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 …

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.

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.

The Games They Will Play: Tax Games, Roadblocks, And Glitches Under The 2017 Tax Legislation, David Kamin, David Gamage, Ari Glogower, Rebecca Kysar, Darien Shanske, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Lily Batchelder, J. Clifton Fleming, Daniel Hemel, Mitchell Kane, David Miller, Daniel Shaviro, Manoj Viswanathan

Articles

The 2017 tax legislation brought sweeping changes to the rules for taxing individuals and business, the deductibility of state and local taxes, and the international tax regime. The complex legislation was drafted and passed through a rushed and secretive process intended to limit public comment on one of the most consequential pieces of domestic policy enacted in recent history. This Article is an effort to supply the analysis and deliberation that should have accompanied the bill’s consideration and passage, and describes key problem areas in the new legislation. Many of the new changes fundamentally undermine the integrity of the tax …

The Religious Roots Of The Progressive Income Tax In America, Joshua Cutler

Catholic University Law Review

I examine the debate over the first peacetime income tax in the United States in 1894 to investigate the role of religion in enacting the tax and providing moral legitimacy. I find that congressional proponents repeatedly and explicitly argued that a progressive income tax was a biblical tax that best conformed to Judeo-Christian teachings on economics and fundraising. I discuss the history of American religious fundraising practices, including the trend leading up to 1894 that advocated for proportionate giving of income as the best method of giving, as well as the related tithing movement. I document that congressional income tax …

Afterlife Of The Death Tax, Samuel D. Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

More than a century ago, Congress enacted the modern estate tax to help pay for World War I. Unlike previous iterations of the estate tax, though, this one outlived the war and accumulated additional goals beyond merely raising revenue. The estate tax helped ensure the progressivity of the tax system as a whole, and it limited the hereditary ability to accumulate wealth.

This modern estate tax almost instantly met with opposition, though. The opposition has never been sufficient to entirely eliminate the estate tax, but it has severely weakened its ability to raise revenue and to prevent the accumulation of …

Reworking The Revolution: Treasury Rulemaking & Administrative Law, David Berke

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

How administrative law applies to tax rulemaking is an open and contested question. The resolution of this question has high stakes for the U.S. tax system. The paradigm is shifting away from so-called “tax exceptionalism”—where Treasury action is considered effectively exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act (the “APA”) and related administrative law doctrines. This paradigm-shift is salutary. However, currently prevailing anti-exceptionalist theory—an administrative framework for tax that is rapidly gaining credence within both the federal judiciary and the legal academy—threatens to destabilize the U.S. tax system. This formalistic approach to administrative law in tax rulemaking has the potential to invalidate …

Tax Havens As Producers Of Corporate Law, William J. Moon

Michigan Law Review

A review of Christopher M. Bruner, Re-Imagining Offshore Finance: Market-Dominant Small Jurisdictions in a Globalizing Financial World.

Prop Up The Heavenly Chorus? Labor Unions, Tax Policy, And Political Voice Equality, Philip T. Hackney

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article contributes to the tax legal literature by providing an analysis of labor unions and how we tax them. Although labor unions as a whole are a very small part of our economy and tax system, by looking at one narrow section of the tax-exempt sector we can shed light on the rest of the exempt sector. Additionally, although most tax policy scholarship focuses on one of three values—equity in an economic sense, efficiency in an economic sense, and administrability—I focus primarily on the value of equity in a governance sense.

I argue that, at least in the …

Tax 2018: Requiem For Ability To Pay, Alice G. Abreu

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Enactment of the TCJA was followed by a mad dash to understand its effects. The speed and process of enactment left no time for serious attempts to analyze whether the TCJA transforms the income tax system in any fundamental way. This Essay is a first step in that analysis. Although some of the most important changes I discuss are set to expire or phase out after 2025, understanding their policy implications is important, not only because they are the law now but also because Congress may extend them, perhaps indefinitely.

The TCJA has changed the way the tax system operationalizes …

Charitable Subsidies And Nonprofit Governance: Comparing The Charitable Deduction With The Exemption For Endowment Income, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

Charitable subsidies are supposed to encourage positive externalities from charity. In principle, the government can pursue this goal by evaluating specific charitable initiatives and deciding how much each should receive. Although the government sometimes makes this sort of fine-grained judgment, this Article focuses on two income tax rules that leave the government essentially no discretion about which charities to fund: the deduction for donations to charity ("the deduction") and the exemption of a charity's investment income ("the exemption"). With each subsidy, federal dollars flow automatically as long as charities satisfy very general criteria.

