Even if a tax planning structure is legal, it canstill be ‘‘unwanted.’’ However, those structuresmight soon be wanted — for disclosure. ‘‘Unwanted’’structures do not violate the letter of the law, butstill might infringe on the spirit of the law.[...]

This article offers a critical review of recent literature on Chinese legal tradition and argues that some subtle but fundamental differences between the Western and Chinese legal traditions are highly relevant to our explanation of the economic divergence in the modern era. By elucidating the...

From 1945 to 1975, fifteen Western European countries passed school-leaving age laws that raised the number of years of compulsory schooling for the first time after the Second World War. In order to understand the driving forces behind the increase in compulsory schooling and to explain the...

In this paper we review as well as contribute to the empirical literature on the impact of landreform on agricultural productivity in India. We find that, overall for all states, land-reform legislation had anegative and significant effect on agricultural productivity. However, this hides...

The Latin principle pacta sunt servanda (‘‘agreementsmust be kept’’) serves as a cornerstone of socialinteraction, peace, and justice. If a breach of contractdid not have some sort of ramification, the motivationto stick to the stipulations of the treaty would decreasegreatly, the...

Many of our previous columns dealt with theframework and the aftermath of the major corporatetax reform (Unternehmenssteuerreformgesetz) in2008. The reform included a fundamental modificationof the German thin cap rule, or Zinsschranke (see TaxNotes Int’l, July 16, 2007, p. 263, Doc...

The tax issue causing uproar in Germany and Switzerlandhas all the ingredients for a good story. Itis about tax law, those who break it, and the ultimatequestion whether the government itself is infringing onthe law when buying stolen data. Moreover, it is aboutthe opinion of the vast majority...

The fight against tax havens has caused some majordistortions in the relationship between Germanyand Switzerland. Similar to the approach used in theUnited States in the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, Germanyintensified its measures to prevent tax evasion byits own citizens starting with a German...

It was a close call, but eventually the German legislativebody managed to save the Inheritance andGift Tax Act (Erbschafts- und Schenkungssteuergesetz)from being automatically abolished. In fact, abolishingthe inheritance tax is not an uncommon measure inCentral Europe. As of August 1, 2008,...

Germany passed legislation on September 19 thatmodifies the GmbH Act (GmbH-Gesetz), the InsolvencyAct (Insolvenzordnung), and the Stock CompanyAct (Aktiengesetz). The legal measure, called MoMiG(Gesetz zur Modernisierung des GmbH-Rechts und zurBekämpfung von Missbräuchen), will enter into...