Preface This book contains the proceedings of the International Tax Conference on the c- th th mon consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) that was held in Berlin on 15 - 16 may 2007. The conference was jointly organised by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law, Munich. More than 250 participants from all over Europe and other regions, scholars, politicians, business people and tax administrators, discussed the Eu- pean Commission's proposal to establish a CCCTB. Three panels of tax experts evaluated the common tax base with respect to structural elements, consolidation, allocation, international aspects and administration. The conference made clear that the CCCTB has the potential to overcome some of the most intriguing problems of corporate income taxation within the Common Market. Common tax accounting rules substantially reduce compliance and administrative costs. Consolidation of a group's profits and losses effects cro- border loss compensation which removes a major tax obstacle for European cro- border investment. At the same time, tax planning with respect to financing and transfer pricing is pushed back within the European Union. Moreover, as far as the CCCTB applies, member states are able to remove tax provisions that are targeted at cross border tax evasion and that might be challenged by the jurisdiction of the Eu- pean Court of Justice.

In this book, experts from across the globe highlight the state of knowledge in intergovernmental transfer design. The essays collected in the volume represent creative new thinking about challenging policy issues and offer useful options for policy makers. The book offers academics and practitioners a thorough, thematic assessment of unresolved issues in the design of equalization grants.

Undertakings for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities (UCITS) involve collective investment funds, which are authorized to market their units among countries within the European Union. The objective of the original UCITS directive was to allow for open-ended funds investing in transferable securities to be subject to the same regulation in every Member State. It was hoped that once such legislative uniformity was established throughout Europe, funds authorized in one Member State could be sold to the public in each Member State without further authorization, thereby furthering the EU's goal of a single market for financial services in Europe. Unfortunately, the reality differed somewhat from the expectation. This insightful work examines the taxation of UCITS in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It analyzes the tax consequences of the cross-border trade in units of UCITS for unitholders residing in the countries examined. It also features recommendations to remove the tax advantages and disadvantages that occur in cross-border trading.

This book is a comparative study of the tax systems of Germany and Japan. It is a considerably expanded version of Iizuka's previous monograph, Veritable Bookkeeping Records, which was important enough a contribution to comparative tax studies that it was serialized and published in twenty-six parts over three years ('79-'82) in the Japan Society of Accounting's journal, "Accounting."

The present volume includes a good deal of new, revised and updated material not included in the first monograph. Here Iizuka boldly puts forward counterarguments to the opinions of several hundred Japanese, European and North American scholars. One of his chief messages is that Japan needs to look to Germany, to the United States and to other EC nations for guidance in developing fairer accounting principles.

Academic research shows that well-known principal-agent and capital market problems are strongly influenced by tax considerations. Against this background, this volume is the first to present a fully-fledged overview of the interdependence of tax and corporate governance. Not only the basic political, legal and economic questions but also major topics like income measurement, shareholding structures, corporate social responsibility and tax shelter disclosure are covered.

This book offers a wholesale reinterpretation of both the introduction of excise taxation in Great Britain in the 1640s and the genesis of the Financial Revolution of the 1690s. By analysing hitherto unpublished manuscript and print sources, D'Maris Coffman resolves divergent accounts of these constitutionally problematic but fiscally significant new taxes. Parliament's success at imposing on a deeply divided kingdom an extra-legal species of indirect taxation, which hitherto had been a constitutional anathema and a political impossibility, remains one of the most striking features of the period. A fresh reading of William Petty's Treatise on Taxes illustrates the development of an indigenous discourse in defence of the tax state. By highlighting the importance of fiscal innovation during the Civil Wars and Interregnum for the development of the fiscal state in Britain, this study challenges 'stylised facts' about the economic significance of 1688/89. The final chapter delivers new insight into why the eighteenth-century British public accepted both unprecedented levels of government borrowing and one of the heaviest tax burdens in Western Europe. Coffman reveals how a 'new financial history, ' rooted in closely contextualised studies, can contribute to current debates about sustainable levels of taxation and to fundamental questions of economic theory.

