The Roundtable includes three sessions: (1) Democracy and Disinformation – the Political Level; (2) Disinformation and Public Administration; and (3) Special Issues and Final Recommendations. The international panel includes experts from law, media, government, and civil society, along with whistleblowers. To join this exciting Roundtable session, register here!
Information lies at the heart of a sound democracy, good governance, and well-grounded decision making, whether at the individual, community, business, or government level. Yet every day we see how misinformation and disinformation undermines all of these goals.
As part of its project, Whistling at the Fake is hosting Roundtables on zoom– the first of which is this Friday, January 28, 2022 at 10:00am EST. The Roundtable, “Disinformation and the Private Sector” includes three sessions: (1) Exploring the Phenomenon, (2) Disinformation and Corporate Power and Wealth, and (3) Special Issues and Recommendations. The international panel includes experts from law, media, business, research, along with whistleblowers. To join what should be an amazing zoom Roundtable, register here!
A dominant theme of international taxation over the past 15 years has been that of cooperation and consensus—from the BEPS Project to the new Multilateral Instrument to the new BEPS Inclusive Framework. Regardless of one’s assessment of nations’ true commitments to such cooperation and consensus, it is clear that notable changes in the framework of international tax engagement are afoot.
Yet, countries themselves remain very different in terms of the wealth, GDP, natural resources, tax revenues, commercial base, infrastructure, technological capacity, and financial systems. It is not obvious that cooperation and consensus are uniformly in countries’ interests, particularly in light of who is drafting the agenda. Most pointedly, it is reasonable to ask why non-OECD, non-G20 countries would be willing to commit to global tax cooperation.
As I blogged previously, Dr. Leopoldo Parada from the University of Leeds School of Law and I (with the support of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law) will co-host the Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series again this summer. It will meet online via Zoom on Fridays from 11:30am-1pm Eastern Daylight Time (4:30-6pm British Summer Time). Last summer’s series went really well. If you are interested in cutting-edge tax issues, we hope you will consider attending!
We received numerous excellent submissions in response to this year’s Call for Papers. As stated there, we prioritized tax topics that would be of interest to scholars in multiple countries. Here is the list of speakers and the papers they’ll be presenting:
Like last year, the workshop will take place on Zoom, as a regular Zoom session. We will introduce the speaker, who will have about 20 minutes for scripted remarks, and the remainder of the time will be allocated to questions and discussion. Approximately a week in advance of each talk, we expect to share the draft paper online on the following website: law.indiana.edu/summer-tax.
The Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series is open to attendance by interested faculty, tax experts, and students. This summer, you will need to register in order to obtain the Zoom link and the password for any password-protected papers. Please register at TinyURL.com/INLeeds2021.
Students and other attendees who would like to list on their c.v. that they “participated in the 2021 Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series” should do the following:
Attend at least 5 of the scheduled sessions.
Type in the “chat” window of the Zoom session of each session you attend a brief introduction containing your name, school or other institution, location, and degree candidacy or job title.
We encourage all attendees to introduce themselves in the chat window, as well.
If you have questions, feel free to email us at llederma@indiana.edu and L.Parada@leeds.ac.uk. We hope to see you (virtually) this Friday and at the other sessions this summer!
This summer, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and the University of Leeds School of Law will run the Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series again. Like last summer, Dr. Leopoldo Parada and I will host it. It will meet online via Zoom on Fridays from 11:30am-1pm Eastern time (4:30-6pm British Summer Time), starting May 28, 2021. We expect to invite a couple of speakers and select the remainder from a call for papers.
The Call for Papers opens today and will close on May 14, 2021 at midnight British Summer Time (7pm Eastern Daylight Time). If you are interested in presenting in the Workshop, please send the following before then to both llederma@indiana.edu and L.Parada@leeds.ac.uk, with “Indiana/Leeds Workshop submission” in the subject line of your email:
Your name, title, and affiliation.
