Tax Law Commons^™

Proposed Reforms To Singapore Goods And Services Taxation In The Digital Economy, Hern Kuan Liu, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

With the rapid development of the digital economy and the increasing importance of GST as a source of tax revenue, the Singapore Government has proposed several reforms to tighten the collection of tax revenue and tap its tax base more efficiently. The reforms focus on activating the currently dormant “reverse charge” mechanism to collect GST on supplies of services “imported” by businesses; creating an “overseas vendor registration regime” to catch digital products “imported” by individuals; and clarifying the “place of supply” requirement for supplies of digital products. This article considers the reforms from the perspective of a foreign business that …

A Flood-Not A Ripple-Of Harm: Proximate Cause Under The Fair Housing Act, Justin P. Steil, Daniel Traficonte

Cardozo Law Review

Over the past decade, several city governments across the country have filed suits against banks pursuant to the Fair Housing Act seeking redress for municipal damages caused by the banks' discriminatory lending practices. Following the ruling in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, lower courts are now confronting the question of where to "draw the line" of proximate causation under the Fair Housing Act, and specifically whether the harms experienced by cities as a result of banks' discriminatory lending meet the requirements of proximate causation. In suggesting a direction for lower courts, the Court in City of …

Beps, Atap And The New Tax Dialogue: A Transatlantic Competition?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Gianluca Mazzoni

Book Chapters

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TRA17) signed into law by President Trump on 22 December 2017 contains multiple provisions that incorporate the principles of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Action Plan (BEPS) into domestic US tax law. Together with the changes in the 2016 US Model Tax Treaty, 1 these provisions mean that the United States is following the European Union in implementing BEPS and particularly its underlying principle, the single tax principle (all income should be subject to tax once at the rate derived from the benefits principle, i.e., active income at a minimum source tax …

Testimony Before The Dc Council Committee On Finance And Revenue Public Hearing On Bill 23-41, The “Taxpayer Advocate Act Of 2019” Presented By Jacqueline Laínez Flanagan March 18, 2019, Jacqueline Lainez

D.C. Council Testimony

Good morning Chairman Evans and members of the Finance and Revenue Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Jacqueline Laínez Flanagan. I am currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Janet R. Spragens Federal Tax Clinic at American University Washington College of Law. I deliver my comments today, in support of the establishment of a DC Taxpayer Advocate Office, based on my experience as the Founding Director of the University of the District of Columbia – David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC–DCSL) Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC). In addition to our primary …

Regulating Offshore Finance, William J. Moon

Faculty Scholarship

From the Panama Papers to the Paradise Papers, massive document leaks in recent years have exposed trillions of dollars hidden in small offshore jurisdictions. Attracting foreign capital with low tax rates and environments of secrecy, a growing number of offshore jurisdictions have emerged as major financial havens hosting thousands of hedge funds, trusts, banks, and insurance companies.

While the prevailing account has examined offshore financial havens as “tax havens” that facilitate the evasion or avoidance of domestic tax, this Article uncovers how offshore jurisdictions enable corporations to evade domestic regulatory law. Specifically, recent U.S. Supreme Court cases restricting the geographic …

Comparing Wayfair And Wynne: Lessons For The Future Of The Dormant Commerce Clause, Edward A. Zelinsky

Chapman Law Review

No abstract provided.

Code Sec. 1031, The Final Code Sec. 199a Regulations, Bonus Depreciation Proposed Regulations, And Ozone Drop-Swap Cash-Outs, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Basic And Non-Basic Tax Tips For Leasing Lawyers, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For An Information Tax: Cumulative Harm In The Collective Misuse Of Information, Ying Hu

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

This Article draws attention to the need to focus on collective, as opposed to individual, misuse of information in the big data era. Responsibility for collective misuse of information derives from our responsibility as members of a community to identify and remedy group wrongs. It in turn provides a basis for imposing information tax on persons that make nontrivial contributions to collective misuse of information.

