A Foundation for International Taxation: The Institutional Competence of Nations

This Article proposes a conceptual foundation for the field of international tax law. The Article refers to this foundation as the institutional competence of nations in global economic development. A nation’s institutional competence is its discretion to make decisions in pursuit of our collective goal of global economic development, discretion that is subject to a number of standards and limitations. The Article constructs the institutional competence of nations in global economic development from institutional economics, simple game theory, and the literature on social norms. The Article expresses the institutional competence of nations through standards and limitations that reduce the abuse of sovereign discretion and address international collective action problems in the pursuit of global economic development. These standards and limitations allocate prescriptive jurisdiction among nations over the global income tax base. The foundation proposed by the Article would coordinate international taxation with the international regulation of trade. The Article also addresses the proper place of capital export neutrality in the hierarchy of values for economic development, the choice between territorial and worldwide tax systems, the evaluation of tax havens and appropriate responses, the use of anti-deferral regimes, and the possible need for a multilateral tax treaty. On this institutional foundation, the role of the state is both essential and subordinate: sovereignty becomes an instrumental value and national law-making is seen in terms of a conceptual subsidiarity, to use the European term, or a consequentialist federalism in the realm of global economic development. Moreover, non-state actors facilitate sovereign competition and the benefits that such a constraint on the abuse of sovereign discretion brings to the world’s people

The United States\u27 Response to Tax Havens: The Foreign Base Company Services Income of Controlled Foreign Corporations

This article is a detailed study of the taxation by the United States of foreign base company services income. Foreign base company services in- come is defined generally as the income derived by a controlled foreign corporation from the performance of services for a related person.2 Con- trolled foreign corporations, in turn, generally are the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. parent corporations.3 A controlled foreign corporation\u27s foreign base company services income is taxed to its U.S. parent corporation, subject to various exclusions and qualifications. This article defines the class of sus- pect relationships between the controlled foreign corporation and its related persons and delineates the category of relevant services. The article\u27s con- tributions to the literature on controlled foreign corporations include: the proper coordination of the guaranty-plus rule with the substantial assistance rule;4 a critique of the avoidance of tax through the use of branches and, more generally, of the requirement that a related person figure in a tax ha- ven arrangement before the United States imposes tax;5 a clear analysis of the complex relationship among related-person factoring, foreign personal holding company income, and foreign base company services income;6 and \u27 Subpart F in the parlance of international tax lawyers comprises sections 951-964 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 954(e) defines foreign base company services income, the subject matter of this article. There is very little legislative history for section 954(e). The provision originated in the Senate as an amendment to what was to become the Revenue Act of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-834, § 12, 76 Stat. 960, 1006 (1962). S. REP. No. 1881, 87th Cong., 2d Sess. (1962), reprinted in 1962-3 C.B. 703, 785. The Senate Report states only that the purpose of the provision is to deny tax deferral where a service subsidiary is separated from manufacturing or similar activities of a related corporation and organized in another country primarily to obtain a lower rate of tax for the service income. Id. at 790. Code section 954(e) is broader in scope, of course, and reaches a service subsidiary that is separated from a U.S. parent corporation that engages only in services. Examples include corporations en- gaged in engineering, construction, or oil field services

The United States\u27 Response to Tax Havens: The Foreign Base Company Services Income of Controlled Foreign Corporations

This article is a detailed study of the taxation by the United States of foreign base company services income. Foreign base company services in- come is defined generally as the income derived by a controlled foreign corporation from the performance of services for a related person.2 Con- trolled foreign corporations, in turn, generally are the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. parent corporations.3 A controlled foreign corporation\u27s foreign base company services income is taxed to its U.S. parent corporation, subject to various exclusions and qualifications. This article defines the class of sus- pect relationships between the controlled foreign corporation and its related persons and delineates the category of relevant services. The article\u27s con- tributions to the literature on controlled foreign corporations include: the proper coordination of the guaranty-plus rule with the substantial assistance rule;4 a critique of the avoidance of tax through the use of branches and, more generally, of the requirement that a related person figure in a tax ha- ven arrangement before the United States imposes tax;5 a clear analysis of the complex relationship among related-person factoring, foreign personal holding company income, and foreign base company services income;6 and \u27 Subpart F in the parlance of international tax lawyers comprises sections 951-964 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 954(e) defines foreign base company services income, the subject matter of this article. There is very little legislative history for section 954(e). The provision originated in the Senate as an amendment to what was to become the Revenue Act of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-834, § 12, 76 Stat. 960, 1006 (1962). S. REP. No. 1881, 87th Cong., 2d Sess. (1962), reprinted in 1962-3 C.B. 703, 785. The Senate Report states only that the purpose of the provision is to deny tax deferral where a service subsidiary is separated from manufacturing or similar activities of a related corporation and organized in another country primarily to obtain a lower rate of tax for the service income. Id. at 790. Code section 954(e) is broader in scope, of course, and reaches a service subsidiary that is separated from a U.S. parent corporation that engages only in services. Examples include corporations en- gaged in engineering, construction, or oil field services

In Situ Identification of Secondary Structures in Unpurified <i>Bombyx mori</i> Silk Fibrils Using Polarized Two-Dimensional Infrared Spectroscopy

[Image: see text] The mechanical properties of biomaterials are dictated by the interactions and conformations of their building blocks, typically proteins. Although the macroscopic behavior of biomaterials is widely studied, our understanding of the underlying molecular properties is generally limited. Among the noninvasive and label-free methods to investigate molecular structures, infrared spectroscopy is one of the most commonly used tools because the absorption bands of amide groups strongly depend on protein secondary structure. However, spectral congestion usually complicates the analysis of the amide spectrum. Here, we apply polarized two-dimensional (2D) infrared spectroscopy (IR) to directly identify the protein secondary structures in native silk films cast from Bombyx mori silk feedstock. Without any additional peak fitting, we find that the initial effect of hydration is an increase of the random coil content at the expense of the helical content, while the β-sheet content is unchanged and only increases at a later stage. This paper demonstrates that 2D-IR can be a valuable tool for characterizing biomaterials