Taxation-Transnational Commons^™

Tax Competition And Tax Cooperation: A Survey And Reassessment, Hugh J. Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Reforming The Regulation Of Political Advocacy By Charities: From Charity Under Siege To Charity Under Rescue?, Adam Parachin

Adam Parachin

A newly elected liberal federal government in Canada has pledged to reform the legal distinction between charity and politics. This paper provides context to this reform initiative, linking it to a controversial political activities audit program funded by the former conservative federal government. It identifies three distorting ideas about charity—that charity can be understood as a tax expenditure, economic or neutral concept—that should be eschewed in the reform process. It also identifies three characteristics of charity—the capacity of charities for thought leadership, the pervasiveness of messaging in charitable programming and the distinctiveness of charity and government—that should guide reformers.

The Meaning Of Capital In The Twenty-First Century, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

America is on a path towards a level of both wealth and income inequality unparalleled in recorded history. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century summarizes and conveys the work of Piketty and many co-authors, over many decades, looking at the structure of income and wealth inequality across many nations and centuries. This review essay builds on Piketty’s ambitions as well as his data, in order to put forth a better solution: one that accepts and even embraces the facts of unequal ownership of capital, but changes the social meaning of those facts to avoid the social harms that follow …

Taxing Wealth Seriously, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

The social and political problems of wealth inequality in America are severe and getting worse. A surprise is that the U.S. tax system, as is, is a significant cause of these problems, not a cure for them. The tax-law doctrines that allow those who already have financial wealth to live, luxuriously and tax-free, or to pass on their wealth tax-free to heirs, are simple. The applicable legal doctrines have been in place for nearly a century under the income tax, the primary social tool for addressing matters of economic inequality. The analytic pathways to reform are easy to see once …

Tax Court Find Stars Transaction Lacks Economic Substance, Robert D. Probasco, Lee S. Meyercord

Robert Probasco

In Bank of New York Mellon Corp. v. Commissioner, the Tax Court found that a structured trust advantaged repackaged securities (“STARS”) transaction entered into by BNY Mellon lacked economic substance, and disallowed foreign tax credits of $199 million as well as transactional expenses of $8 million. BNY Mellon is the first test case to emerge from the IRS’s attempts to disallow tax benefits to several financial institutions that participated in the STARS transaction.

The STARS transaction is one of a number of different transactions that the IRS refers to as “foreign tax credit generators.” These transactions generally rely on inconsistent …

Reinvigorating Tax Expenditure Analysis And Its International Dimension, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni

J. Clifton Fleming, Jr.

Tax expenditure analysis (TEA) was rigorously criticized from its inception and continues to draw negative reviews. Notwithstanding this criticism, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the President's annual budget submission to contain a list of tax expenditures, and Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation has produced its own tax expenditure list each year since 1972. Although TEA has not restrained or reversed the growth of tax expenditures, TEA continues to play a major role in tax policy debates to the chagrin of its detractors. The persistence of TEA in a hostile environment suggests that it has meaningful …

Special International Zones In Practice And Theory, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

Offshore Accounts: Insider's Summary Of Fatca And Its Potential Future, J. Richard Harvey Jr.

Richard Harvey

No abstract provided.

How May The United States Leverage Fatca To Incentivize Good Tax Administrations Among The World Of Black Hat And Grey Hat Governments?, William H. Byrnes

William H. Byrnes

Folkrättens Indirekta Genomslag Vid Tolkning Av Svenska Skatteavtals Införlivandelagstiftning, Maria Hilling

Maria Hilling

No abstract provided.

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

Michael Kirsch

Over the past decade, a number of scholars have addressed the United States’ continuing use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis upon which to tax the foreign-source income of individuals in the modern international setting. Some writers, including myself, have defended this citizenship-based taxation (“CBT”), while others have rejected it and proposed some form of residence-based taxation (“RBT”) for citizens.This Article considers the competing normative arguments raised in this context, and attempts to distill the strengths and weaknesses of each. In so doing, it attempts to highlight the most important factors upon which the debate hinges, and illustrates the importance …

Improving Inter-Nation Equity Through Territorial Taxation And Tax Sparing, Jinyan Li

