examining The Rescue Plan's New State Tax Limits, Conor Clarke, Edward G. Fox

Law & Economics Working Papers

In this article, Clarke and Fox examine the American Rescue Plan Act’s restrictions on state tax cuts, arguing that the restrictions are a variation on more familiar maintenance-of-effort provisions. These provisions are common, and are designed to help ensure that federal grants supplement rather than supplant state spending by requiring the state to maintain its level of spending on a program. Clarke and Fox conclude that the Rescue Plan’s requirements create similar incentives, and argue that the similarity makes it more likely that the act’s tax provisions are consonant with the Constitution’s spending clause.

Dissertation Submitted To Satisfy The Requirements Of The S.J.D. Program, Itay Peer

SJD Dissertations

This dissertation consists of the following articles:

• The Need to Modernize the Personal Services Income Source Rule
• To Be or Not To Be an American - The Million Dollar Question
• The Need for an International Tax Reform - Taxation of US Headquartered Multinationals

Minimum Taxation In The United States In The Context Of Globe, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Mohanad Salaimi

Articles

The introduction of the minimum tax in Pillar II of the OECD/G20/IF framework was generally seen as a response to the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. The TCJA included both a minimum tax on outbound income (the Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income, or “GILTI”) and a minimum tax on inbound income (the Base Erosion Anti-Avoidance Tax, or “BEAT”). These were seen as the precursors to the IIR and the UTPR. Thus, unlike Pillar I which was perceived as a device to impose more tax on the U.S. digital giants, Pillar II was seen as more consistent with …

The Beat And The Bits: Can The United States Be Sued Over The Beat?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On December 21, 2020, the government of India announced that it will appeal an arbitration award of $5.6 billion issued in favor of Vodafone PLC by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague. The award resulted from the decision of India to impose capital gains tax on Vodafone (as withholding agent) for its acquisition of a Cayman Islands subsidiary from Hutchison, which held the Indian telecommunication assets of the Hong Kong-based Hutchison group. The Indian Supreme Court had decided that no tax was due, but the Indian government passed legislation to overturn that decision retroactively. This, the PCA …

The Parallel March Of The Ginis: How Does Taxation Relate To Inequality, And What Can Be Done About It?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The United States currently has one of the highest levels of inequality among industrialized economies. In addition, numerous scholars have shown that social mobility in the United States is significantly lower than it was in the period between 1945 and 1970, when inequality was declining. The combination of these trends is dangerous because it risks transforming the United States into a society where small elites capture most of the gains, a pattern in which growth cannot be sustained over time. The level of inequality in the United States after taxes and transfers are taken into account is much lower, but …

First Impressions Of The International Tax Provisions Of Bbb: A Reasonable Compromise., Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

U.S. critics of Pillar 2 of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/Inclusive Framework (IF) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) 2.0 project have focused on the impact of the Undertaxed Profits Rule (UTPR) on tax credits such as the ones included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science (CHIPS) Act. In fact, those credits are unlikely to be affected because they are refundable. But this raises a broader question of why the line between qualifying and non-qualifying credits should be drawn at refundability. This article addresses this question and …

A New Framework For Digital Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Karen Sam

Articles

The international tax regime has wide implications for business, trade, and the international political economy. Under current law, multinational enterprises do not pay their fair share of taxes to market countries where profits are generated because market countries are only allowed to tax companies with a physical presence there. Digital companies, like Google and Amazon, can operate entirely online, thereby avoiding market country taxes. Multinationals can also exploit existing tax rules by shifting their profits to low-tax jurisdictions, thereby avoiding taxes in the residence country where their headquarters are located.

Recently, a global tax deal was reached to tackle these …

A Different Way To Tax Stock Buybacks, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, Avi-Yonah reviews the Build Back Better Act, which would impose a 1 percent excise tax on corporate stock buybacks. He argues that while the measure is an effective way to raise revenue from high-income taxpayers, it will not address the main tax problem with buybacks: the tax exemption for foreign shareholders, which Congress should reconsider.

The New International Tax Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

On October 8, 2021, over 130 countries committed themselves to the most far-reaching changes in the international tax regime since its inception in 1923. Slated to begin on the anniversary year of 2023, this new regime (ITR 2.0) adopts significant changes from the old one (ITR 1.0). Specifically, ITR 2.0 eliminates the physical presence requirement and the arm’s length standard for a significant portion of the profits of large multinationals that have been essential elements of ITR 1.0 since the 1930s, in a way that is more consistent with ITR 1.0’s Benefits Principle (BP). ITR 2.0 also explicitly implements the …

Is The Net Investment Income Tax A Treaty Override? Reflections On Toulouse, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, AviYonah examines the U.S. Tax Court's judgment in Toulouse that the denial of foreign tax credits against the net investment income tax imposed by the Affordable Care Act was not a violation of U.S. tax treaties with France and Italy and its implications for whether the base erosion and antiabuse tax is a treaty override.

