Today at McGill: Brooks on Comparative Tax Law: Development of the Discipline

Today at McGill, Professor Kim Brooks will present her current work in progress as the final speaker of the 2017 tax policy colloquium at McGill Law. Here is the abstract:

The new millennium has inspired renewed interest in comparative law generally and comparative tax law in particular, with practitioners and scholars rapidly building the literature that defines the modern field. Despite the increase in authors undertaking comparative tax work, however, the contours of the theoretical and methodological debates lack definition; despite several leading articles that call on scholars to actively engage with each other on matters of approach, most scholars continue to “write alone”; and despite the increasing availability of thoughtful comparative law textbooks and monographs, tax scholars do not connect their work with debates in comparative law generally.

In this paper, I provide a foundation for future comparative tax law research. Part 1 reviews the major debates and theoretical directions in comparative law scholarship, focusing on the recent work in the field. Part 2 offers an intellectual history of comparative tax law scholarship, identifying the major contributors to the discipline of comparative tax law and conceptualizing the field’s development in five stages. Finally, Part 3 generates a taxonomy of modern comparative tax law research based on its
underlying purpose, explores how that work connects to the comparative law field, and identifies approaches to comparative tax law method, in the light of the work to date, that best advance tax knowledge.

The tax policy colloquium at McGill is supported by a grant made by the law firm Spiegel Sohmer, Inc., 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, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the introduction of federal income taxation in Canada, the Colloquium focuses on the historical significance and development, as well as the most recent challenges, of the modern tax system in Canada and around the world. 

The Colloquium is convened by Allison Christians, H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Taxation Law. 

Prof. Brooks' talk will take place from 2:35-5:35pm in the newly renovated Chancellor Day Hall Room 101, 3644 Peel Ave, Montreal. All are welcome to attend.

Today at McGill: Mehrotra on value added taxation

Today, Ajay Mehrotra, Northwestern University and the American Bar Foundation, will present "The VAT Laggard: A Comparative History of U.S. Resistance to the Value-Added Tax, as part of the annual Spiegel Sohmer Tax Policy Colloquium at McGill Law. This is a fascinating topic as the United States considers major tax reform without explicitly embracing VAT as much of the rest of the world has done. Prof. Mehrotra's new project will explore the U.S. position in light of how Canada, Japan, and other jurisdictions were able to overcome historical resistance to a national VAT by adopting a Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The tax policy colloquium at McGill is supported by a grant made by the law firm Spiegel Sohmer, Inc., 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, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the introduction of federal income taxation in Canada, the Colloquium focuses on the historical significance and development, as well as the most recent challenges, of the modern tax system in Canada and around the world. The complete colloquium schedule is here.

The Colloquium is convened by Allison Christians, H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Taxation Law. 

Ajay Mehrotra's talk will take place from 2:35-5:35pm in New Chancellor Day Hall Room 101, 3644 Peel Ave, Montreal. All are welcome to attend.

Today at McGill: Tillotson on the Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy

On Monday November 6, Shirley Tillotson of Dalhousie University will present her new book,  Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy, as part of the annual Spiegel Sohmer Tax Policy Colloquium at McGill Law.

The tax policy colloquium at McGill is supported by a grant made by the law firm Spiegel Sohmer, Inc., 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, in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the introduction of federal income taxation in Canada, the Colloquium focuses on the historical significance and development, as well as the most recent challenges, of the modern tax system in Canada and around the world. The complete colloquium schedule is here.

The Colloquium is convened by Allison Christians, H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Taxation Law. 

Shirley Tillotson's talk will take place from 2:35-5:35pm in New Chancellor Day Hall Room 101, 3644 Peel Ave, Montreal. All are welcome to attend.

100 Years of Tax Law in Canada

2017 marks the 100^th anniversary of Canada’s federal income tax. In commemoration of this milestone, a half-day symposium will be conducted in conjunction with the Spiegel Sohmer Colloquium on 2 October 2017. The goal of this symposium is to explore the evolution of tax law and policy in Canada over the past century. The symposium will feature a keynote by Kim Brooks followed by two roundtable discussions in which experts confer on some of the key themes of tax law and policy development in Canada. The symposium will conclude with a cocktail reception to celebrate 100 years of federal income tax in Canada.