The paper title and an abstract of no more than 1,000 words.
Whether or not you already have a draft of the paper. (We plan to circulate a draft of each paper—a minimum of 10 pages—a week in advance of each talk.)
Whether or not the paper has been accepted for publication, and, if so, when it is expected to be published.
A list of any Fridays between May 28 and July 16 that you would not be available to present, or a statement that any Friday in that date range would work for you.
In selecting papers, preference will be given to tax topics of broad, general interest. These can involve international or domestic tax issues, but a preference will be given to topics that would be of interest to scholars in more than one country. Like last summer, we expect an international group of attendees. Note also that speakers will be strongly encouraged to limit their scripted remarks to 20 minutes, to allow ample time for questions and discussion.
Videos of all but one of last summer’s talks are online at http://www.tinyurl.com/indianaleeds. These recordings include only the introductory remarks and the scripted portion of the speaker’s presentation. We plan to take the same approach this summer for those speakers who grant permission.
This March 12th discussion will examine corruption broadly understood to encompass not only the most direct forms of corruption (e.g. bribes) but more indirect forms (including implicit deals with officials), on to questions of undue influence, conflict of interest and the power of lobbying. Attention will be given to not only government actors, but also structural and institutional features that impact corruption and avoidance of taxation, including the role of large corporations, wealth, and power bases. For more information on the Roundtable, see below. To join us for the discussion, please register here.
Last month, the VIRTEU Roundtable Series launched with a discussion I had the opportunity to moderate on the basic connections between tax crime and corruption. (VIRTEU [Vat fraud: Interdisciplinary Research on Tax crimes in the European Union]). Clearly, we were only just getting started — the discussion ended because time was up but the questions continued. This week’s roundtable takes a closer look at the role that CSR (corporate social responsibility), business ethics and human rights can, should, or do play in business conduct, in tax enforcement strategies, and in the design of tax law itself.
These three frames for regulating (business) behavior are regularly examined and debated in the corporate and regulatory literature, but their application to the tax system remains under explored. If you are interested in thinking more about the tax side, join us this Friday February 12, 2021 at 5:30-7pm GMT (12:30-2:00pm EST). For more information on the panel, see below. To join, visit the registration link here.
We’ve started a new YouTube series we wanted to share with our readers! It’s called “Break Into Tax” (BiT) and can be found at tinyurl.com/BreakIntoTax.
The idea behind BiT is that we’ll discuss and break down tax-related concepts, broadly defined. This includes issues that may be of interest to law students and others newer to tax or to particular issues. The topics we plan to cover include substantive tax law concepts, tax policy concerns, the study of taxation, and the pursuit of tax as a career. We also welcome suggestions for topics in the comments on our videos!
We come at the issues from the perspective of tax law professors in the U.S. and Canada with cross-border interests. The BiT series is not at all designed to be of interest only to people from these two countries. We expect to focus on concepts that are foundational enough or general enough to be of broad interest.
Our introduction video, located here, is a good place to start. It shares more about us and the BiT channel. Our first playlist covers Tax Policy Colloquia: what are they, how to ask a good question in a tax workshop, and tips for students writing reaction papers.
It is no surprise to those working in the tax field, whether in government, private practice, academia or the nonprofit sector, that not all taxpayer mistakes are innocent. Some taxpayers affirmatively engage in fraud, and sometimes that fraud is wrapped up with corruption. The high profile spate of tax leaks beginning in 2008 helped put a more public face on many aspects of an old problem.
As part of an effort to better respond to tax crimes and corruption, the EU has funded an interdisciplinary and comparative research legal research project — VIRTEU [Vat fraud: Interdisciplinary Research on Tax crimes in the European Union]. This project is aimed at exploring connections between tax fraud and corruption. Focused in part on VAT fraud, the relevant issues and the kinds of questions that must be asked are universal across the tax system.
