International Taxation and Competitiveness : Introduction and Overview

The debate about whether to abolish deferral or to adopt territoriality has been going on ever since the Kennedy Administration first proposed ending deferral in 1961. The problem is that neither side has factual support for their argument about whether the U.S. tax system, including Subpart F, as currently enacted or with any of the proposed reforms, in fact negatively impacts the tax burden of US-based MNEs. Even the concept of competitiveness itself is unclear. Despite numerous claims, there has been no rigorous attempt that we are aware of to determine whether MNEs based in our major trading partners in fact have a tax advantage or disadvantage because of Subpart F or other rules. In October, 2011, the American Tax Policy Institute sponsored a conference organized by Reuven Avi-Yonah and Jane Gravelle on 'International Taxation and Competitiveness'. This conference was designed to address these issues in a systematic way, and to form the basis for a better informed policy debate going forward. The articles included in this volume were first presented at this conference