Today at McGill: Law and the Blockchain: A Crash Course

A full house expected for today's event, but it's not too late to join us if you're in Montreal!

Crisan and McKenzie on R&D Subsidies in Canada

The latest edition of the Canadian Tax Journal [gated] has a nice article by Daria Crisan and Kenneth J McKenzie that documents Canada's relatively generous tax subsidies for R&D spending, yet relatively underwhelming investment by large corporations, over the period 1981-2016. The article briefly summarizes the chronology of federal R&D programs and gives an overview of provincial policies. It finds that while Canada's spending on R&D is high relative to peer countries, the amount of R&D being undertaken relative to GDP consistently underperforms these peers and continues to decline. The bulk of the article is a presentation of data showing these trends. The conclusion is intriguing, positing three possible explanations for the puzzle of high spending but low investment:

The first is the rather obvious point that it may well be that Canada’s r&d performance would have been even worse in the absence of the subsidies. Of course we don’t observe this counterfactual, but it is consistent with the above observations. 

The second comment is more speculative ... Canada relies much more than
other countries on the type of “indirect” tax subsidies that we consider here, which
are generally available to all companies, as opposed to “direct” subsidies, such as
targeted grants. It could be that the nature of r&d subsidies in Canada—the reliance
on indirect tax incentives rather than direct grants—is the problem. ...

This leads to our third, and final, observation. To our knowledge, there is in fact
very little rigorous empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of direct versus
indirect government subsidies for r&d. Moving in this direction may well be the
right thing to do, but this seems to us to be based more on faith, and perhaps some
frustration with the Canadian “r&d policy puzzle,” than on solid empirical evidence.
Our hope is that the data presented here provide, at least in part, the basis
for additional research in this regard in a Canadian context. 

The authors conclude that their own ongoing research involves an empirical investigation of the effectiveness of direct and indirect incentives in promoting business r&d investment in Canadian
provinces.

I don't know whether the type of spending matters in terms of investment incentives. I would think that it matters what the spending is related to. For example, does spending a lot of money on companies to patent things actually lead to "innovation," whatever that word means? What I have read to date suggests not. There seems to be a strong connection of innovation spending toward traditional legal rights in copyright and patent, but these rights seem decreasingly relevant to many contemporary innovative business models.

Despite a general lack of empirical evidence that taxpayer dollars are well spent on R&D subsidies, governments everywhere spend and spend and spend to spur innovation. As a result empirical studies  that shed light on the efficacy of this spending will always be welcome. If the studies show that traditional modes of subsidizing R&D do not provide the intended results, the question is whether governments themselves will be willing and able to innovate in terms of how they support innovation. From the chronology presented herein and my own research on the topic, the prospects seem dim. I look forward to seeing more of this important research.

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.

Next week at McGill: Van Apeldoorn on Taxation, Exploitation, and Human Rights

On December 6, Prof. Laurens van Apeldoorn of the University of Leiden will present a working paper at McGill, hosted by the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill Law and the Stikeman Chair in Tax Law (me). Here is the abstract:

Exploitation in global supply chains impacts prices that in turn bear on the allocation of corporate income tax revenue to jurisdictions where multinational enterprises transact. This presentation will develop a concept of exploitation based on the violation of the right to a living wage, put this in the context of discussions of transfer mispricing in multinational enterprises, and consider the economic dimension of the allocation of corporate income tax revenue in relation to public goods provisions in low-income countries where exploitation occurs.

Prof. Van Apeldoorn is currently visiting McGill’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism as an O’Brien Fellow in Residence (Sept-Dec 2017). He is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a member of the Centre for Political Philosophy at Leiden University, where his research broadly focuses on the nature and prospects of the sovereign state and more recently considers the principles of international taxation in relation to global justice. As some readers will no doubt be aware, Laurens' presentation connects to collaborative work he and I are undertaking that probes the meaning and significance of taxing income "where value is created," working paper forthcoming.

The talk will be held from 1pm to 12:30 with lunch being served beginning at 12:30, in Chancellor Day Hall, Stephen Scott Seminar Room (OCDH 16), 3644 rue Peel, Montreal, Quebec. This event is free and open to all.