As a result, these subsidies are especially …

Foreword – The 2017 Tax Cuts: How Polarized Politics Produced Precarious Policy, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

By lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, the 2017 tax legislation brought the U.S. statutory rate into closer alignment with the rates applicable in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, thereby decreasing the incentive for businesses to locate their deductions in the United States and their income abroad. Its overhaul of the U.S. international income tax rules simultaneously reduced preexisting incentives for U.S. multinationals to reinvest their foreign earnings abroad and put a floor on the benefits of shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. The 2017 legislation also added an unprecedented, troublesome lower rate for …

The International Implications Of Wayfair, Reuven Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, Avi-Yonah argues that the Court’s recent decision in Wayfair has implications for the EU’s struggle with taxing the digital economy, as well as for the broader international effort to update international tax rules for the 21st century — that is, it bolsters the argument for dispensing with the 19th-century permanent establishment concept.

Innovative Approach To Anti-Beps And The Coherence Of International Tax Law, Haiyan Xu

SJD Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three articles:

• Avi-Yonah, Reuven,. co-author. "Evaluating BEPS: A Reconsideration of the Benefits Principle and Proposal for UN Oversight." H. Xu, co-author. Harv. Bus. L. Rev. 6, no. 2 (2016): 185-238
• Reuven S. Avi-Yonah & Haiyan Xu, A Global Treaty Override? The New OECD Multilateral Tax Instrument and Its Limits, 39 Mich. J. Int'l L. 155 (2018).
• Avi-Yonah, Reuven S. "China and BEPS." Haiyan Xu, co-author. Laws 7, no. 1 (2018): 4-30.

Evaluating Beps, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Haiyan Xu

Articles

This article evaluates the recently completed Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project of the G20 and OECD and offers some alternatives for reform.

Problems With Destination-Based Corporate Taxes And The Ryan Blueprint, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly Clausing

Articles

With the election of Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s domination of Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s blueprint for fundamental tax reform requires more careful analysis. The Ryan blueprint combines reduced individual rates with a destination-based cash flow type business tax applicable to all businesses. The destination-based business tax at the center of the blueprint has several major problems: It is incompatible with our WTO obligations, it is incompatible with our tax treaties, and it will not eliminate the problems of income shifting and inversions it is designed to address. In addition, these proposals generate vexing technical problems that are …

Gaars And The Nexus Between Statutory Interpretation And Legislative Drafting: Lessons For The U.S. From Canada, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Amir Pichhadze

Articles

Rules targeting specific known schemes are not the only tools available in the battle against tax avoidance. Legal systems also use measures that apply generally. The U.S. for example has tended to rely heavily on general doctrines. One such doctrine which is discussed in part 2 of this chapter is the “economic substance” doctrine. Yet as Xiong and Evans recently pointed out “although such judicial doctrines can be used to deal with various aspects of complicated tax abuse judges tended sometimes to limit and sometimes to enlarge the scope of jurisprudential interpretation leading to substantial uncertainty and risk.” One way …

International Tax Avoidance -- Introduction, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Tax avoidance and evasion is a hot topic. On the evasion (illegal activity by individuals) front, the various leaks culminating in the Panama Papers have once again revealed the scope of evasion by the global elite. Gabriel Zucman conservatively estimated the annual revenue loss at $200 billion. On the tax avoidance (legal activity by corporations) front, the OECD BEPS project has estimated the scope of avoidance by multinationals at between $100 and $240 billion per year. By comparison, total US corporate tax revenues are about $400 billion per year. The articles in this volume reflect various aspects of these troubling …

Tax Cannibalization And Fiscal Federalism In The United States, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Northwestern University Law Review

We began this project pondering a riddle. Most state governments have adopted what we—and many others—view as clearly suboptimal tax policies, especially in regard to the taxation of corporate income and capital gains. Yet, with the notable exception of those who oppose progressivity and the taxation of capital, state-level tax policymakers have had remarkably little appetite for reform. This Article provides one major explanation for this riddle by identifying and demonstrating a phenomenon that we label as “tax cannibalization.” We argue that flawed state-level tax policies derive in part from perverse incentives inadvertently created by the federal government.

Tax Symposium: Introduction, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Journal of International Law

This issue of MJIL features four out of the many outstanding papers that were presented at a conference on Taxation and Citizenship held at Michigan Law in October 2015 and co-organized by Allison Christians and myself. The impetus for the conference was the realization that the unique U.S. practice of taxing its citizens on worldwide income, regardless of where they reside, has become a major flashpoint in the relationship between the United States and its citizens living overseas, and sometimes also between the United States and the country those citizens resided in.

Minimalism About Residence And Source, Wei Cui

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Article, I relate the discomfort with fundamental principles in taxing individuals’ worldwide income to a problem that has attracted greater attention in recent years: the assignment of geographical sources to income. I suggest that there is substantial similarity between critiques of residence rules (of which critiques of citizenship-based taxation are examples) and critiques of source rules. However, I argue that problematic residence and source rules are only symptoms, not causes, of unsatisfactory conceptual paradigms in international taxation. Many scholars portray source and residence rules as inadequate means for achieving purportedly given normative objectives in the age of intense …

Defining Residence For Income Tax Purposes: Domicile As Gap-Filler, Citizenship As Proxy And Gap-Filler, Edward A. Zelinsky

