Innovative Approach to Anti-BEPS and the Coherence of International Tax Law

This dissertation is comprised of three articles: Avi-Yonah, Reuven,. co-author. Evaluating BEPS: A Reconsideration of the Benefits Principle and Proposal for UN Oversight. H. Xu, co-author. Harv. Bus. L. Rev. 6, no. 2 (2016): 185-238 Reuven S. Avi-Yonah & Haiyan Xu, A Global Treaty Override? The New OECD Multilateral Tax Instrument and Its Limits, 39 Mich. J. Int\u27l L. 155 (2018). Avi-Yonah, Reuven S. China and BEPS. Haiyan Xu, co-author. Laws 7, no. 1 (2018): 4-30

Reuven Avi-Yonah\u27s Citizens United and the Corporate Form: Still Unuseful

I welcome Avi-Yonah\u27s new deployments of descriptive theories of the corporation. But I traversed this territory years ago and came away with a skeptical view of the enterprise. Although Avi-Yonah\u27s interventions are compelling in the encounter, I remain unconvinced that the theories have important lessons to teach us

Faculty

Welcome to the Law School; Lempert, Avi-Yonah, and Malamud receive named professorships; Eric Stein, \u2742, wins University of Michigan Press Award

Globalization, Tax Competition, and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State

This Article examines the increased use of tax incentives as weapons in the international competition to attract investment. Professor Avi-Yonah argues that the establishment of tax havens allows large amounts of capital to go untaxed, depriving both developed and developing countries of revenue and forcing them to rely on forms of taxation less progressive than the income tax. He points to social insurance programs, many of which are already on uncertain courses as aging populations imperil their fiscal health, as likely to bear the brunt of the revenue loss that tax havens cause. Professor Avi-Yonah contends that both economic efficiency and equity among individuals and among nations support limits on international tax competition, and he presents a proposal that accommodates the competing concern for democratic states\u27 ability to set their tax rates independently. He proposes the coordinated imposition of withholding taxes on international portfolio investment, with the goal of ensuring that all income may be taxed in the investor\u27s home jurisdiction. Professor Avi-Yonah also proposes that multinational corporations be taxed initially in the jurisdictions where their goods and services are consumed. Under the framework this Article outlines, both developed and developing nations would be able to preserve the progressivity of the income tax and to broaden and stabilize their tax bases in time to stave off the fiscal threat to the welfare state

Is GILTI Constitutional?

In this article, Avi-Yonah argues that the global intangible low-taxed income regime may be an unconstitutional attempt to tax the foreign-source income of foreign entities, and he offers an alternative

Globalization, Tax Competition, and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State

This Article examines the increased use of tax incentives as weapons in the international competition to attract investment. Professor Avi-Yonah argues that the establishment of tax havens allows large amounts of capital to go untaxed, depriving both developed and developing countries of revenue and forcing them to rely on forms of taxation less progressive than the income tax. He points to social insurance programs, many of which are already on uncertain courses as aging populations imperil their fiscal health, as likely to bear the brunt of the revenue loss that tax havens cause. Professor Avi-Yonah contends that both economic efficiency and equity among individuals and among nations support limits on international tax competition, and he presents a proposal that accommodates the competing concern for democratic states\u27 ability to set their tax rates independently. He proposes the coordinated imposition of withholding taxes on international portfolio investment, with the goal of ensuring that all income may be taxed in the investor\u27s home jurisdiction. Professor Avi-Yonah also proposes that multinational corporations be taxed initially in the jurisdictions where their goods and services are consumed. Under the framework this Article outlines, both developed and developing nations would be able to preserve the progressivity of the income tax and to broaden and stabilize their tax bases in time to stave off the fiscal threat to the welfare state

Be Careful What You Wish For? Reducing Inequality in the 21st Century

Stanford historian Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Univ. Press, 2017), is, in some respects, the anti-Piketty. Scheidel accepts Piketty’s view that inequality tends to grow over time, but adds a crucial caveat that runs directly opposite to Piketty’s optimistic proposals. Scheidel argues that the historical record demonstrates that inequality can only be reduced by violent means. Therefore, the Piketty proposals to reduce inequality peacefully are unrealistic, and Scheidel concludes his book by arguing that we should accept inequality as the price of peace: “All of us who prize greater economic equality would do well to remember that with the rarest of exceptions, it was only ever brought forth in sorrow. Be careful what you wish for.” This review will first summarize Scheidel’s thesis and the evidence for it (part 2). It will then argue that the twentieth-century history of the United States shows that in fact inequality can be reduced by peaceful means, even though such reductions are not easy to achieve and usually require bipartisan consensus (part 3). Next, the review will address why the Great Recession of 2008-9 did not lead to a reduction in inequality, unlike the Great Depression (part 4). Finally, the review will ask what can be done, and propose certain steps that may be more achievable than Piketty’s proposals (part 5)

Be Careful What You Wish For? Reducing Inequality in the Twenty-First Century

A review of Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

Faculty News

White retires after 48 years; Payton retires; was one of first female faculty members; the art of mooting and winning; Schlanger\u27s paper tackles prison overcrowding; another busy year ahead for Avi-Yonah; Jones named Thurnau Professor by university; Starr research shows gender disparities in federal criminal cases