VIRTEU, for which I am a special advisor, is hosting a Roundtable Discussion Series this spring that brings together experts from academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to engage in topical discussions around the general problem of tax fraud and corruption. Along with the the VIRTEU project’s Principal Investigator Dr. Costantino Grasso and Co-Investigator Dr. Lorenzo Pasculli, I will be organizing and hosting the series, which is also sponsored by Boston College Law School, Coventry University Research Centre on Financial and Corporate Integrity, and OLAF (the European Anti-Fraud Office).
The first session, “Exploring the interconnections between tax crimes and corruptions“, will be held via Zoom on Friday January 29, 2021 (at 11:00am EST/ 4:00pm GMT). Here is the registration link. See below for more details – and join us for what promises to be an invigorating discussion of the connections between the legal and policy frameworks for corruption and for tax crimes.
The 2020 Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series ended on Thursday, after 13 weeks of talks. It was terrific getting to spend the summer with so many tax enthusiasts–professors, practitioners, and students–from all over the world! Dr. Leopoldo Parada and I really enjoyed co-hosting this series, and we expect to continue it next summer!
We received speaker permission to share videos of most of the talks. The speaker’s scripted remarks and our introductions are included. Those videos can be found at this link.
The complete speaker list and papers presented were as follows:
May 21
Ruth Mason, University of Virginia
The Transformation of International Tax
May 28
Stephen Daly, King’s College London
Trust, Tax Administration and State Aid
June 4
Susan Morse, University of Texas
Modern Custom in Tax
June 11
James Repetti, Boston College
The Appropriate Roles for Equity and Efficiency in a Progressive Income Tax
June 18
Diane Ring & Shuyi Oei, Boston College
Regulating in Pandemic: Evaluating Economic and Financial Policy Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis
June 25
Umut Turksen, Coventry University
The Role of Human Factors in Tax Compliance and Countering Tax Crimes
July 2
Allison Christians, McGill University
Accurately Counting Value in the International Tax System
July 9
Joshua Blank, University of California, Irvine
Automated Legal Guidance
July 16
Michael Devereux, University of Oxford
The OECD GloBE Proposal
July 23
Ana Paula Dourado, University of Lisbon
The Concept of Digital Economy for Tax Purposes: a Reassessment
July 30
Ricardo García Antón, Tilburg University
Enhancing the Group Interest in Transfer Pricing Analysis
Aug. 6
Steven Dean, New York University
A Constitutional Moment in Cross-Border Taxation
Aug. 13
Monica Victor, University of Florida
The Taxman’s Guide to the Galaxy: Allocating Taxing Rights in the Space-based Economy
Thank you again to all those who joined us, and we hope to see you next year! #IndianaLeedsSummerTax
As I posted previously, this summer, Dr. Leopoldo Parada from the University of Leeds School of Law and I (with the support of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law) will co-host the new Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series. It will meet online via Zoom on Thursdays from 10:30am-noon Eastern time (3:30-5pm British Summer Time). If you are interested in cutting-edge tax issues, we hope you will consider attending!
We received many terrific submissions in response to the Call for Papers. As stated there, we prioritized tax topics that would be of interest to scholars in multiple countries. We are very fortunate to have Professor Ruth Mason from the University of Virginia kicking off what promises to be an outstanding series! The following is the full list of speakers and the papers they’ll be presenting: Continue reading “Announcing the 2020 Indiana/Leeds Summer Tax Workshop Series!”→
The Call for Papers opens today and will close on May 10, 2020 at midnight British Summer Time (7pm Eastern Daylight Time). If you are interested in presenting in the Workshop, please send the following before then to llederma@indiana.edu and L.Parada@leeds.ac.uk:
Your name, title, and affiliation.
The paper title and an Abstract of no more than 1,000 words.
Whether or not you already have a draft of the paper. (We expect to circulate a draft of each paper—at least 10 pages—a week in advance of each talk.)
Whether or not the paper has been accepted for publication.