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this paper, I place the United States’ adherence to citizenship-based taxation in the context of the states’ tax systems. Forty-one states impose general income taxes on the worldwide incomes of their respective residents. These state tax systems are important repositories of experience that confirm the administrative benefits of citizenship-based taxation. Domicile today plays an important role in state tax systems as a gap-filler when more objective statutory residence laws fail to assign any state of residence to the taxpayer. Citizenship is an administrable proxy for domicile and serves a similar gap-filling role in the taxation of individuals whose income …

Citizenship Overreach, Peter J. Spiro

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article examines international law limitations on the ascription of citizenship and national self-definition. The United States is exceptionally generous in its extension of citizenship. Alone among the major developed states, it extends citizenship to almost all persons in its territory at the moment of birth. This birthright citizenship is constitutionally protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. At the same time that it is generous at the front end, U.S. citizenship is sticky at the back. Termination of citizenship on the individual’s part can involve substantial fees. Expatriation is contingent on tax compliance and, in some cases, will implicate the recognition …

A Global Perspective On Citizenship-Based Taxation, Allison Christians

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article contends that, with regard to individuals who reside permanently outside of the United States, the global assistance sought under FATCA to enforce U.S. income taxation solely on the basis of citizenship violates international law. It argues that insisting upon foreign cooperation with the FATCA regime, under threat of serious economic penalties, is inconsistent with universally accepted norms regarding appropriate limits to the state’s jurisdiction to tax, while also being normatively unjustified. Accordingly, FATCA should be rejected by all other nation states to the extent it imposes any obligations with respect to individuals who permanently reside outside of, and …

Tax Treatment Of A Marijuana Business, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Currently, twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes and permit the conduct of a business marketing of marijuana for that purpose. Eight of those states and the District of Columbia permit the recreational use of marijuana. There is reason to believe that more states will decriminalize the marketing of marijuana. However, marijuana is listed in Schedule 1 of the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA) which makes it illegal under federal law to manufacture or distribute marijuana even when it is legal to do so under local state law. In a …

The Mapmaker’S Dilemma In Evaluating High-End Inequality, Daniel Shaviro

University of Miami Law Review

The last thirty years have witnessed rising income and wealth concentration among the top 0.1% of the population, leading to intense political debate regarding how, if at all, policymakers should respond. Often, this debate emphasizes the tools of public economics, and in particular optimal income taxation. However, while these tools can help us in evaluating the issues raised by high-end inequality, their extreme reductionism—which, in other settings, often offers significant analytic payoffs—here proves to have serious drawbacks. This Article addresses what we do and don’t learn from the optimal income tax literature regarding high-end inequality, and what other inputs might …

From Avoiding ‘Double Taxation’ Yesterday To Avoiding ‘Double Non-Taxation’ Today: The Urgent Need For An International Tax Regime Based On Unitary Tax Principles, Zachée Pouga Tinhaga

SJD Dissertations

The purpose of this Dissertation is to analyze the current ills of the international tax system with a special focus on developing countries, and to structure and present a Unitary Taxation System (“UT”) as a solution to the legitimate and multifaceted complaints about current international taxation of multinational companies (“MNEs”). The research aims at presenting a UT that would restore credibility in the international tax arena by providing fiscal predictability and certainty to MNEs, and ensuring appropriate taxation by all countries (specifically developing nations) of all “real” economic activity within their borders. Although this issue has been previously explored, there …

Provisions Denying A Deduction For Illegal Expenses And Expenses Of An Illegal Business Should Be Repealed, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Currently, the tax law denies a deduction for business expenses that violate a federal or state law (but only if the state law is generally enforced). In addition, losses, including business losses, cannot be deducted if they arise out of an illegal activity. For example, medical expenses are denied a deduction if they are illegal. Kickbacks, bribes, and rebates given in connection with the Medicaid or Medicare program are nondeductible. Any expenses, legal or not, incurred in connection with the conduct of a business of selling a controlled substance that is prohibited by federal law (or by the law of …

Evaluating Beps: A Reconsideration Of The Benefits Principle And Proposal For Un Oversight, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Haiyan Xu

Articles

The Financial Crisis of 2008 and Great Recession that followed have exacerbated income inequality within and between countries. In the aftermath of the economic turbulence, politicians have turned their attention to the twin problems of individual tax evasion and corporate tax avoidance. U.S. legislators enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), leading to the United States signing a series of Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) for the exchange of tax information. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) developed the Multilateral Agreement for Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAATM) and initiated the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to …

Treaties In The Aftermath Of Beps, Yariv Brauner

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The article argues that, despite the fanfare around it, the outcome of the BEPS project is unlikely to be dramatic, at least in the short term. Beyond a period of increased legal uncertainty and aggressive enforcement by some countries, it expects little substantive change in tax treaties. The challenges to the dominance of the OECD and the richest countries would likely be assuaged with marginal concessions, most or all of which not be affecting tax treaties. Yet, the article sees a silver lining in the non-substantive, structural, and instrumental outcomes of the BEPS project. It argues that even if unintended, …