Tax Law Commons^™

Toward A 21st-Century International Tax Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing

Articles

The international tax regime is almost a century old, and it is showing its age. In recent decades, the regime could be maintained despite increasing evidence that some of its key components, such as the arm’s-length standard or permanent establishment threshold, were unfit for a 21st-century economy. However, starting with the U.K. diverted profits tax (2015), Australia’s multinational anti-tax-avoidance law (2015), and India’s equalization levy (2016), it has become clear that many countries are unwilling to live with a situation in which large U.S. technology companies (such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Netflix) earn billions in profits by exploiting …

Executive Compensation In The Charitable Sector: Beyond The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act, Lauren Rogal

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (“TCJA”) reformed charity executive compensation for the first time in decades, introducing an across-the-board excise tax on compensation over $1 million.1 Its enactment represents a significant step toward securing accountability for the use of the charitable tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. These organizations receive preferential tax treatment to subsidize their provision of socially beneficial outputs that would otherwise be undersupplied. Overcompensation of charity executives subverts this purpose by diverting those subsidies for private gain and undermining public confidence in the charitable sector.

With the enactment of the …

The Superiority Of The Digital Service Tax Over Significant Digital Presence Proposals, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

Responding to calls for reallocating taxing rights over multinationals’ profits to reflect the place of user value creation, the OECD recently announced a Program of Work to implement international tax reform. I use the European Commission’s 2018 proposal to introduce the “significant digital presence” concept into income tax treaties as an example of the type of approach the OECD favors, and argue that it is inferior to recently proposed digital services taxes (DSTs). DSTs directly address the question of where profits should be allocated and taxed, while SDP proposals subordinate this vital question to superfluous treaty conventions. Global tax coordination …

Foreword, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Michelle L. Drumbl, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Tax Clinic at W&L Law, introduces this issue of the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, which includes material presented at and inspired by the Journal's 2018 symposium, Always with Us? Poverty, Taxes, and Social Policy.

A Typology Of Place-Based Investment Tax Incentives, Michelle D. Layser

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Article makes several contributions to tax, poverty, and empirical legal literature. First, it defines the category of place-based investment tax incentives and identifies key elements of variation across the category. Despite their prevalence at all levels of government, place-based investment tax incentives remain undertheorized and largely undefined in the literature. The typology presented here reflects an analysis of three federal tax incentives (the New Markets Tax Credit, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and the new Opportunity Zones law) and a detailed survey of tax incentives included in state enterprise zone laws. By defining this category of tax laws and …

Converging Welfare States: Symposium Keynote, Susannah Camic Tahk

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Susannah Camic Tahk, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, speaks to the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice 2018 symposium, Always with Us? Poverty, Taxes, and Social Policy. She addresses the following questions: To what extent do the particular advantages of the tax antipoverty programs persist as the tax antipoverty programs take center stage? Can tax programs, once distinguished from their direct-spending counterparts on the grounds of relative popularity and legal and administrative ease of access maintain those hallmarks as the tax-based welfare state grows …

Stabilizing “Pillar One”: Corporate Profit Reallocation In An Uncertain Environment, Itai Grinberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper is about how the world reestablishes international tax order.

The paper focuses on the OECD’s work on profit reallocation and asks whether this multilateral effort can be successful in stabilizing the international tax system. The analysis centers on the current leading concepts for reallocating profit among jurisdictions under what is known as “Pillar One” of the OECD work programme. To analyze whether any Pillar One concept can be turned into a stable multilateral regime, it is necessary to specify certain elements of what a proposal to reallocate profits might entail. Accordingly, this paper sets out two strawman proposals. …

Equal Protection Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Money That Costs Too Much: Regulating Financial Incentives, Kristen Underhill

Indiana Law Journal

Money may not corrupt. But should we worry if it corrodes? Legal scholars in a range of fields have expressed concern about “motivational crowding-out,” a process by which offering financial rewards for good behavior may undermine laudable social motivations, like professionalism or civic duty. Disquiet about the motivational impacts of incentives has now extended to health law, employment law, tax, torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and beyond. In some cases, the fear of crowding-out has inspired concrete opposition to innovative policies that marshal incentives to change individual behavior. But to date, our fears about crowding-out have been unfocused and amorphous; …