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.

Monday at McGill: Pichhadze on Transfer Pricing and GAAR in Canada

On Monday October 23, Amir Pichhadze, Lecturer at Deakin University, Australia, will present his work in progress, entitled "Canada’s Federal Income Tax Act: the need for a principle (policy) based approach to legislative (re)drafting of Canada’s transfer pricing rule" as part of the annual Spiegel Sohmer Tax Policy Colloquium at McGill Law.

Pichhadze's new paper builds on his prior work with Reuven Avi-Yonah on GAARs and the nexus between statutory interpretation and legislative drafting and draws on insights from Judith Freedman's work on the topic of legislative intention in statutory interpretation. The working draft explores the evolution of arm's length transfer pricing in Canada and makes the case for Canada’s parliament to adopt and apply a more explicit principle/policy-based approach to legislative drafting. It argues that Canada’s courts cannot effectively distill relevant policies and principles unless they are clearly conveyed by parliament, using Australia's experience as relevant and constructive.

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. 

Amir Pichhadze'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.

Does a country's willingness to exchange tax info alter the character of its trade in services?

Delimatsis and Hoekman have posted National Tax Regulation, International Standards and the GATS: Argentina—Financial Services, of interest especially in light of ongoing discourse about what kinds of tax competition are approved versus harmful in OECD terms. Here is the abstract:

Can a WTO Member discriminate against foreign suppliers of services located in jurisdictions that refuse to share information with a government to permit it to determine if its nationals engage in tax evasion? Does it matter if the Member uses standards developed by an international body as the criterion for deciding whether to impose measures? In Argentina—Financial Services the WTO Appellate Body held that services from jurisdictions that share financial tax information may be different from services provided by jurisdictions that do not cooperate in supplying such information. It overruled a Panel finding that measures to increase taxes on financial transactions with non-cooperative jurisdictions were discriminatory. We argue that the AB reached the right conclusion but that an important opportunity was missed to clarify what WTO Members are permitted to do to enforce their domestic regulatory regimes, and how international standards could have a bearing on this question. By giving consideration to arguments that the likeness of services and service suppliers may be a function of prevailing domestic regulatory regimes, the AB increased the scope for confusion and future litigation.

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.

Burgers & Mosquera on Corporate Tax, BEPS, and Developing Countries

Irene Burgers (University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business) and  Irma Mosquera Valderrama (IBFD) recently posted Corporate Taxation and BEPS: A Fair Slice for Developing Countries?, which explores the link between perceptions of fairness in the allocation of international tax revenues and buy-in to the BEPS framework by developing countries. Here is the abstract:

The aim of this article is to examine the differences in perception of ‘fairness’ between developing and developed countries, which influence developing countries’ willingness to embrace the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) proposals and to recommend as to how to overcome these differences. The article provides an introduction to the background of the OECD’s BEPS initiatives (Action Plan, Low Income Countries Report, Multilateral Framework, Inclusive Framework) and the concerns of developing countries about their ability to implement BEPS (Section 1); a non-exhaustive overview of the shortcomings of the BEPS Project and its Action Plan in respect of developing countries (Section 2); arguments on why developing countries might perceive fairness in relation to corporate income taxes differently from developed countries (Section 3); and recommendations for international organisations, governments and academic researchers on where fairness in respect of developing countries should be more properly addressed (Section 4). 

This is an important analysis because it is clear that the meaningful participation of non-OECD countries in the development of international tax norms going forward is both difficult and imperative in terms of both legitimacy and effectiveness of the evolving international tax order.

100 Years of Tax in Canada: McGill Tax Policy Colloquium 2017

2017 marks the centennial of Canada's federal income tax, so it is appropriate that this year’s tax policy colloquium at McGill Law will focus on the theme of 100 Years of Tax Law in Canada. 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.

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

• Kim Brooks, Professor of Law, Dalhousie University. Former Dean, Dalhousie Law, Prof. Brooks is an internationally recognized tax scholar. On October 2, she will present a keynote and take part in a half-day symposium on the history of tax law in Canada.

