Abuse is one of the core issues in EU direct tax matters. Much has been written over the past years. The discussion on the interpretation and application of the different elements of the anti-abuse clauses appears to be settling. However, an equally fascinating discussion appears to be emerging:...

Taxes designed to counter unsustainable behaviours that lead to environmental destruction are usually styled as surtaxes on purchase prices. It makes more sense to locate the source of the profits derived from such behaviours and tax them in order to internalize the environmental costs that are...

Viewing the development of the standard international tax neutrality discussion as being historically fairly limited because Musgrave's conclusions, rather than basic definitions, served as the undisputed baseline, in a previous article I reconsidered the classic international tax neutrality...

Tax policy in general and international income tax policy in particular has long been a subject of discussion and argument by tax philosophers, economists, and lawyers. Theories have often been introduced to support the establishment of new tax systems, to justify existing ones, or to call for...

In the past year, a number of new financial transactions (such as the Fantex, Upstart and Pave transactions) have emerged that allow individuals to raise funds by offering a percentage interest in their future earnings. Unlike traditional lending arrangements, these structures essentially enable...

Based on an analysis of 3,844 tax treaties, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and its Commentaries (VCLT), and case law of various domestic and international courts.The current orthodoxy maintains that courts are not required to compare all language texts of a plurilingual treaty but...

This note reviews May 2019 OECD framework agreement report, “OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS: Progress Report July 2018-May 2019” on international taxation of the ‘digital economy'. The core conclusions of the review are:1. The framework agreement proposals to-date represent complex,...

Each year, the government loses hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue due to underreporting by individual taxpayers. According to standard deterrence theory, policymakers should be able to reduce tax evasion by increasing tax penalties, raising the audit rate, or some combination of the...

This paper analyzes the role of Tax Incentives in promoting investment, their effectiveness and their revenue and other costs and political economy. The paper consolidates econometric work on the topic done by the authors covering the Caribbean, Francophone Africa and India; surveys of Investors...

In this report, Fleming, Peroni, and Shay analyze the effects of including a final, low-rate minimum tax on U.S. multinational corporations in a territorial system. They continue to prefer a real worldwide international tax system, but see a final, low-rate minimum tax as a second-best measure...