Due to the developments in the role of governments, the importance of government accounting and financial reporting is increasing. This led to changes in Government Accounting all over the world. For institutional, public finance and other reasons this has not always been done for central governments and regional and local governments in the same way. Some countries maintain the cash basis, some changed over to the accrual basis. Many of them started at first with lower government levels, only few changed over completely. Comparative Issues in Government and Accounting aims to give insight in the array of different patterns the world shows with respect to government accounting and financial reporting. Of course a complete overview would have been too ambitious a goal. This book brings together an interesting number of academics coming from a representative number of countries to get an impression of the situation and especially of the existence and the backgrounds of similarities and differences. Thirty-five authors and co-authors produced 21 chapters reflecting on the situations in 16 countries on 4 continents. Countries dealt with are Albania, Australia, Belgium, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Despite the enormous diversity and complexity of financial instruments, the current taxation of hybrid financial instruments and the remuneration derived therefrom are characterized by a neat division into dividend-generating equity and interest-generating debt as well as by a coexistence of source- and residence-based taxation. This book provides a comparative analysis of the classification of hybrid financial instruments in the national tax rules currently applied by Australia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands as well as in the relevant tax treaties and EU Directives. Moreover, based on selected hybrid financial instruments, mismatches in these tax classifications, which lead to tax planning opportunities and risks and thus are in conflict with the single tax principle, are identified. To address these issues, the author provides reform options that are in line with the dichotomous debt-equity framework, as he/she suggests the coordination of either tax classifications or tax treatments.

This book focuses on the impact of technology on taxation and deals with the broad effect of technology on diverse taxation systems. It addresses the highly relevant eTax issue and argues that while VAT may not be the ultimate solution with regard to taxing electronic commerce, it can be demonstrated to be the most effective solution to date. The book analyzes the application and the effectiveness of traditional income tax principles in contradistinction to VAT principles. Taking into account rapidly ameliorating technology, the book next assesses the compatibility between electronic commerce and diverse systems of taxation. Using case studies of Amazon.com and Second Life as well as additional practical examples, the book demonstrates the effectiveness of VAT in respect of electronic commerce and ameliorating technology in the incalculable and borderless realm of cyberspace.

"Advances in Taxation" publishes articles dealing with all aspects of taxation. Articles can address tax policy issues at the federal, state, local, or international level. The series primarily publishes empirical studies that address compliance, computer usage, education, legal, planning, or policy issues. These studies generally involve interdisciplinary research that incorporates theories from accounting, economics, finance, psychology, and sociology. The authors are established leaders in the field. It is international in scope. It is a truly interdisciplinary series.

This monograph offers a detailed analysis of the creation, pilot implementation, and possible wide adoption of the real property tax at the local level in China. Starting in 2003, as China's economy gradually recovered from the Asian financial crisis that started in 1998, the real property market entered a period of rapid expansion, followed immediately by rampant speculation, rising housing costs, and official corruption. Over the last ten years, the price of real property in most cities has more than tripled, especially in metropolitan areas. In an effort to curb this, the government has instituted a number of property-market controls, including property tax pilot programs in Shanghai and Chongqing. While this is the latest of a number of fiscal reforms, it is a very important one that carries with it the ability to change the landscape of public finance, intergovernmental relations, and local governance in China. It represents a fundamental change in the provision of public services, the relationship between local governments and tax payers, and the status of localities in the government structure. Taking a public choice perspective, the authors argue that the local property tax should be used not solely as a means of controlling housing prices but should be fully employed as a fiscal and budgetary institution that will contribute to mitigating multifarious socio-economic problems resulting from economic growth, rapid urbanization, and widening income disparity. As this program is the first of its kind, so this book is the first detailed study of property tax in China; as such, it will appeal to researchers of public finance and public policy. It will also be of great interest to policymakers in China and in other countries that are considering adopting or reforming their versions of the local property tax. It fills the gap in a growing body of literature about the inner workings of Chinese economics and policy.

This important book examines the economic policies required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions - a major source of pollution throughout the world. It explores the likely impact of environmental taxes on income distribution and economic welfare. The authors consider a tax on domestic fuel and power and a carbon tax, and the likely adverse distribution effects of these on a population. The analysis allows for the direct and indirect effects (through inter-industry transactions) of taxes on prices and consumers' responses to these price changes. The welfare effects are also estimated for a variety of income groups. The authors then evaluate the inequality and social welfare measures and consider whether the distributional effects can be overcome by adjusting transfer payments to compensate lower-income groups. This study examines environmental taxes in Australia with methods which can be applied to other countries, some of which were specifically designed to overcome data limitation problems. Environmental Taxes and Economic Welfare will be of special interest to researchers, academics, policymakers and advisers on taxation and environmental policy.