• Amir Pichhadze,  Lecturer, Deakin University, Australia. Prof. Pichhadze is an emerging scholar who studied comparative tax law in the U.S. and U.K. and completed a Judicial Clerkship at the Tax Court of Canada. On October 23, he will present work in progress on the development of value added taxes in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.

• Shirley Tillotson, Professor of History, Dalhousie University. Prof. Tillotson is a recognized expert in Canadian tax law history, and has written multiple articles and books on the subject. On November 6, Professor Tillotson will present on her new book entitled “Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy,” and her upcoming research plans.

•  Ajay Mehrotra, Executive Director and Research Professor, American Bar Foundation, and Professor of Law, Northwestern University. Professor Mehrotra is a leading voice on tax history in North America who has studied various aspects of interrelationships and influences in Canadian and U.S. tax law history. On November 20, he will present a work in progress on intersecting developments in Canadian and U.S. tax law history. 

• Ashley Stacey, Associate, Olthuis, Kleer, Townshend. Ms. Stacey is a junior associate whose practice is focused on advising First Nations and First Nation-owned businesses on corporate and commercial transactions and who blogs at oktlaw.com on tax and governance issues relevant to First Nations communities. On December 4, Ms. Stacey will present her work in progress on historical and contemporary intersections of taxation, sovereignty, and autonomy of First Nations in Canada.

The colloquium is open to all.

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Assessing BEPS: Origins, Standards, and Responses

If you are an IFA member or are attending IFA this fall, you can now download the full IFA 2017 Cahiers. The general report for Subject 1 on BEPS is co-authored by myself and Stephen Shay and is also available on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The G20/OECD’s multi-year campaign to combat base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) marks a critical step in the evolution of the international tax regime and the roles of institutions that guide it. This General Report for Subject 1, IFA Congress 2017, provides a snapshot of the outcomes of the BEPS project by comparing national responses to key mandates, recommendations and best practices through the end of October, 2016 based on National Reports representing the perspectives of 48 countries.  These National Reports reveal that the impact of the BEPS initiative on a particular country corresponds to at least three key factors, namely: (1) the extent to which domestic law is already in substantial compliance with BEPS outcomes; (2) the degree to which implementation of BEPS outcomes appears capable of delivering positive revenue or economic results, or both, relative to a country’s experiences and perceptions prior to BEPS; and (3) the type and degree of involvement of a country in the formative stages of the initiative preceding the release of the final BEPS action plans.  As BEPS continues to unfold, it is difficult to gauge the full extent to which countries in fact will adhere or defect from the rules. However, the BEPS project has witnessed the transition of global tax governance from the OECD countries exclusively to global fora. This leaves open questions regarding agenda-setting for international tax policy going forward. As we conclude this interim snapshot of the origins, standards, and responses to BEPS to date, we look to future IFA congresses for answers to these questions and a final assessment of the BEPS project.

 

Tax Sovereignty in the BEPS Era

Kluwer law has recently published Tax Sovereignty in the BEPS Era, a collection of contributions I co-edited with Sergio Rocha, in which we and a slate of authors from a range of countries explore the impact of the BEPS initiative on "tax sovereignty"--which I take to mean the autonomy that nations seek to exercise over tax policy. Here is the description:

Tax Sovereignty in the BEPS Era focuses on how national tax sovereignty has been impacted by recent developments in international taxation, notably following the OECD/G-20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project. The power of a country to freely design its tax system is generally understood to be an integral feature of sovereignty. However, as an inevitable result of globalization and income mobility, one country’s exercise of tax sovereignty often overlaps, interferes with or even impedes that of another. In this collection of chapters, internationally respected practitioners and academics reveal how the OECD’s BEPS initiative, although a major step in the right direction, is insufficient in resolving the tax sovereignty paradox. Each contribution deals with different facets of a single topic: How tax sovereignty is shaped in a post-BEPS world.

