Tax Law Commons^™

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 …

Engineering Pass-Throughs In International Tax: The Case Of Private Equity Funds, Young Ran Kim

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Fund investment, or indirect investment, does not entail entity-level taxation domestically, so investors enjoy “tax neutrality” between direct and indirect investments made within a country. In contrast, when investments are made across borders, tax neutrality cannot be guaranteed because current international tax regimes are built upon bilateral tax treaties and lack pass-through tax rules for multinational fund investment schemes. This may put investors in a worse tax position than had they invested directly.

In response, investors have created many strategies to reduce tax liabilities internationally when investing indirectly. Sometimes those strategies enable investors to pay even less taxes than they …

Symposium: The Future Of The New International Tax Regime, Rosanne Altshuler, Fadi Shaheen, Jeffrey Colon, Michael Graetz, Rebecca Kysar, Susan Morse, Daniel Shaviro, Richard Phillips, Daniel Rolfes, Daniel Rosenbloom, Stephen Shay, Steven Dean

Faculty Scholarship

The symposium was held at Fordham University School of Law on October 26, 2018. It has been edited to remove minor cadences of speech that appear awkward in writing and to provide sources and references to other explanatory materials in respect to certain statements made by the speakers.

Tax Treaty Abuse And The Principal Purpose Test - Part I, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (MLI) has been described as “an historical turning point in the area of international taxation” which introduces a third layer of tax rules for the taxation of cross-border transactions in addition to domestic tax law and bilateral tax treaties. Of the many provisions of the MLI, the most important are the preamble text in Article 6(1) and the so-called principal purpose test (PPT) in Article 7(1), both of which have been adopted by all signatories to the MLI in order to satisfy the OECD’s minimum …

Tax Treaty Abuse And The Principal Purpose Test: Part Ii, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting or Multilateral Instrument (MLI) has been described as “an historical turning point in the area of international taxation” which introduces a third layer of tax rules for the taxation of cross-border transactions in addition to domestic tax law and bilateral tax treaties. Of the many provisions of the MLI, the most important are the preamble text in Article 6(1) and the so-called principal purpose test (PPT) in Article 7(1), both of which have been adopted by all signatories to the MLI in order to satisfy …

The Elephant Always Forgets: Us Tax Reform And The Wto, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Martin G. Vallespinos

Law & Economics Working Papers

The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) enacted on December 22, 2017 includes several provisions that raise WTO compliance issues. At least one such provision, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII) rule, is almost certain to draw a challenge in the WTO and is likely to lead to another US loss and resulting sanctions. This outcome would be another addition to the repeated losses suffered by the US for export subsidies from the 1970s to 2004, which led to the imposition of sanctions and the ultimate repeal of the offending regime. The important question for 2018 and beyond is whether the …

The Future Of The New International Tax Regime, Rosanne Altshuler, Fadi Shaheen, Jeffrey Colon, Michael Graetz, Rebecca Kysar, Susan Morse, Daniel Shaviro, Richard Phillips, Danielle Rolfes, David Rosenbloom, Stephen Shay, Steven Dean

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

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.

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 …

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 …

Source, Character And Taxable Presence In A Digital World: International Taxation Of Online Advertising, Assaf Prussak

SJD Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the application of the U.S. and international tax rules and norms to income derived from online advertising, to consider the challenges and problems that arise when these rules are applied to such a purely-digital type of income, to propose an alternative framework for the taxation of online advertising, and to discuss the legislative measures adopted by various countries in an attempt to tax this type of income (and other income derived from digital-based activities).

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 …

Citizens Abroad And Social Cohesion At Home: Refocusing A Cross-Border Tax Policy Debate, Michael S. Kirsch

Journal Articles

Modern developments raise significant questions about the future importance (or non-importance) of formal citizenship status. For example, while many have interpreted the European Union project, with its emphasis on the free movement of individuals, as portending the decreasing relevance of nationality, recent developments, such as the “Brexit” vote, suggest that national identity remains an important factor for many individuals. While much of the public debate over citizenship focuses on areas, such as immigration, that are more obviously tied to formal citizenship status, this debate also impacts cross-border tax policy.

Over the past decade, several scholars have addressed the use of …

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 …

Constructive Unilateralism: U.S. Leadership And International Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In recent years, various U.S. international tax proposals have been advanced on the basis that we should follow the lead of our major trading partners. For example, it has been argued that we should adopt a "territorial" tax system (really, an exemption for dividends by controlled subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals) because most of our trading partners have done so. Other voices have called for the United States to adopt a "patent box" because the United Kingdom and other EU jurisdictions have one.