This book informs a renewed movement for fair lending and fair housing. Leading advocates and specialists examine strategic initiatives to realize objectives of the federal Fair Housing Act as well as state and local laws Well-known fair housing and fair lending activists and organizers examine the implications of the new wave of fair housing activism generated by Occupy Wall Street protests and the many successes achieved in fair housing and fair lending over the years. The book reveals the limitations of advocacy efforts and the challenges that remain. Best directions for future action are brought to light by staff of fair housing organizations, fair housing attorneys, community and labor organizers, and scholars who have researched social justice organizing and advocacy movements. The book is written for general interest and academic audiences. Contributors address the foreclosure crisis, access to credit in a changing marketplace, and the immoral hazards of big banks. They examine opportunities in collective bargaining available to homeowners and how low-income and minority households were denied access to historically low home prices and interest rates. Authors question the effectiveness of litigation to uphold the Fair Housing Act's promise of nondiscriminatory home loans and ask how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is assuring fair lending. They also look at where immigrants stand, housing as a human right, and methods for building a movement.

Covering the period from the 1920s, when international tax policy was solely about avoiding double taxation, to the present era of international tax competition, Rixen investigates the fate of 'the power to tax' in an era of globalization, illustrating that tax sovereignty is both shaped and constrained by an international tax regime.

The authors of this work are tax specialists representing both high-tax and low-tax jurisdictions. They address tax issues that impact business enterprises as well as individuals, presenting a sampling of issues, each addressed by a commentator whose practice deals directly with such matters on a regular basis. Countries covered are: Austria, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Italy, Liechtenstein, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles, and the USA. The reader will find a range of useful information, not only on the complexity of international taxation, but also its potential for the resolution of conflicts and the mitigation of unfair tax burdens through amortization and international co-operation.

Environmental Taxation and the Double Dividend explores the welfare effects of environmental taxes in a second-best framework. It starts from a benchmark model which reveals that environmental taxes typically exacerbate pre-existing tax distortions, even if the revenues are used to cut other distortionary taxes. Subsequent chapters extend the benchmark model by introducing capital, terms of trade effects, transfers, involuntary unemployment, or environmental feedbacks. Thus, the book reveals several channels through which a double-dividend can be obtained. However, it also shows the trade-offs they induce. Simulations with the models illustrate the importance of these trade-offs for European economies.

This book is a useful tool for graduates, post graduates, researchers and staff of universities with fiscal and environmental departments. International organizations such as the IMF, OECD and the World Bank, and policy makers within governments: Ministries of Finance/Economics/Environment. Research Institutes, both private and public will also benefit from this piece of work.

Property Tax Reform in Developing Countries provides a conceptual framework for property tax reform with the intention of making the most compelling argument possible to persuade the reader as to its validity. The text claims that a model for property tax reform in developing countries is derived from a theoretical distillation of empirical experience. The primary objective of this study is to establish, through logic, theory and observation: what constitutes a good property tax system, for whom, and under what conditions; why such a system works; and how inferior systems can be upgraded to approximate well-functioning systems. Property Tax Reform in Developing Countries develops its examination in three stages. First, a conceptual framework is presented for the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of property tax reform in developing countries. Second, attempts to reform property taxation in four developing countries are examined in detail. Finally, the results of the reform efforts described in the four case studies are evaluated and guidelines for reform are offered. The study concludes with specific recommendations for reforming property tax systems in developing countries, based on the conceptual framework and synthesizing lessons of the case studies.

This book opens up the secret world of tax havens and offshore finance centres (OFCs), a vast offshore business valued at over one trillion US dollars. It is a timely and original analysis of the role of OFCs in the emerging global economy. The book discusses who uses OFCs, how OFCs work and what drives their development. Extensive use of case study material from Jersey illustrates the growth of a successful OFC and its impact upon a small island.

Any decision by a company regarding the use of profits to pay tax, remuneration or shareholder returns has ethical implications. Sharing Profits reviews high-profile ethical issues facing companies in how profits are used, and proposes a framework for understanding the ethical implications of decisions.