Understanding International Tax Avoidance And Tax Evasion Post-Tcja, 53 Uic J. Marshall L. Rev. 975 (2019), Jennifer Waclawik

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Welfare And Political Organizations: Ending The Plague Of Inconsistency, Roger Colinvaux

Scholarly Articles

This article considers the use of social welfare organizations for political purposes, assesses the damage, and offers solutions. Part I of the article provides an overview of present law and compares social welfare and political organizations in the context of political campaign intervention. Part II considers the many serious ongoing harms that have resulted from the current legal framework. Part III assesses different solutions. The article concludes that in general, the disclosure and financing rules concerning the political activity of social welfare and political organizations should be consistent. Consistent rules would reduce incentives to deceive regulators and the public and …

Commission V. Belgium: Belgium's Tax Law Prevents Free Movement Of Capital, John Gramlich

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Unconstitutional Tampon Tax, Bridget J. Crawford, Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Thirty-five states impose a sales tax on menstrual hygiene products, while products like spermicidal condoms and erectile dysfunction medications are tax-free. This sales tax--commonly called the “tampon tax”--represents an expense that girls and women must bear on top of the cost of biologically necessary items that they need in order to attend school, work, and otherwise participate in public life. This article explores the constitutionality of the tampon tax and argues that it is an impermissible form of gender discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause. First, menstrual hygiene products are a unique proxy for female sex, and therefore any disadvantageous …

Eitc For All: A Universal Basic Income Compromise Proposal, Benjamin Leff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Universal Basic Income ("UBI") is a concept that has recently begun to enter the popular political consciousness in the United States. It is defined as "a regular cash income paid to all, on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement." It is invoked for a wide variety of political and social purposes, but is almost always presented as radically different from existing governmental welfare and transfer systems. Once a UBI is disaggregated into discrete policy components, it is possible to imagine to what degree existing programs share the benefits (and detriments) of a UBI to a greater or …

Equitable Health Savings Accounts, Samuel Estreicher, Clinton G. Wallace

Faculty Publications

This Article offers the first comprehensive legal-policy critique of existing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), arguing that the current approach is redistributively regressive, thus exacerbating inequality, and also fails to accomplish stated healthcare goals. We propose an alternative—Equitable Health Savings Accounts—which uses cash grants as a tool to address both of these problems. Equitable HSAs are a market-based social program that calibrates size and delivery of a government subsidy to help the least well off and to facilitate participation in healthcare markets. Equitable HSAs can serve as a model for using cash grants to bridge the gap between Republican social policy …

Charitable Tax Reform For The 21st Century, Roger Colinvaux, Ray Madoff

Scholarly Articles

The article identifies two goals of the charitable giving tax incentives: promoting actual charitable work and fostering a strong culture of charitable giving with broad participation. The recent increase to the standard deduction and the rise of donor-advised funds compromise both goals. The article outlines reform proposals to bolster the charitable sector, including expanding the giving incentive to all taxpayers in the form of a credit (subject to a giving floor), allowing some tax benefits to DAF donors upon contribution but delaying the income tax deduction until DAF funds are released from advisory privileges, closing loopholes that enable foundations and …

El Control De Convencionalidad En Sede Administrativa: Un Mecanismo Para La Defensa De Los Contribuyentes, Fernando Loayza Jordán, Julio César Casma Rocha

Scholarly Articles

A través de la sentencia recaída en el expediente 04293-2012-PA/TC, el Tribunal Constitucional dejó sin efecto el precedente vinculante que validaba la aplicación del control difuso en sede administrativa. Esto supuso para los contribuyentes una situación de indefensión frente a la potencial aplicación de normas tributarias inconstitucionales. Si bien existen vías alternativas para que estos puedan defenderse ante estas normas, estas no resultan igualmente idóneas para tutelar sus intereses y carecen de la rapidez que caracterizaba al control difuso en sede administrativa.

En este artículo, los autores proponen la aplicación del control de convencionalidad en sede administrativa como una solución …

In Defense Of The Pip Regulations, Walter D. Schwidetzky

All Faculty Scholarship

The section 704(b) allocation Regulations contain a highly complex safe harbor, the substantial economic effect rules. If an allocation fails to comply with the safe harbor, it will only survive scrutiny if it is in accordance with the "partners' interests in the partnership" (PIP). Given the complexity of the safe harbor, one might expect the PIP Regulations to be similarly complex, but nothing could be further from the truth. The PIP Regulations are, by tax standards, concise and straightforward. Some have argued that the PIP Regulations do not provide enough guidance, and that a more complex and comprehensive set of …

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 …

Consuming The Benefits Of Copyright: Multijurisdictional Sales Tax Complexity, Adam B. Thimmesch

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.