Feminist Statutory Interpretation, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Leading Canadian scholar Ruth Sullivan describes the act of statutory interpretation as a mix of art and archaeology. The collection, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, affirms her assessment. If the act of statutory interpretation requires us to deploy our interdisciplinary talents, at least somewhat unmoored from the constraints of formal expressions of legal doctrine, why haven’t feminists been more inclined to write about statutory interpretation? Put another way, some scholars acknowledge that judges “are subtly influenced by preconceptions, endemic privilegings and power hierarchies, and prevailing social norms and ‘conventional’ wisdom.” Those influences become the background for how judges read legislation. …

Safeguarding Democracy In Europe: A Bulwark Against Hungary’S Subversion Of Civil Society, Hannah J. Sarokin

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Spurred in large part by a mounting humanitarian crisis in Syria, the 2015 migrant crisis exposed deeply rooted fractures within the European Union regarding refugee resettlement. While the European Union worked to develop a synchronized response to the influx of refugees and asylees, Hungary defiantly sought to close its borders. In doing so, the Hungarian government targeted not only those seeking refuge, but its own civil society. In a series of opaque and overtly punitive legislative acts passed in the summer of 2018, Hungary criminalized any civil society activities that facilitate or assist with immigration. This Note will analyze the …

A Budgetary Life Raft: An Analysis Of Louisiana's State And Local Sales Tax, Hayden O. Bigby

Louisiana Law Review

The article discusses the state and local sales taxes in Louisiana, including their history, functions in local government administration, as well as the exemptions and exclusions.

India's New Profit Attribution Proposal And The Arm's-Length Standard, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Ajitesh Kir

Articles

A recent Indian public consultation document on amending India’s rules for profit attribution to permanent establishments represents the first time a national government has proposed abandoning the arm’s-length standard. In this article, the authors discuss that document, as well as the OECD’s recent consideration of using formulas to allocate profits to market jurisdictions, and they ponder whether those developments indicate a larger movement away from the arm’s-length standard in favor of a unitary tax system.

Defining Fishing, The Slippery Seaweed Slope, Ross V. Acadian Seaplants Ltd., Rebecca P. Totten

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In Maine, the intertidal zone has seen many disputes over its use, access, and property rights. Recently, in Ross v. Acadian Seaplants, Ltd., the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that rockweed seaweed in the intertidal zone is owned by the upland landowner and is not part of a public easement under the public trust doctrine. The Court held harvesting rockweed is not fishing. This case will impact private and public rights and also the balance between the State's environmental and economic interests. This Comment addresses the following points: first, the characteristics of rockweed and the …

Should The United States Adopt Crs?, Noam Noked

Michigan Law Review Online

The United States' one-sided approach to tax transparency might lead to an unprecedented clash with the European Union (EU) in the near future. In light of the EU's deadline for the United States, the U.S. Treasury and Congress should urgently engage in a discussion on whether the United States should adopt the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for automatic exchange of financial account information. A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office considered this issue and did not recommend adopting CRS. This Essay discusses the contents of the report, as well as important considerations that were left out of the …

Pandora's Box Enters The Batter's Box: How The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act's Unintended Consequence Places Mlb, And All North American Leagues, In Tax Chaos, Kari Smoker, Alan Pogroszewski, Kyle Stich, Kevin Arnold

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Giving Taxpayer Rights A Seat At The Table, Leslie Book

Faculty Publications

How can Congress’s codification of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR) make a meaningful difference in tax administration? This question will likely confront academics, policymakers, and judges in the coming years. In late 2015, Congress codified the rights that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) administratively adopted in 2014, explicitly requiring that the Commissioner ensure that IRS employees receive training and act in accord with the codified rights. A recent article by Professors Alice Abreu and Richard Greenstein refers to the codification of TBOR as having the power to “transform the tax practice and the relationship between taxpayers and the IRS.” …

Collaboration Theory And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Eric C. Chaffee

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article argues that aggressive corporate tax avoidance is legally impermissible based upon the essential nature of the corporate form. The history of the debate over the essential nature of the corporation is substantial. This debate has been reinvigorated by the Supreme Court’s recent opinions, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which explore the scope of corporate rights.

Amazon Goldcrest Project And The Relevance Of Comparability Analysis Under The Arm's Length Principle, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The arm’s length principle, which has long been the guiding rule in the area of transfer pricing, in recent years is increasingly challenged. One of the focus points of discussion is the comparability analysis of intra-group and independent transactions. Especially intangibles do not lend themselves to such analysis, because they are unique in a way that does not match with existent market equilibria. The analysis of the Amazon case in this article reflects this argument.