And here is the table of contents:

Part I The Essential Paradox of Tax Sovereignty

• CH 1: BEPS and the Power to Tax, Allison Christians          
• CH 2: Tax Sovereignty and Digital Economy in Post-BEPS Times, Ramon Tomazela Santos & Sergio André Rocha
• CH 3: Justification and Implementation of the International Allocation of Taxing Rights: Can We Take One Thing at a Time?, Luís Eduardo Schoueri & Ricardo André Galendi Júnior
• CH 4: An Essay on BEPS, Sovereignty, and Taxation, Yariv Brauner

Part II    Challenge to the Foundational Principles of Source and Residence

• CH 5: Evaluating BEPS, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah & Haiyan Xu
• CH 6: Jurisdictional Excesses in BEPS’ Times: National Appropriation of an Enhanced Global Tax Basis, Guillermo O. Teijeiro
• CH 7: Taxing the Consumption of Digital Goods, Aleksandra Bal

Part III  Acceptance and Implementation of Consensus by Differently-Situated States

• CH 8: The Birth of a New International Tax Framework and the Role of Developing Countries, Natalia Quiñones
• CH 9: The Other Side of BEPS: “Imperial Taxation” and “International Tax Imperialism”, Sergio André Rocha
• CH 10: Country-by-Country Over-Reporting? National Sovereignty, International Tax Transparency, and the Inclusive Framework on BEPS, Romero J.S. Tavares
• CH 11; How Are We Doing with BEPS Recommendations in the EU?, Tomas Balco & Xeniya Yeroshenko      
• CH 12: U.S. Tax Sovereignty and the BEPS Project, Tracy A. Kaye 

And finally, here is a brief description:

The book unfolds in three parts. The first, The Essential Paradox of Tax Sovereignty, features four chapters.

• In chapter 1, Christians introduces the topic by demonstrating how BEPS arose from the paradox of tax sovereignty and analyzing why multilateral cooperation and soft law consensus became the preferred solutions to a loss of autonomy over national tax policy. The chapter concludes that without meaningful multilateralism in the development of global tax norms, the paradox of tax sovereignty will necessarily continue and worsen, preventing resolution of identified problems for the foreseeable future. 
• Tomazela &; Rocha pick up this thread in chapter 2, where they demonstrate that BEPS addresses the symptoms, but not the problems, of the sovereignty paradox. In their view, the central defining problem of this paradox is an ill-defined jurisdiction concept. The chapter demonstrates why tax policymakers need to change the conventional wisdom on sovereignty in order to incorporate new nexus connections due to the changing nature of trade and commerce. 
•  In chapter 3, Schoueri & Galendi further the inquiry by providing a detailed analysis of the interaction of contemporary cooperation efforts with the sovereignty of states in light of historical claims in economic allegiance, economic neutrality and now cooperation against abusive behaviour. 
• Brauner rounds out this first part in chapter 4, which establishes the evolution of the concept of tax sovereignty. The chapter proposes an instrumental role for sovereignty in the process of improving cooperation and coordination of tax policies among productive (non-tax haven) countries, to balance claims and serve as a safeguard against political (in this case international) chaos. Brauner concludes that such a change to the business of international tax law would ensure at least an opportunity for all participants to succeed on their own terms. 

 Part Two of the book, Challenge to the Foundational Principles of Source and Residence, takes an in depth look at why residence and source continue to be the two essential building blocks of tax sovereignty and the backbone of the international tax system, surviving BEPS but still subject to multiple challenges in theory and practice.

• In chapter 5, Avi-Yonah & Xu argue that BEPS simply cannot succeed in solving the sovereignty paradox because BEPS follows the flawed theory of the benefits principle in assigning the jurisdiction to tax. Avi-Yonah and Xu therefore make a compelling argument that for the international tax regime to flourish in the face of sovereign and autonomous states, countries must commit to full residence-based taxation of active income with a foreign tax credit granted for source-based taxation. 
• In chapter 6, Tejeiro continues the analysis of the fundamental jurisdictional building blocks, demonstrating that by resorting to legal fictions within BEPS and beyond it, states are attempting to enlarge the scope of their personal or economic nexus, or to grasp taxable events and bases beyond their proper reach under well-settled international law rules and principles. 
• Bal furthers the discussion in chapter 7, with an analysis of how digital commerce has upended traditional notions of source and residence. Bal advocates the consumer's usual residence as a good approximation of the place of actual consumption and therefore the best-justified place of taxation. 