Jinyan Li

The current international tax system allocates the taxation of cross-border income by reference to the residence of the taxpayer and/or the source of income. The governing rules are contained in domestic tax laws and bilateral tax treaties. As noted by Professor Easson, the current regime of allocation is not based on any real agreement between nations and cannot be rationalized by any “obvious principle of fairness”. In fact, it is biased in favour of the capital exporting nations that devised the rules of the game. In order to improve fairness, Professor Easson considered it desirable to have some “redistribution” in …

Destination-Based Cash-Flow Taxation: A Critical Appraisal, Wei Cui

Wei Cui

This Article offers the first comprehensive appraisal in both the legal and economic literatures of proposals for adopting destination-based cash flow taxation (DCFT) of multinational corporations. The DCFT was a key recommendation for reforming corporate taxation in the U.K., and has subsequently attracted wide attention as a way to fundamentally reform international taxation in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. The core intuition of the DCFT is to tax profits earned by mobile capital by reference to immobile factors. I distinguish three versions of the DCFT for implementing this intuition: 1. formulary apportionment of business profits by reference to locations of …

Is The Real Estate Investment And Jobs Act A Good Idea?, Willard B. Taylor

Willard B. Taylor

The Real Estate Investment and Jobs Act of 2015 would significantly relax the rules of the 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act for investments in U.S. real property made through U.S. real estate investment trusts and, in the House version, would simply exempt from FIRPTA investments by foreign pension funds. Taylor discusses the bills and argues that it would make more sense to repeal FIRPTA (including the U.S. real property holding corporation rules) and then seek to achieve parity of treatment for investments in U.S. real property by foreign persons that are made directly, through partnerships or through …

Sales Tax And Cloud Computing In India, Khagesh Gautam

Khagesh Gautam

This Article, the first of its kind, addresses the question of imposition of sales tax on Cloud computing transactions in India. Several industry estimates show that the Cloud computing market is growing in India and is poised to grow further. However, the question of how to tax these transactions remains to be addressed. This Article engages with this question, albeit only in the context of sales tax. The Indian Constitution lays down, in elaborate detail, the taxes that can exclusively be levied by the Union Parliament and those that can exclusively be levied by the State Legislatures. Sales tax on …

What The Beps, Yariv Brauner

Yariv Brauner

Unprecedented attention to aggressive international tax planning has shaken the earth under the most powerful players in the world of international tax policy design. The media exposure of what Bloomberg's calls “The Great Corporate Tax Dodge,” combined with the ever-growing discontent of civil society with the magnitude of contribution of the largest multinational enterprises to the society within which they operate, has recently forced the politicians to take action. Leaders of the strongest world economies demanded a revision of the rules of the international tax regime that would generate more revenues for their challenged coffers and would restore public trust …

Credit Vs. Exemption: A Comparative Study Of Double Tax Relief In The United States And Japan, Lawrence Lokken, Yoshimi Kitamura

Lawrence Lokken

The overriding issue in international taxation is the problem of double taxation. Under the tax laws of most countries, income may be taxed on the basis of either residence or source. That is, a country may tax residents of the country on worldwide income and may tax nonresidents on income from sources within the country. Thus, if a resident of one country has income from a business activity or investment in another country, the person may be taxed on the income on a residence basis by its home country and on a source basis in the other country. Most countries …

The Use Of Oecd Commentaries As Interpretative Aids - The Static/Ambulatory-Approaches Debate Considered From The Perspective Of International Law, Maria Hilling, Ulf Linderfalk

Maria Hilling

Since many years, international tax law experts debate the relevance of changes to OECD Commentaries for the purpose of the interpretation of previously concluded tax treaties. Although, generally, most experts seem averse to the idea of an ambulatory approach to the usage of OECD Commentaries, they are reluctant to exclude this idea altogether. Such a position raises an important issue of justification: When exactly should the ambulatory approach be taken? As argued in this essay, the proper answer to this question depends on the particular rule of interpretation justifying the usage of OECD Commentaries in particular cases. If Commentaries are …

Discriminatory Internal Taxation In The European Union: The Power Of The European Court Of Justice To Limit The Tax Sovereignty Of Member-States Under Article 110 Of The Tfeu, Jarrod Tudor

Jarrod Tudor

Protectionism can come in a variety of methods including the use of internal taxation policies that discriminate against imports making those imports more expensive on the domestic market and thus favoring domestically-produced goods. Discriminatory taxation policies have been developed by member-states to mask protectionism by distinguishing products based on import status, product similarity, product life cycle, consumption, tax collection practices, transportation charges, and state aid. The Framers of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) wrote Article 110 with the objective in mind to prohibit internal taxation policies from discriminating against goods in made in other member-states. …

Paradigm Shift Of The Tax Avoidance Concept: A Comparative View, William Byrnes

William H. Byrnes

No abstract provided.