What A Long Strange Trip It’S Been For The 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax, Ausher M.B. Kofsky, Bryan P. Schmutz

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Tax Lawyers As Tax Insurance, Heather M. Field

William & Mary Law Review

Transactional tax lawyers, by rendering tax opinions, provide a version of insurance to clients. This insurance is clearly incomplete, but by providing a tax opinion, a lawyer conditionally agrees to indemnify the client for at least part of the potential loss the client incurs if the favorable tax treatment described in the opinion is successfully challenged. Although insurance is not the primary function of transactional tax lawyers, and although this Article does not argue that tax opinions should be regulated as insurance, indemnification—a key element of insurance—is an important part of the economic relationship between a client and a lawyer …

If Not Now, When? Us Tax Treaties With Latin America After Tcja, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Since the 1990s, the US tax treaty network has expanded to include most large developing countries. However, there remains a glaring exception: The US only has two tax treaties in Latin America (Mexico and Venezuela), and one pending tax treaty (Chile). The traditional explanation for why the US has no treaty with, for example, Argentina or Brazil is the US refusal since 1957 to grant tax sparing credits to developing countries. Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), this explanation was wrong, because the combination of deferral and cross-crediting meant that tax holidays in a source country …

Taxation In The Cyber Age: The Future Of Wayfair, Hasmik Hmayakyan

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Comment aims to act as a guiding source for potential issues that will arise from South Dakota v. Wayfair, which was decided in August 2018. The Wayfair decision changed the long-held requirement that states can only collect sales taxes from sellers that have a physical presence within the state.

Under Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, the Supreme Court put forth a test that states must meet if they wish to collect a sales tax from sellers. One of the prongs of this test allows a state to collect a sales tax from a seller if the seller has …

Does Customary International Tax Law Exist?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Customary international law is law that “results from a general and consistent practice of states followed by them from a sense of legal obligation.” “International agreements create law for states parties thereto and may lead to the creation of customary international law when such agreements are intended for adherence by states generally and are in fact widely accepted.” Does customary international law (CIL) exist in tax? There are over 3,000 bilateral tax treaties, and they are about 80% identical to each other, but do they create CIL that binds in the absence of a binding treaty, like for example the …

Investing In A Qualified Opportunity Fund: A Viable Alternative To A Section 1031 Drop-Swap Cash-Out, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit: History And Analysis, Andrew Boardman

Senior Honors Projects

This paper offers a comprehensive political history of the Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and an analysis of Rhode Island EITC recipients. It explores the history of the Rhode Island EITC, an income subsidy available to low-income workers, from its introduction in 1975 through 2018. It details the forces behind expansions and reforms and the effects of those changes. It also analyzes microdata to construct a profile of current EITC recipients. This paper concludes that the Rhode Island EITC has historically been viewed as both a poverty alleviation program and an incentive for labor market work. The Rhode …

Taxation And Human Rights: A Delicate Balance, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Gianluca Mazzoni

Book Chapters

This chapter assesses the appropriate balance between strengthening tax revenue collection tools to ensure states have adequate resources to meet their human rights obligations, and protecting taxpayer rights to privacy and data security. On the one hand, the ability of rich residents of developing countries and multinational corporations operating in those countries to evade or avoid taxation is directly linked to violations of human rights in those countries, especially from the perspective of social and economic rights like health and education. Providing such countries with the means to fight back and collect adequate revenues is essential in advancing such rights. …

Investing In A Qualified Opportunity Fund: A Viable Alternative To A Section 1031 Drop-Swap Cash-Out, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Aba Rpte Conservation Easement Task Force Report: Recommendations Regarding Conservation Easements And Federal Tax Law, W. William Weeks, Turney Berry, Jonathan G. Blattmachr, Jason E. Havens, Nancy A. Mclaughlin, James Slaton, Steve Swartz, Philip Tabas

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In October 2015, the American Bar Association’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law (RPTE) section convened a Conservation Easement Task Force. The objective of the Task Force was to provide recommendations regarding federal tax law as it relates to conservation easements. This Report is the culmination of the Task Force’s work.

Part I of the Report is an Executive Summary of the Task Force’s recommendations. Part II provides the background necessary to understand the Task Force’s recommendations. Part III briefly sets forth the Task Force’s comments on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 as it relates to charitable …

Max's Taxes: A Tax-Based Analysis Of Pet Trusts, Gerry W. Beyer, Jonathan P. Wilkerson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.