Part Three of the book, Acceptance and Implementation by Differently-Situated States, considers tax sovereignty after BEPS from a range of perspectives. Chapters 8 through 10 focus on perspectives from lower income or developing countries, while chapters 11 and 12 review the landscape from the perspective of Europe and the United States, respectively.

• In chapter 8, Quinones explores how developing countries might take advantage of the new international tax architecture, developed for purposes of coordinating the BEPS action plans, to ensure that their voices are truly shaping the standards. She argues that the knowledge gap between developing and developed is getting narrower instead of wider, with major negative impacts expected for the international tax order. 
• Rocha continues this discussion in chapter 9, with a proposal: instead of simply accepting the BEPS Project’s recommendations and their reliance on historical decisions about what constitutes a country’s “fair share of tax”, developing countries should join in the formation of a Developing Countries’ International Tax Regime to focus discourse on the rightful limits of states’ taxing powers. 
• Furthering the theme of autonomous priority-setting, in chapter 10 Tavares focuses in on a key part of the BEPS consensus, exploring whether implementing the CBCR standard, without a deeper transfer pricing reform, should be viewed as a priority in every country. He further questions whether this particular initiative, even if important, is worthy of mobilization of the scarce resources of developing countries. Tavares concludes with an incisive review of the role of the inclusive framework in prioritizing some needs over others. 
• Balco & Yeroshenko then consider BEPS implementation from the very different perspective of the EU in chapter 11. The chapter demonstrates that even within the EU, BEPS implementation is not straightforward, as the interests of member states sometimes conflict and the basic notion of tax sovereignty remains fundamental even while tax coordination and harmonization across the EU expands. However, the authors note that the progress made in the last several years on key cooperation norms, which was largely inspired by BEPS, has been unprecedented. 
• Finally, Kaye provides a capstone to the book in chapter 12, where she makes the convincing case that although some in the United States saw the BEPS Project as a threat to US tax sovereignty, this project was in fact necessary in order for the United States to effectively wield its tax sovereignty. Kaye’s chapter thus ends the book with a clear picture of the ongoing paradox of tax sovereignty in the world after BEPS.

Dagan on International Tax and Global Justice

Tsilly Dagan recently posted this new paper on the limitations of normative tax analysis that constrains itself to the state. Here is the abstract:

Inequality, as well as the scope of the duty of justice to reduce it, has always been a central concern of political justice. Income taxation has been seen as a key tool for redistribution and the state was the arena for discussions of justice. Globalization and the tax competition it fosters among states change the context for the discussion of distributive justice. Given the state’s fading coercive power in taxation and the decreasing power of its citizenry to co-author its collective will due to global competition, we can no longer assume that justice can be realized within the parameters of the state. 

International tax policy in an effort to retain justice often opts for cooperation as a vehicle to support distributive justice. But cooperation among states is more than a way for them to promote their aims through bargaining. Rather, it is a way for states to regain legitimacy by sustaining their very ability to ensure the collective action of their citizens and to treat them with equal respect and concern. The traditional discussion in international taxation seems to endorse a statist position — implicitly assuming that when states bargain for a multilateral deal, justice is completely mediated by the agreement of the states. 

In contrast, this Article argues that such a multilateral regime intended to provide the state with fundamental legitimacy requires independent justification. Contrary to the conventional statist position, I maintain that cooperating states have a duty to ensure that the constituents of all cooperating states are not treated unjustly because of the agreement. I argue that not only cosmopolitanism but political justice too requires that a justiciable cooperative regime must improve (or at least not worsen) the welfare of the least well-off citizens in all cooperating states. I explain that cooperation alone is no guarantee of improved welfare and that certain transfer payments between rich and poor countries might be required to ensure this.

 This is an important and provocative paper, highly recommended reading.

Spiro on Citizenship Overreach

The always excellent Peter Spiro has recently posted this new article on SSRN, of interest. Abstract:

This Article examines international law limitations on the ascription of citizenship in the context of U.S. taxation of non-resident citizens. U.S. citizenship practice is exceptionally generous, extending citizenship to almost all persons in its territory at the moment of birth. At the same time that it is generous at the front end, U.S. citizenship is sticky at the back. Termination of citizenship on the individual’s part involves substantial fees and tax compliance. It is difficult to shed a citizenship one may never have wanted in the first place. 