Symposium Participants:

Kim Brooks, Professor of Law, Dalhousie University. Prof. Brooks is an internationally recognized tax scholar who has written multiple scholarly works on taxation in Canada and beyond.

Jakub Adamski, lecturer in business associations and contract law at McGill Faculty of Law. He runs a seminar on the history and development of corporate law with Marc Barbeau, with whom he is co-authoring a text on the subject.

Marc Barbeau, adjunct professor of corporate and securities law at McGill Faculty of Law and partner, Stikeman Elliott. Me. Barbeau practices in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, complex reorganizations and corporate governance. He runs a seminar on the history and development of corporate law with Jakub Adamski, with whom he is co-authoring a text on the subject.

Scott Wilkie, partner, Blake’s, and Distinguished Professor of Practice at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Mr. Wilkie is recognized as a leading corporate tax lawyer in Canada and has extensive experience in national and international corporate tax practice.

Colin Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario. Prof. Campbell was a senior partner in the Toronto office of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP until mid-2010 when he took up a position at UWO to teach and undertake research on Canadian tax history.

Lyne Latulippe, Professeure agrégée, École de gestion, Université de Sherbrooke. Prof. Latulippe’s work on the institutional aspects of international taxation development and the conduct of professional tax advisors is widely recognized and influential.

Robert Raizenne, adjunct professor of tax law at McGill Faculty of Law and partner, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. Me. Raizenne has extensive experience in a wide variety of tax matters and is a sought-after speaker and writer on national and international tax topics.

This event is free and open to the public.

Gribnau & Vording on The Birth of Tax Law as an Academic Discipline

Hans Gribnau and Henk Vording recently posted an interesting paper on SSRN. Here is the introduction:

The academic discipline of tax law as we know it today has its roots in the late nineteenth century. In the Netherlands, it emerged out of a confrontation between (predominantly British) classical political economy and German Staatslehre (theory of the state). This contribution analyses the impact of the relevant ideas on Dutch theorizing about taxes. It is argued that tax law as a legal discipline is heavily indebted to the German tradition. This may help to explain why it has proven difficult to develop meaningful communication between tax lawyers and tax economists.  

The paper focuses on the development of tax doctrine in the Netherlands over the nineteenth century, but the paper's thoughtful analysis of the evolution of tax goals and priorities, the conceptualization of the taxpayer-state relationship, the complex interaction on tax policy of political and economic theory, and the impact of rule of law theory on tax policy are of general interest.

Video & Audio Resources on Political Theory, Inequality, Finance, and Governance

Russell Haggar, a Sociology and of Government and Politics teacher in the UK, has put together a a visually alarming but very useful "Compendium of Video and Audio Materials for Advanced Level Government and Politics and Sociology Students and for the General Reader," with sections on Political Theory, Welfare and Inequality, Labor Politics, the Financial Crisis, and others. Here is but a sample of what you will find:

• Stephanie Flanders’ three part series for the BBC: Masters of Money: John Maynard Keynes: Friedrich Hayek: Karl Marx 
• Laurie Taylor : Thinking Allowed on Capitalism with Ha-Joon Chang and David Harvey
• Who Owns the World? by Noam Chomsky
• Why Equality Is better for everyone [Video on The Spirit Level from The Equalities Trust]
• Gordon Brown and the Financial Crisis [Andrew Rawnsley for Channel 4]
• RBS : Inside the Bank that ran out of money  
• Meltdown: The Global Financial Collapse (four part series)
• 3 Part BBC Series by Michael Cockerell on The Great Offices of State, with part 3 entitled The Secret Treasury

Many, many more resources at the link.