Full Circle? The Single Tax Principle, Beps, And The New Us Model, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This paper will argue that while there is some innovation in BEPS, it is in fact more of a continuation that a sharp break with the past. Like Alexis de Tocqueville’s French Revolution, BEPS represents both continuity and change. In particular, the single tax principle has formed the theoretical basis of much of the international tax regime from the beginning. And it is in fact this continuity rather than any sharp change that gives the final BEPS package its promise to, as Secretary General Gurria also promised, “put an end to double non-taxation.”

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 …

Follow The Money: Essays On International Taxation – Introduction, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

Publicity about tax avoidance techniques of multinational corporations and wealthy individuals has moved discussion of international income taxation from the backrooms of law and accounting firms to the front pages of news organizations around the world. In the words of a top Australian tax official, international tax law has now become a topic of barbeque conversations. Public anger has, in turn, brought previously arcane issues of international taxation onto the agenda of heads of government around the world.

Despite all the attention, however, issues of international income taxation are often not well understood. This Introduction outlines a collection of essays, …

Reconsidering The Tax Treaty, Steven A. Dean, Rebecca M. Kysar

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly one hundred years, the international tax regime steadfastly pursued a single nemesis, double taxation. States armed themselves against this common enemy with their weapon of choice, the double tax treaty. Nearly uniform in language and approach, the treaties proliferated to more than three thousand in number,¹ resulting in a secure arrangement between and among states and taxpayers.

Yet in recent years, states have had to expand the war to multiple fronts in the face of globalization, technological changes, evolving taxpayer abuses, and shifts in both domestic and international political pressures. For instance, a growing recognition that the …

Taxing Remote Sales In The Digital Age: A Global Perspective, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

This Article addresses three fundamental questions raised by the taxation of remote sales in the digital age from a global perspective, but focuses on the implications, if any, of the answers to these questions in the global context for the U.S. subnational retail sales tax. First, should remote sales be taxed under a consumption tax? Second, if the answer to the first question is “yes,” where should such sales be taxed? Third, how can remote sales be taxed effectively under a consumption tax in the digital age?4

Tax Treaties And The Taxation Of Services In The Absence Of Physical Presence, Michael S. Kirsch

Journal Articles

It is old news that modern technological developments have strained long‐standing international tax policies and principles. Tax treaties have attempted to keep pace by fitting these new developments within the existing framework. This brief article addresses one aspect of technological developments that can directly affect individual taxpayers—the increasing ability to deliver personal services electronically across borders, without the need for the service provider to have a physical presence in the “source” country. In particular, it focuses on recent developments with the U.N. Model, which may allow source‐based taxation of at least some types of services income even in the absence …

Defining A Country's "Fair Share" Of Taxes, Adam H. Rosenzweig

Florida State University Law Review

The international tax regime is facing a defining moment. As stories of multinational companies expatriating and shifting income around the world with seeming impunity continue to emerge, the question of how to divide the international tax base among the countries of the world increasingly draws attention from policy-makers and academics. To date, however, the debate has tended to devolve into one over the two traditional tools used to divide worldwide tax base—transfer pricing and formulary apportionment. This Article demonstrates that such focus is misplaced on the instruments of dividing the worldwide tax base rather than on first principles. Instead, this …

Taxes, The Problem And Solution: A Model For Vanishing Deductions And Exclusions For Residence-Based Tax Preferences, Phyllis C. Taite

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Net Operating Losses And Mistakes In Closed Tax Years, James R. Gadwood

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reporting Loss Transactions: Too Much Of A Good Thing, Megan L. Brackney

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Need For Tax Reform: Schedule K-1 Document Matching Program And Effective Revenue Collection, Valeriya Avdeev

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Tax Treatment Of Citizens Abroad: Reconciling Principle And Practice, Michael S. Kirsch

Journal Articles

In an increasingly mobile world, the taxation of citizens living abroad has taken on increased importance. Recent international administrative developments — most notably, the weakening of foreign bank secrecy and expansion of global information sharing norms — have further raised the profile of this issue. While U.S. law traditionally has taxed U.S. citizens living abroad in the same general manner as citizens living in the United States, a number of scholars have proposed abandoning the use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis to tax. In its place, they would apply residence-based principles — i.e., exercising full taxing rights over U.S. …