This stickiness would be inconsequential if few costs were associated with the status. But the United States taxes its citizens on a worldwide basis. The 2010 enactment of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act has ramped up historically lax enforcement and imposes substantial administrative burdens on even middle-earner citizens abroad. 

In this frame, U.S. birthright citizenship and expatriation regimes may violate international norms, especially with respect to those "accidental Americans" who departed the United States as children. Even in the context of extremely relaxed historical constraints on state nationality practice, there were acknowledged nineteenth century limitations on the extension of citizenship to individuals with insufficient connection to a state -- citizenship over-claiming, as it were. The article also describes the historical requirement that naturalization be volitional, a norm now appropriately applied in some cases in the context of birthright citizenship.  

To the extent the ascription of U.S. citizenship compromises individual rights, there are tax fixes and there are citizenship fixes. Citizenship fixes include opt-in and opt-out mechanisms for birthright citizenship. The better solution may lie in frictionless exit for those with nominal ties to the national community. Though reform is more likely to be accomplished through the tax regime, the moment highlights the over-inclusiveness of U.S. citizenship and the growing salience of international law to citizenship practices.

I'm less confident than Peter that reform will ever be delivered through the tax regime, but I am very glad to see this important contribution to the growing literature focusing on the citizenship/taxation link.

Update: The Price of Entry: Latest Research plus Infographic

* September update: I've found some more information on Russia's program, which brings it closer to the global averages instead of being a glaring outlier. I've also now uploaded my working paper, Buying in: Residence and Citizenship by Investment, and would welcome comments. Here is the abstract:

States have complex and often conflicted attitudes toward migration and citizenship. These attitudes are not always directly expressed by lawmakers, but they may be reflected quite explicitly in tax regimes: for the world’s most prosperous individuals and their families, multiple states extend a warm welcome. Sometimes prospective migrants are offered fast track to physical residence which can lead to citizenship if the migrant desires it. Others are offered a mere commercial transaction, with citizenship granted to applicants with the right credentials and a willingness to pay. Migrants might seek to obtain residency or citizenship for personal, family, economic, or tax reasons, or some combination of them. For the granting country, the tax significance of obtaining new residents or citizens will vary depending on domestic policy goals. However, the consequences of residence and citizenship by investment programs could be severe for the international tax regime: the jurisdiction to tax and the allocation of taxing rights among countries are commonly based on residence and citizenship factors. This article accordingly surveys contemporary residence and citizenship by investment programs on offer around the world and analyzes their potential impact on international tax policy.

* update: I've found a couple of additional programs (e.g. France has a lower cost program, making it less of an outlier)--thank you twitterverse) and I've corrected a few currency conversion errors. This is still a work in progress as previously noted, and I expect to be revising again in the coming weeks.

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I've been working on residence and citizenship by investment programs, and thanks to some stellar research assistance by Jake Heyka, have developed a set of data comprising what I believe is a fairly thorough look at the residence and citizenship by investment programs currently on offer around the world. I made the above infographic to show the lowest cost program per country for all countries that offer either residence or citizenship by investment.

The lowest cost residence by investment programs are offered by Panama and Paraguay, each coming in at about USD$5,000, while the most expensive is Russia, at over USD$5 million now Austria, at about $3.3M. The average price for all residence and citizenship by investment programs that we found is about $1 million, but this number isn't perfect because some programs are based on job creation rather than investment (e.g., Portugal, Turkey, UK), some involve having entrepreneur/angel investment support rather than a direct investment (e.g. Australia, Canada), and some involve annual amounts (Italy and Switzerland).

One of the things I wondered about in looking over the programs is the inequality factor at play--that is, how much can richer/larger countries demand in terms of higher prices and more stringent requirements (such as actual residence) for entry, and how much must poorer/smaller countries be satisfied with smaller investments and fewer commitments by the applicant? The answer seems to be that there appears definitely a "rich get richer" quality to the distinctions among programs, but there are lots of details in the programs that require further thought.