Individuals As "Employees" Or "Contractors": Why It Matters What You Are Called When It Comes To Federal Taxes, Robert Eisentrout

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

When we file federal taxes, our individual tax burdens are affected by whether our employers and the IRS classify us as “employees” or “contractors.” Today, that distinction is not a neat one. Classifying workers as “employees” or “contractors” belies increasing similarities—like the ability to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic—between those classifications. With those increasing similarities in mind, this Note makes two arguments about the employee / contractor distinction in federal tax law. First, federal tax law draws an increasingly arbitrary and unfair line between employees and contractors given the modern substantive convergence of work done as an “employee” or …

Taxation And Business: The Human Rights Dimension Of Corporate Tax Practices, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Book Chapters

The response of both developed and developing countries to global developments has been first, to shift the tax burden from (mobile) capital to (less mobile) labour, and second, when further increased taxation of labour becomes politically and economically difficult, to cut government services. Thus, globalization and tax competition lead to a fiscal crisis for countries that wish to continue to provide those government services to their citizens, at the same time that demographic factors and increased income inequality, job insecurity and income volatility that result from globalization render such services more necessary. This chapter argues that if government service programs …

International Tax Law- Status Quo, Trends And Perspectives, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

This chapter will argue that developments in the past decade have significantly bolstered the International Tax Regime, so that it does a much better job in protecting PIT and CIT from erosion due to cross-border tax evasion and avoidance than it did before 2010. Specifically, the adoption of FATCA and the consequent development of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEI) and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) have significantly protected PIT, while the OECD BEPS project has significantly improved CIT, especially if the current BEPS 2.0 effort is successfully concluded.

The International Tax Regime At 100: Reflections On The Oecd's Beps Project, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

This essay will consider the outcome of Pillars One and Two in light of the history of international taxation since the foundation of the international tax regime in 1923. Specifically, it will consider how Pillar One fits with efforts to redefine the source of active income in light of the digital revolution, and the ways in which Pillar Two implements the single tax principle, which can be traced back to the first model treaty from 1927. Both of those ideas were already articulated and developed in my own early writing on international taxation from the 1990s, when the Internet was …

The Case For Reviving The Corporate Amt, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, Avi-Yonah examines the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to revive the corporate alternative minimum tax as a 15 percent tax on corporate book income, and he argues that it is a sensible way to address some problems of the corporate tax system.

Has Tax Competition Been Curbed? Reaction To L.Ahrens, L. Hakelberg & T. Rixen, Reuven Avi-Yonah

Articles

This excellent article shows that contrary to the dire predictions of many observers, tax cooperation is still possible among OECD member countries and that such cooperation can overcome the trilemma of maintaining democracy, sustaining globalization and accepting some tax competition. Specifically, the authors show that in the realm of individual tax evasion, the advent of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEol) after the financial crisis of 2008-9 has enabled OECD countries to maintain a higher level of tax on capital than was possible before the crisis. This, in turn, enabled such countries to reduce inequality and maintain the social safety net …

Lecture In Human Rights: Tax Policy, Global Economics, Labor And Justice In Light Of Covid-19, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

International Tax Law has extensive ramifications on the wealth gap between wealthy developed nations and poor developing nations. This divide in prosperity has been made clear again in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Developing nations are currently ill-equipped to adapt to, and regulate, an equitable system of taxation on a domestic level. A further challenge is the difficulty of ensuring that foreign investors, especially multinational corporations, are able to comply with tax regulations. Developed nations such as the United States and members of the European Union must continue to work with developing nations to reduce tax evasion and …

The Ingenious Biden Tax Plan, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, the author considers the Biden administration’s Made in America Tax Plan, which would overhaul the corporate and international tax provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and represents a long-overdue effort to more fairly tax U.S.-based multinationals.

Stanley Surrey, The 1981 Us Model, And The Single Tax Principle, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Gianluca Mazzoni

Law & Economics Working Papers

2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1981 U.S. Model Tax Treaty as well as the 5th anniversary of the 2016 US Model Tax Treaty. The first author has repeatedly argued that the 1981 Model gave life to the single tax principle (“STP”). The 2016 Model updates effectively implemented the principle that cross-border income should be taxed once – that is not more and but also not less than once. For example, the 2016 Model does not reduce withholding taxes on payments of highly mobile income that are made to related persons that enjoy low or no taxation with respect …

Rebellion, Rascals, And Revenue: Pleasingly Gaudy And Preposterous, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod’s REBELLION, RASCALS AND REVENUE: TAX FOLLIES AND WISDOM THROUGH THE AGES (Princeton University Press, 2021) is a wonderful book, which should be read by any student of taxation. To most tax policy makers and academics, tax history may seem a bit arcane, because they believe that the study of taxation and especially public finance economics is a story of progress and that we know better how to design good tax systems than our ancestors. To this attitude, Keen and Slemrod offer a decisive rejoinder: We do not necessarily understand taxation better than our predecessors, and …

Tax Treaties, The Constitution, And The Noncompulsory Payment Rule, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

US Tax treaties have been regarded as self-executing since the first treaty (with France) was ratified in 1932. Rebecca Kysar has argued this raises a doubt on whether the treaties are constitutional, because tax treaties (like other treaties) are negotiated by the executive branch and ratified by the Senate with no involvement by the House, and all tax-raising measures must originate in the House under the Origination Clause (U.S. Const. Art I, section 7, clause 7). Her preferred solution is to make tax treaties non-self executing, but that would reverse the universal practice since 1932, and is therefore unlikely. Moreover, …

Federalizing Tax Justice, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Orli Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien, Hayian Xu

Articles

The United States is the only large federal country that does not have an explicit way to reduce the economic disparities among more and less developed regions. In Germany, for example, federal revenues are distributed by a formula that takes into account the relative level of wealth of each state (the so-called Finanzausgleich, or fiscal equalization). Similar mechanisms are found in Australia, Canada, India, and other large federal countries. The United States, on the other hand, has no such explicit redistribution. Each state is generally considered equal and sovereign, and the federal government does not distribute revenues to equalize …

The Us Taxpayer Bill Of Rights: Reflections On A Toddler, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

In the US the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR) is only seven years old, and moreover no successful challenge to the IRS under it has been brought so far. The following first describes the existing case law under the US TBOR. The main conclusion is that the US TBOR is a toddler with uncertain prospects. The article then offers some observations on the application of the TBOR to corporate taxpayers.