Zoom – The Surly Subgroup

Zoom Composite 2.0

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

By: Leandra Lederman

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.

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” →