The paper itself is still in progress but here is an explanation of what I am looking at:

International law and political theory scholars have long wrestled with the normative implications of commodifying citizenship and access to immigration with pay-to-play visa programs, but the analysis does not typically consider the role the tax system plays or could play in these schemes, nor how such schemes might impact the tax regime in terms of gross revenue or distributional effect.  Yet governments increasingly view their tax systems as a means of potentially increasing the value of residence and citizenship in their countries, whether intrinsically or in relation to the treatment of those who gain such status by other means.  Given the cost involved in reducing revenue from those arguably most able to pay, whether the programs actually produce the predicted outcomes is one obvious question to be asked.  Even if the programs in fact achieve their goals, a second question surely arises regarding the normative justification for using the tax system to lure the wealthy away from other countries in this manner. Does the normative case differ when applied to humans as opposed to companies? Does it differ when the luring state is richer or poorer relative to the countries of origin of prospective immigrants? To sketch out a framework for analyzing these questions requires a sense of the various competing programs on offer. This essay takes the first step by comparing national programs that use their taxing power in some manner in order to attract immigration, and highlights some of the factors that raise normative questions about the appropriate design and uses of a tax system. 

Comments welcome.

Shu Yi Oei: The Offshore Tax Enforcement Dragnet

Shu Yi Oei (Tulane) has posted an important new paper on U.S. offshore tax enforcement, of interest. Here is the abstract:

Taxpayers who hide assets abroad to evade taxes present a serious enforcement challenge for the United States. In response, the U.S. has developed a family of initiatives that punish and rehabilitate non-compliant taxpayers, raise revenues, and require widespread reporting of offshore financial information. Yet, while these initiatives help catch willful tax cheats, they have also adversely affected immigrants, Americans living abroad, and “accidental Americans.”  

This Article critiques the United States’ offshore tax enforcement initiatives, arguing that the U.S. has prioritized two problematic policy commitments in designing enforcement at the expense of competing considerations: First, the U.S. has attempted to equalize enforcement against taxpayers with solely domestic holdings and those with harder-to-detect offshore holdings by imposing harsher reporting requirements and penalties on the latter. But in doing so, it has failed to appropriately distinguish among differently situated taxpayers with offshore holdings. Second, the U.S. has focused on revenue and enforcement, ignoring the significant compliance costs and social harms that its initiatives create.  

The confluence of these two policy commitments risks creating high costs for the wrong taxpayers. While offshore tax enforcement may have been designed to catch high¬-net-worth tax cheats, it may instead impose disproportionate burdens on those immigrants and expatriates who have less ability to complain, comply, or “substitute out” of the law’s grasp. This Article argues that the U.S. should redesign its enforcement approach to minimize these risks and suggests reforms to this end.

The paper provides a thorough review of the panoply of offshore enforcement programs and mechanisms and documents the harms of their dragnet approach, especially on the most vulnerable and least likely targets. A significant contribution to the literature.

Modern Day Robin Hood? Taxpayers as Facilitators of State Level Tax Games

In an interesting twist on contemporary debates about tax planning by multinational companies, Prof. Leandra Lederman recently posted a very interesting column about how one government seems to have benefited from some clever tax planning at the expense of its own national government, with the help of a multinational company that appears to have received nothing for its trouble.

This is the strange case of Volkswagen's tax structuring involving the Spanish provinces of Navarre and Catalonia. What is strange is that, in this particular instance, Volkswagen's structure appears to have created no tax benefit for itself, but resulted in the province of Navarre effectively transferring itself a large pot of revenue from the national coffers.

Prof. Lederman's post explains that Navarre is an "autonomous community", which, unlike Catalonia, independently administers the VAT, and therefore only issues VAT refunds when products are exported from Navarre to a buyer located outside of Spain. (Most of Spain's other provinces have a harmonized VAT system administered at the national level). If products are sold to a buyer outside of Navarre but still in Spain, such as Catalonia, Navarre does not issue a refund because there has been no export. But if the purchasing company in that other province then sells to a subsequent buyer outside of Spain, the Spanish Treasury issues a refund to the company and voilà, Navarre has transferred itself a windfall in the amount of tax it collected and Spain paid back.

