This Friday in London: Conference on The Changing Shape of Tax Avoidance

This Friday, I'll be in London participating in a conference on tax avoidance and evasion, hosted by the Journal of Tax Administration. Here is the program:

11.00 – 11.15 Welcome and Introduction

11.15 – 11.50 Matthew Rablen: Optimal Income Tax Enforcement in the Presence of Tax Avoidance

11.50 – 12.25 Maya Forstater: Can Stopping ‘Tax Dodging’ by Multinational Enterprises Close the Gap in Development Finance?

12.25 – 13.00 Allison Christians: Tax Avoidance in a World of Aggressive Tax States

13.00 – 13.45 Lunch

13.45 – 14.15 Federica Bardini: The “Ius Commune Europeum” on Tax Avoidance

14.15 - 14.45 Shu-Chien Chen: The Common Pattern of the “Tax Avoidance Concept” in the EU and USA

14.45 – 15.00 Discussion

15.00 – 15.20 Break

15.20 – 15.55 David Duff: Tax Avoidance – Causes, Consequences and Responses

15.55 – 16.30 David Quentin: Tax Risk Mining and Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights

The venue for this conference is Friends House, 173 – 177 Euston Road, London.

Here is the abstract for my presentation:

Tax Avoidance in a World of Aggressive Tax States 

Media coverage of tax “dodging” by high profile elites and multinational companies leads the public to believe that tax avoidance happens when individuals act to thwart the efforts of the state. Confined to the domestic arena this may be an apt description, and a problem anti-avoidance regimes are designed to solve. But on an international scale, tax avoidance is not a one-person show. Instead, it involves interactions among four types of actors: individuals, home states, host states, and intermediary states. International tax avoidance persists largely because home, host, and intermediary states intentionally use their tax systems to lure investment away from other jurisdictions that impose higher tax burdens, and individuals do their best to exploit available opportunities to the fullest. In deciding whether and how law should be used to prevent international tax avoidance, the goals and interests of each of the four actors must be examined.