Taxation-Transnational Commons^™

Panelist, The International Network For Tax Research And The American Journal Of Comparative, Conference On "Comparative Tax Law: Theory And Practice, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Award Presentation: 63rd International Fiscal Association Annual Meeting, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Xilinx And The Arm's-Length Standard, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On May 7 the Ninth Circuit decided Xilinx v. Commissioner. By a 2-1 majority, the panel reversed the Tax Court and held that costs of employee stock options must be included in the pool of costs subject to a tax-sharing agreement. The Xilinx decision is important for three reasons. First, cost sharing is probably the key element in current transfer pricing law because it is the principal way in which profits from intangibles get shifted from the United States to low-tax jurisdictions. Moreover, informed observers agree that the allocation of income from intangibles is the most important problem in transfer …

Cuarto Congreso Nacional De Organismos Públicos Autónomos, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Memorias del Cuarto Congreso Nacional de Organismos Públicos Autónomos

"El papel de los Organismos Públicos Autónomos en la Consolidación de la Democracia"

Panelist, Confederation Of Swedish Enterprise, Tax Aspects Of Tradable Emissions Permits, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Obama's International Tax Plan: A Major Step Forward, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

President Barack Obama last week personally introduced a set of proposals to reform U.S. international taxation that are the most significant advance toward preserving the income tax on cross-border transactions since the enactment of the subpart F rules by the Kennedy administration in 1962. (For prior coverage, see Doc 2009-10047 or 2009 TNT 84-1.) In essence, the Obama proposals introduce a 21stcentury version of the vision begun by Thomas Adams in 1918 and continued by Stanley Surrey in 1961: a world in which source and residence taxation are coordinated so as to achieve the underlying goals of the international tax …

2008 Oecd Model: The New Arbitration Provision, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

New Art. 25(5), added to Art. 25 (Mutual agreement procedure) of the OECD Model as part of the 2008 Update, provides for the mandatory arbitration of unresolved issues arising in the course of a mutual agreement procedure. This article first examines the various factors that led to the adoption of Art. 25(5) and the stages of its development by the OECD. The article then discusses some technical aspects of the new arbitration provision, including the Sample Mutual Agreement setting out some procedural rules, which is attached as an Annex to Art. 25.

Session Chair, Oecd Advisory Group For Co-Operation With Non-Oecd Countries, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Panelist, Frankfurt International Arbitration Center: Tax Meets Arbitration, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Closing The International Tax Gap Via Cooperations, Not Competition, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Book Chapters

All three major goals of the Volcker task force — reducing tax evasion and loopholes, simplifying the code, and reducing corporate welfare — can be advanced by focusing on the international aspects of the tax gap. These aspects include both enforcement of existing U.S. law on U.S. residents earning income overseas (the evasion issue) and reforming deferral for U.S.-based multinational enterprises (the avoidance issue). To best advance the task force’s three goals, I would propose a change in each of these two major international areas.

Allocating Business Profits For Tax Purposes: A Proposal To Adopt A Formulary Profit Split, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Kimberly A. Clausing, Michael C. Durst

Articles

The current system of taxing the income of multinational firms in the United States is flawed across multiple dimensions. The system provides an artificial tax incentive to earn income in low-tax countries, rewards aggressive tax planning, and is not compatible with any common metrics of efficiency. The U.S. system is also notoriously complex; observers are nearly unanimous in lamenting the heavy compliance burdens and the impracticality of coherent enforcement. Further, despite a corporate tax rate one standard deviation above that of other OECD countries, the U.S. corporate tax system raises relatively little revenue, due in part to the shifting of …

How Globalization Affects Tax Design, James R. Hines Jr., Lawrence H. Summers

Articles

The economic changes associated with globalization tighten financial pressures on governments of high-income countries by increasing the demand for government spending while making it more costly to raise tax revenue. Greater international mobility of economic activity, and associated responsiveness of the tax base to tax rates, increases the economic distortions created by taxation. Countries with small open economies have relatively mobile tax bases; as a result, they rely much less heavily on corporate and personal income taxes than do other countries. The evidence indicates that a ten percent smaller population in 1999 is associated with a one percent smaller ratio …

Taxation And The Competitiveness Of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Do Taxes Encourage Sovereign Wealth Funds To Invest In The United States?, Michael S. Knoll

All Faculty Scholarship

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) control vast amounts of capital and have made and are continuing to make numerous large, high-profile investments in the United States, especially in the financial services industry. Those investments in particular and SWFs in general are highly controversial. There is much discussion of the advantages and disadvantages to the United States of investments by SWFs and there is an intense and ongoing debate over what should be the United States’ policy towards investments by SWFs. In the course of that debate, some critics have called upon the US government to abandon its long-held public position of …

Tax Policy Challenges, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

In 1995, when the late, great Jack Nolan asked me to deliver the inaugural lecture in honor of Larry Woodworth, I was both honored and flattered. I had come to know Larry Woodworth beginning in 1969, when I was a rookie treasury tax policy staffer. At that time, he had already served the Joint Committee on Taxation for 25 years and had been the third Chief of Staff in its history beginning as chief of staff in 1964. Larry Woodworth was not only as knowledgeable about the tax law as anyone you would ever hope to meet, and as savvy …

Reflections On The Role Of The Oecd In Developing International Tax Norms, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

On September 8–9, 2008, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) held a Special Conference commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the OECD Model Tax Convention (“Model Convention” or “Model”). The Conference was attended by over 650 participants from the private sector and the government, representing over 100 countries. Both the level of participation and the geographical diversity represented at the conference would seem concrete evidence of the perceived importance of the role of the OECD in developing international tax norms. In his remarks opening the conference, the OECD Secretary General noted that the success of the OECD Model was …