Monday at McGill: DeLaFeria presents Tax Fraud and Selective Enforcement

Tomorrow at McGill, Rita DeLaFeria will kick off the fall tax policy colloquium with a presentation of her work in progress entitled Tax Fraud and Selective Law Enforcement. Here is the abstract:

This article presents a new conceptual framework for research into tax fraud. Informed by research approaches from across tax law, public economics, criminology, criminal justice, economics of crime, and regulatory theory, it assesses the effectiveness, and the legitimacy, of current approaches to combating tax fraud, bringing new dimensions to previously identified trends in crime control. It argues that, whilst the last decade has witnessed significant intensification of measures that purportedly target tax fraud both within Europe and elsewhere, these measures display a fundamental misunderstanding of the phenomenon of tax fraud. 

Using VAT as a case study, it is argued that these measures concentrate upon combating the revenue costs of fraud rather than the fraud itself. Whilst measures deployed to combat revenue costs and those deployed to combat the tax fraud often coincide, this is not always the case. In cases where they do not coincide, prevalence is consistently given to enforcement measures that address revenue costs, rather than combatting the fraud itself, even where the effect is to aggravate other costs of tax fraud. It is argued that a concentration solely upon the revenue costs of fraud can no longer be regarded as either deterrent or punishment, but merely as a compensatory mechanism for the lost revenue. 

These developments in anti-tax fraud policy demonstrate a significant shift –one that appears to be motivated by a mixture of endogenous and exogenous factors– from tax fraud suppression to tax fraud management. The article concludes that this shift not only undermines tax equity and overall tax compliance, but may also lead to selective tax enforcement, thus representing a significant risk to the rule of law.

The colloquium is supported by a grant made by the law firm Spiegel Sohmer, for the purpose of fostering an academic community in which learning and scholarship may flourish. The land on which we gather is the traditional territory of the Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk), a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst nations.

This fall the Colloquium theme is Designing Sustainable Tax Systems. The complete colloquium schedule is below and here.

Fall 2019 Tax Policy Colloquium at McGill Law: Designing Sustainable Tax Systems

My fall tax policy course will incorporate a colloquium on current issues of national and international tax policy. The theme of this year’s colloquium is Designing Sustainable Tax Systems. 

The distinguished speakers who will contribute to this year’s colloquium include:

• Sep 30:  Rita De La Feria, Professor and Chair in Tax Law, University of Leeds.
• Oct 7: Eric Zolt, Michael H. Schill Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA
• Oct 28:  Rebecca Kysar, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
• Nov 4:  Tarcisio Magalhaes, Post-doctoral researcher, McGill Faculty of Law
• Nov 11:  Karen Brown, Theodore Rinehart Professor of Business Law, George Washington School of Law
• Nov. 18:  Karie Davis-Nozemack, Associate Professor, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business.

All talks will take place from 15h-17h at the McGill Faculty of Law, 3644 Rue Peel, Room 316. All are welcome to attend.

The colloquium is made possible by a grant from Spiegel Sohmer. The land on which we gather is the traditional territory of the Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk), a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst nations. 

[post updated to correct schedule]