Your income & taxes, then and now: an interactive

From Flowing Data, a link to this interactive chart where you can input your annual income and then see what you would have earned and paid in taxes back to 1913:

From the chart designer:

Having not been alive in the '50s or '60s, let alone filing taxes, I was struck by the high top income tax rate—exactly double the highest tax rate today. It made me wonder: what would my income tax be if I had earned the equivalent of what I earn now several decades ago—or even in 1913, when the current federal income tax program was first introduced? What would the history of income taxes look like through the collective eyes of people in my exact financial situation over the past 100 years?

Neat! Also, a very fast and easy way to discount a present dollar amount back 100 years.

Higher Taxes Correlate with Prosperity

Taxes are one of three pillars of prosperity.   From Marginal Revolution:

In a recent book Besley and Persson 2011 argue that fiscal capacity is strongly correlated with economic performance across countries (see also here and here). They cite important historical work by Mark Dincecco who has shown that across Europe, between 1650 and 1900, higher taxes were associated with both limited government and economic growth (see here). The following graph is from Dincecco (2011) which contains similar figures for other European countries.

MR eyes this a bit warily, saying the correlation might be due to selection bias and incomplete data:

Modern states did not emerge out of nowhere.  They replaced pre-existing local systems of taxation, patronage, and rent seeking. ... There is plenty of evidence that these local systems imposed large deadweight losses [so] an increase in the measured size of central government need not have been associated with an increase in the total burden of government.  Rather the total deadweight loss of all regulations and taxes could have gone down in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, even as the tax rates  imposed by the central state went up. 

I am not sure but think this means that MR thinks that revenues could have been higher in the local system period than the data suggest?  Then MR adds a note about what caused revenues to increase:

Note: the increase in per capita revenues in England depicted in the figure is largely driven by higher rates of taxation (notably the excise) and more effective tax collection and not by Laffer curve effects (although the growth of a market economy during the 18th century did make it easier for the state to collect taxes).

So higher rates and better tax collection led to more revenues to be collected.  The Laffer thesis more or less says that low rates lead to more tax revenues since low rates produce more growth and more growth increases the base to be taxed, while higher taxes drive people out of the market and end up lowering revenues.  Leaving aside the evidence (or lack thereof) for the accuracy of this thesis in practice,  I take it that MR wants us to understand that revenues did not rise as a result of increased growth producing a bigger base and therefore more revenues at the same low rate as before, but rather England raised its tax rates and collected more taxes as a result.  Laffer doesn't seem to have played any role so I'm not sure what the point is of bringing him into this at all.  All in all I am finding MR more than usually confusing the point with this note, but I appreciate that they alerted me to the book.  Better just to read that, I think.

Must Read: Factual Free Market Fairness

This is required reading for anyone interested in markets, governance, and human flourishing.  Dierdre McCloskey never disappoints.  I won't even bother to excerpt because you just have to read the whole thing.

How the 1% have been doing

Emmanuel Saez updated his article "Striking it Richer" to include data through 2010.  From the excel tables, available on his website:

Summary of the findings from Planet Money:

"1. Over the long term, the top 1 percent have seen much larger gains than everyone else.
2. During the recession, the incomes of the top 1 percent fell more sharply than the incomes of everyone else. This happened because the stock market crashed, and the highest earners get a big chunk of income from investments.
3. In 2009-2010, when the market came back, incomes of the top 1 percent bounced back, while incomes for everyone else remained flat."

Benefits theory: Historical insights.

From Robert Desty, The American Law of Taxation As in the Courts of Last Resort in the United States (1884):

"The theory of all taxation is that taxes are imposed as a compensation for something received by the taxpayer, and while general taxes are paid for the support of government in return for protection to life, liberty, and property, an assessment for benefits accruing to property by reason of public improvement, rests on the same principle. ...

The law makes a plain distinction between taxes which are burdens or charges imposed upon persons or property to raise money for public purposes, and assessments for city and village improvements, which are not regarded as burdens, but as an equivalent or compensation for the enhanced value which the property of the person assessed has derived from the improvement. ...

Taxes are levied for general public purposes on all alike, and are compensated by the equal protection of the government afforded to all; while assessments are laid for local purposes upon local objects and are compensated in local benefits and improvements to the property upon which they are assessed, and form a peculiar exercise of the general taxing power."