Capital In The Twenty-First Century. By Thomas Piketty [Book Review], Frank Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

A Whole New World: Income Tax Considerations Of The Bitcoin Economy, Benjamin W. Akins Jd, Llm, Jennifer L. Chapman Jd, Cpa, Jason M. Gordon Jd, Mba

Benjamin W. Akins

Bitcoin is a virtual, cryptocurrency growing rapidly in influence throughout the world. Numerous characteristics associated with the bitcoin system, including low transaction costs and greater user privacy, make it appealing as a medium of electronic payment. The number of users of bitcoin, including merchants accepting the currency as a form of payment, has grown considerably in recent years. Estimates indicate that there are more than 60,000 active bitcoin users as of September 2012, with nearly 11 million bitcoins in existence. According to the latest estimates, bitcoin market capitalization is roughly $9 billion. The growth of bitcoin as an accepted currency …

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …

The Future Of Source-Based Taxation Of The Income Of Multinational Enterprises, Robert Green

Robert A. Green

No abstract provided.

The Interaction Of Tax And Non-Tax Treaties, Robert A. Green

Robert A. Green

This background note consists of two parts. Part one provides an overview of the extent to which tax matters are currently covered in non-tax treaties. This discussion focuses on the general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement and the North American free trade agreement (NAFTA) (which cover direct tax measures only to a limited extent) and the European Community (EC) treaty (which covers direct tax measures more broadly). Part two outlines the issues raised when tax matters are covered in non-tax treaties.

The Troubled Rule Of Nondiscrimination In Taxing Foreign Direct Investment, Robert A. Green

Robert A. Green

[Abstract needed]

Antilegalistic Approaches To Resolving Disputes Between Governments: A Comparison Of The International Tax And Trade Regimes, Robert A. Green

Robert A. Green

No abstract provided.

A Framework For An Informed Study Of The Realistic Role Of Tax In A Development Agenda, Yariv Brauner

Yariv Brauner

This article builds on the insights of this development research to develop a new agenda for tax incentives (and equivalent tax measures), the research of their merits when used by developing countries, and their optimal design. The stated goal of these incentives is to attract foreign direct investment, and ultimately enhance economic growth and promote development. Almost all countries use such tax incentives, and business interests strongly support and even demand their use, yet, economic research in general, and the international economic organizations in particular, have been skeptical about their effectiveness." Tax incentives are not only ubiquitous, but also very …

Integration In An Integrating World, Yariv Brauner

Yariv Brauner

During the second half of the last century, many countries gradually replaced their so-called classical corporate tax regimes, under which corporate earnings were taxed twice -- once in the hands of the corporation, and again when distributed to corporate shareholders as dividends -- with an integrated regime (imputation), which taxed such earnings only once. The driving force behind this trend was the expectation of significant efficiency gains. This clear and gradual trend has been abruptly reversed with the turn of the century. The phenomenon we call globalization, and in particular the proliferation of cross-border business and investment, has materially contributed …

Value In The Eye Of The Beholder: The Valuation Of Intangibles For Transfer Pricing Purposes, Yariv Brauner

Yariv Brauner

This article assesses the desirability of our current, arms' length based, transfer pricing regime by analyzing its theoretical and practical effectiveness in application to transfers of intangibles. A detailed analysis of the practice of valuation of intangibles, which is the key component in the application of this regime, exposes its weaknesses that result in undesirable market incentives. These incentives create a strong bias in favor of large multinational enterprises, yet, even if one favored such bias, it is achieved using an uncontrollable, costly and wasteful legal mechanism. The article particularly criticizes the regime's disregard of the unique characteristics of intangibles …