A list of any Thursdays between May 28 and August 6 that you would not be available to present, or a statement that any Thursday in that date range would work for you.
My co-authors and I (Hiba Hafiz, Shu-Yi Oei, and Natalya Shnitser) have just posted an updated version of our Working Paper, Regulating in Pandemic: Evaluating Economic and Financial Policy Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis. The Working Paper is revised and updated to incorporate the provisions of H.R. 748 (the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act” or the “CARES” Act) enacted into law on March 27, 2020. In addition, the revised draft considers recent action by the Federal Reserve, the Department of Labor, and other agencies all through the analytical framework we offer for evaluating these initiatives.
The Tax Policy Colloquium at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, which I’ve been blogging about, ran in person in Bloomington until our Spring Break. The fourth talk of the semester was given by Prof. Orly Mazur of SMU Dedman School of Law on March 5, 2020. She presented her interesting law-and-technology paper titled “Can Blockchain Revolutionize Tax Compliance?” (In general, she argued that it can’t: blockchain is unlikely to dramatically change tax enforcement by, for example, replacing third-party information reporting.)
The subsequent IU Tax Policy Colloquium talk, by Prof. Rita de la Feria of the University of Leeds School of Law, was on March 27. She presented a paper, coauthored with Michael Walpole of UNSW, titled “The Impact of Public Perceptions on VAT Rates Policy,” which is part of a larger project proposing a progressive VAT. The paper argues that, although having a single consumption tax rate that is broadly applied is most equitable, there typically are numerous exemptions and/or lower rates, for political economy reasons.
Prof. de la Feria
With the move to online classes due to the pandemic, this talk occurred via Zoom. It was unfortunate that, due to the pandemic, we were not able to host Rita in Bloomington. However, the silver lining was that I was able to invite tax experts and other faculty from all over the world to attend. Rita and I also both publicized the talk on social media. As a result, several academics and other tax experts either asked to attend, or, if they saw the notice too late, asked if there is a video they could watch, which there is. In addition to me, Rita, and the students in the class, there were 22 attendees, which produced a terrific discussion. The students later told me how wonderful it was to have so many international tax experts asking questions and making comments. Continue reading “Virtual Tax Policy Colloquia”→
As is apparent to the entire nation, the United States is currently trying to manage a fast-moving public health crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19). The economic and financial ramifications of the outbreak are serious. Yet the policy responses being developed have limited time for assessment and evaluation—despite their likely dramatic impacts. Three of my colleagues (Hiba Hafiz, Shu-Yi Oei, and Natalya Shnister) and I are currently working on a project that analyzes and tracks these emerging responses. Having spent the past several years working together as part of Boston College Law School’s Regulation and Markets Workshop, it made sense to combine our efforts and expertise to try and contribute to effective policy guidance at this critical time.
Our new Working Paper (“Regulating in Pandemic: Evaluating Economic and Financial Policy Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis”) discusses the ramifications of proposed and legislated policy and other actions and identifies three interrelated but potentially conflicting policy priorities at stake in managing the economic and financial fallout of the COVID-19 crisis: (1) providing social insurance to individuals and families in need; (2) managing systemic economic and financial risk; and (3) encouraging critical spatial behaviors to help contain COVID-19 transmission. The confluence of these three policy considerations and the potential conflicts among them make the outbreak a significant and unique regulatory challenge for policymakers, and one for which the consequences of getting it wrong are dire.
This Working Paper—which will be continually updated to reflect current developments—will analyze the major legislative and other policy initiatives that are being proposed and enacted to manage the economic and financial aspects of the COVID-19 crisis by examining these initiatives through the lens of these three policy priorities. It starts by analyzing the provisions of H.R. 6201 (the “Families First Coronavirus Responses Act”) passed by the house on March 14, 2020. By doing so, this Working Paper provides an analytical framework for evaluating these initiatives.
By: 
The Surly Subgroup 