Reforming the U.S. Corporate Tax System to Increase Tax Competitiveness

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason J. Fichtner
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax System ◽  
The U.S

Making Tax Havens Work: The Necessity of Tax Professionalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Martin T. Stuebs ◽  
Helen (Janie) Whiteaker-Poe
Keyword(s):  
Tax Policy ◽  
Tax Reform ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Tax Havens ◽  
Earned Income ◽  
Tax Professionals ◽  
Jobs Act ◽  
Influence Behavior ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 overhauled the U.S. corporate tax system, lowering the statutory rate, exempting foreign earned income, and strengthening anti-abuse provisions. However, opportunities and incentives for abuse remain. Therefore, while developing tax policy is helpful, this paper posits that developing tax professionalism—not only tax policy—is needed. Efforts to reform tax policy should be balanced with efforts to develop and guard tax professionalism. Implementing tax policies in a flourishing tax system requires flourishing tax professionals. We develop theoretical and moral analyses to assess tax policy and tax professionalism approaches to tax reform. By targeting processes in the tax system, the tax policy approach attempts to influence practitioner behavior by restricting opportunities and incentives for corporate tax aggression. The tax professionalism approach recognizes that beneath efforts to influence behavior is a deeper, fundamental challenge to develop and protect tax professionals as reflexive agents capable of responsibly handling tax system opportunities and incentives. The tax professionalism approach focuses on persons in the tax system—not processes. This paper draws attention to the limitations of the tax policy approach and to the complementary need for the tax professionalism approach and proposes practical approaches to developing tax professionalism.

Transocean and the History of Tax Inversions

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Susan M. Albring ◽  
Randal J. Elder ◽  
Mitchell A. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Income Taxes ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Corporate Income Taxes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jobs Act ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

ABSTRACT The first tax inversion in 1983 was followed by small waves of subsequent inversion activity, including two inversions completed by Transocean. Significant media and political attention focused on transactions made by U.S. multinational corporations that were primarily designed to reduce U.S. corporate income taxes. As a result, the U.S. government took several actions to limit inversion activity. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) significantly lowered U.S. corporate tax rates and one expected impact of TCJA is a reduction of inversion activity. Students use the Transocean inversions to understand the reasons why companies complete a tax inversion and how the U.S. tax code affects inversion activity. Students also learn about the structure of inversion transactions and how they have changed over time as the U.S. government attempted to limit them. Students also assess the tax and economic impacts of inversion transactions to evaluate tax policy.

Brewing Up Controversy: A Case Exploring the Ethics of Corporate Tax Planning

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan F. Hess ◽  
Raquel Meyer Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Planning ◽  
Learning Assessment ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax Havens ◽  
Multinational Organizations ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT This instructional case explores the ethical issues surrounding the corporate tax-planning and tax-avoidance strategies of multinational organizations. Drawing on the real-world experiences of SABMiller, one of the world's largest beverage companies, this case provides a launching point for students to consider the ethics of corporate tax planning. The ethics of multinational tax practices, especially the use of tax havens, has recently become the focus of media and legislative debate in both the U.S. and the U.K., and many well-respected companies, such as General Electric, Apple Inc., and Starbucks are now feeling the pressure to reform. In a post-case learning assessment, students demonstrated significant improvement in their understanding and indicated that they enjoyed discussing this controversial issue. The “Implementation Guidance” section and Teaching Notes offer guidance for in-class discussion of the ethical and tax issues in this case.

Preferences, Tax Structure and Tax Reform: Theory and Evidence

1975 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomo Maital
Keyword(s):  
Tax Reform ◽  
Tax Structure ◽  
Indirect Taxation ◽  
Tax System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Pure Public Good ◽  
Indirect Taxes ◽  
Current Shift ◽  
Optimal Tax Structure ◽  
The U.S

When the structure of tax revenues–the proportion of revenues earned by income, consumption and wealth taxes–is treated as a pure public good, a useful framework emerges for analyzing interrelationships among taxpayers' preferences, tax structure and tax reform. The “optimal” tax structure is defined and used to outline several conjectures about the current shift from direct to indirect taxation, evident particularly in Europe. Attention is then focused on the U.S. tax system. The structure of the tax system is shown to have changed very little in the past two decades. In contrast, interview surveys carried out over the past thirty years indicated a long-standing shift in taxpayers' preferences toward indirect taxes. Implications are drawn regarding tax reform.

An Overview of the U.S. Tax System *

2019 ◽  
pp. 413-434
Author(s):  
Joel Slemrod ◽  
Jon Bakija
Keyword(s):  
Tax System ◽  
The U.S

scholarly journals Abuses and Penalties of a Corporate Tax Inversion

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
James Yang ◽  
Leonard Lauricella ◽  
Frank Aquilino
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
International Taxation ◽  
Internal Revenue Service ◽  
Tax Law ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Tax Savings ◽  
Treasury Department ◽  
The U.S

There is a serious problem in international taxation today. Many United States (U.S.) multinational corporations have moved abroad to take advantage of a lower tax rate in a foreign country. As a consequence, the tax base in the U.S. has been seriously eroded. This practice is known as “corporate tax inversion”. This paper discusses the abuses and penalties of this phenomenon. It is rooted in some deficiencies in the U.S. tax law. This paper points out that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. It imposes tax on worldwide income. It permits deferral of tax on foreign-sourced income until dividends are repatriated back to the U.S. As a result, it creates tax loopholes. This paper reveals six actual cases of corporate tax inversion. This practice has triggered the Congress to enact §7874, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to issue Notices IR 2014-52 and IR 2015-79, and the U.S. Treasury Department to promulgate TD 9761. This paper investigates some details of these penalties. This paper further demonstrates an example in determining the amount of tax savings by engaging in a corporate tax inversion. It also offers many strategies.

scholarly journals Corporate Tax Disclosure: A Review of Concepts, Theories, Constraints, and Benefits

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (28) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahfoudh Hussein Mgammal ◽  
Ku Nor Izah Bt Ku Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
Tax Enforcement ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Private Data ◽  
Future Plans

<p>The aim of this paper is to offer an impression of the issues raised by the disclosure of companies’ tax information by supplying existing and historical viewpoints from the aspects of concepts, theory, constraints, benefits and measurements. We are concerned that full disclosure of organizations' tax information could result in firms weakening tax information, hampering tax enforcement, and maybe, in a weakened structure, disclosing private data that could give a competitive benefit to those organizations that are not requested to do such a disclosure. Hence, some studies do not underpin full disclosure. On the other hand, full tax disclosure could have numerous beneficial impacts. It might put pressure on regulators to develop the tax system and it might incite companies to oppose aggressive tax decrease strategies. We anticipate and expect interested parties to take into consideration the best practices of tax disclosure in implementing their future plans.</p>

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