Over a period of several years, Navarre reportedly collected approximately 1.5 billion Euros from the Spanish government using Volkswagen in this manner. By routing its export sales through an intermediary in Catalonia rather than directly from Navarre, Volkswagen acted as a conduit to route revenues from the state to the province. Given its own indifference to who, as between Navarre and Spain, refunds the VAT on its exports, using an intermediary in Catalonia appears like an act of pure generosity to the province of Navarre. Prof. Lederman goes through the case that brought this issue to attention and queries: what's in it for Volkswagen? She notes that nothing in the public record suggests that VW received anything in return—"it simply did Navarre a favor." That seems unlikely; certainly, as Lederman points out, Navarre would be capable of having made some other concessions. These would not necessarily be made public.

Absent concessions, is this a modern day Robin Hood story, with VW effectively taking from the state to give to the province? Navarre is not quite at the bottom of Spain's provinces economically (at least according to wikipedia) but neither is it near the top spot in terms of gross regional product (it is, however, near the top in terms of purchasing power parity, as well as in other factors such as employment rates). Should we cheer or disparage the tax trickery that resulted in an ongoing transfer of wealth from Spain to Navarre?

Also curious is why Spain wouldn't have anticipated this problem far in advance of this situation arising. It seems that the government proposes to resolve the issue by renegotiating the Convenio Económico Navarra-Estado (Navarra-State Economic Agreement), which governs the VAT administration among other matters. I am no VAT expert but it seems to me that having designed a destination based VAT system and having agreed to independent administration of that system by one or more of its provinces, the state might have immediately recognized that revenue transfers from itself to the non-harmonized province(s) would be likely unless there was some mechanism requiring the VAT-collecting province to be the VAT-refunding province in the case of ultimate exports.

Like Prof. Lederman, I would be curious to know whether this sort of situation has arisen in other contexts--do sub-national governments routinely look for ways to transfer state revenues to themselves using taxpayers as conduits? Should we liken the province's passively benefiting from a system not solely of its own making as acceptable tax planning or harmful tax competition? Likewise, should we view the taxpayer's willingness to facilitate the transfer (for apparently no reason but its good nature and general willingness to cooperate) as a victory or a failing in the taxpayer-state relationship?

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.

Lederman: Death, Taxes and a Beach Read

Over at Surly Subgroup, Leandra Lederman has posted Death, Taxes, and a Beach Read, a review of a series of novels by Diane Kelly, a former CPA and tax attorney turned romance novelist who "had the pleasure of working with a partner later convicted of tax shelter fraud [and] served a stint as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas under an AG who pled guilty to criminal charges related to the tobacco company lawsuits." Leandra told me about these books last week when I was in Bloomington, and I have never heard of them before, so it is fun to see her write them up. From her post:

It never occurred to me to blog about [the series] until I read the first page of “Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses” while on a plane, and saw a link with tax issues I frequently write about. The opening paragraph reads:

“I slid my gun into my purse, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out to my car. Yep, tax season was in full swing once again, honest people scrambling to round up their receipts, hoping for a refund or at least to break even. As a taxpayer myself, I felt for them. But as far as tax cheats were concerned, I had no sympathy. The most recent annual report indicated that American individuals and corporations had underpaid their taxes by $450 billion. Not exactly chump change. That’s where I came in.” 

I had just presented my latest tax compliance article, “Does Enforcement Crowd Out Voluntary Tax Compliance?” and here were tax gap figures showing up in a novel! ...

Leandra notes that of course the novel simplifies, referring to “underpaid”taxes: official tax gap measurements by the IRS (see e.g. 2006; 2012) include late payment and filing/reporting failures. Leandra continues:

The heroine of this "romantic mystery series" is CPA Tara Holloway, who's described as "kicking ass, taking social security numbers, and keeping the world safe for honest taxpayers." She's a Special Agent with the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division.... 

Diane Kelly takes a few liberties with what Tara can get away with. The acknowledgments in “Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria” include the following statement: “To the IRS special agents, thank you for sharing your fascinating world with me and for all you do on behalf of honest taxpayers. Please forgive Tara for being such a naughty agent and breaking the rules.” 

Leandra recommends readers start with the first novel in the series, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure. But if Tara's mission is to close the tax gap, is it ok to buy the book on Amazon?