Taxation-Transnational | Open Access Articles

Jurisdiction To Tax Corporations, Omri Y. Marian Jan 2013

Jurisdiction To Tax Corporations, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

Corporate tax residence is fundamental to our federal income tax system. Whether a corporation is classified as “domestic” or “foreign” for U.S. federal income tax purposes determines the extent of tax jurisdiction the United States has over the corporation and its affiliates. Unfortunately, tax scholars seem to agree that the concept of corporate tax residence is “meaningless.” Underlying this perception are the ideas that corporations cannot have “real” residence because they are imaginary entities and because taxpayers can easily manipulate corporate tax residence tests. Commentators try to deal with the perceived meaninglessness by either trying to identify a normative basis …

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Ppl, The Foreign Tax Credit, And The Gitlitz “Finger” Principle, Stanley I. Langbein Jan 2013

Ppl, The Foreign Tax Credit, And The Gitlitz “Finger” Principle, Stanley I. Langbein

Articles

No abstract provided.

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Does Swiss Bank Secrecy Violate International Human Rights?, Stephen B. Cohen Jan 2013

Does Swiss Bank Secrecy Violate International Human Rights?, Stephen B. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Prof. Stephen Cohen, whose academic specialty is taxation, also has an interest in international human rights and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter administration. In this comment, Prof. Cohen asks whether states like Switzerland, which provide bank secrecy for the offshore accounts of wealthy citizens of developing countries, violate internationally recognized human rights. The United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights explicitly recognizes rights to adequate food, clothing, housing, health care, clean water, sanitation, and education. Bank secrecy has a significant human rights impact if it deprives developing countries of tax …

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Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2013

Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The international tax reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) on November 19, 2013 contains several significant innovations that promise to define the terms of the debate for the foreseeable political future. It is therefore worth examining in detail even if it seems unlikely that progress toward meaningful reform can be achieved very soon. The major component of the proposal is a move toward territoriality coupled with two alternative anti-profit shifting options, option Y and option Z. This article will argue that option Y represents a significant step forward and can be the basis of adopting a territorial regime, …

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Unitary Taxation And International Tax Rules, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2013

Unitary Taxation And International Tax Rules, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Any proposal to adopt Unitary Taxation (UT) of multinationals has to contend with whether such taxation is compatible with existing international tax rules and in particular with the bilateral tax treaty network. Indeed, some researchers have argued that the separate accounting (SA) method and the arm’s length standard are so embodied in the treaties that they form part of customary international law and are binding even in the absence of a treaty. In this paper we will argue that UT can be compatible with most of the existing tax treaties, and that developing countries in particular can implement it in …

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And Yet It Moves: A Tax Paradigm For The 21st Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2013

And Yet It Moves: A Tax Paradigm For The 21st Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

A central premise of tax scholarship of the last thirty years has been the greater mobility of capital than labor. Recently, scholars such as Edward Kleinbard have recommended that the US adopt a variant of the 'dual income tax' model used by the Scandinavian countries, under which income from capital is subject to significantly lower rates than labor income because of its supposedly greater mobility. This article argues that the premise upon which this argument is built is mistaken, because for individual US taxpayers (as opposed to corporations), there are significant limitations on their ability to avoid tax by moving …

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Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2013

Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) offers an opportune moment to consider proposals for corporate and international tax reform. With the debate over individual tax rates for the income and estate tax settled for the present, the President and Congress are free to consider broader reforms. Few observers doubt that such reforms are sorely needed, for several reasons. First, the long-term budgetary outlook is unsustainable. Second, the U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Third, the current system raises relatively little revenue and large amounts of …

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Exploring Taxation As A Substitute For Overregulation In The Development Process, Stewart E. Sterk Jan 2013