An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts-and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic-from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday's tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England's window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great's tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today's carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation-and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

There are few areas of economic policy-making in which the returns to good decisions are so higha "and the punishment of bad decisions so cruela "as in the management of natural resource wealth. Rich endowments of oil, gas and minerals have set some countries on courses of sustained and robust prosperity; but they have left others riddled with corruption and persistent poverty, with little of lasting value to show for squandered wealth. And amongst the most important of these decisions are those relating to the tax treatment of oil, gas and minerals.

This book will be of interest to Economics postgraduates and researchers working on resource issues, as well as professionals working on taxation of oil, gas and minerals/mining.

The taxation of extractive industries exploiting oil, gas, or minerals is usually treated as a sovereign, national policy and administration issue. This book offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of the theory and practice involved in designing policies on the international aspects of fiscal regimes for these industries, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies. International Taxation and the Extractive Industries addresses key topics that are not frequently covered in the literature, such as the geo-political implications of cross-border pipelines and the legal implications of mining contracts and regional financial obligations. The contributors, all of whom are leading researchers with experience of working with governments and companies on these issues, present an authoritative collection of chapters. The volume reviews international tax rules, covering both developments in the G20-OECD project on 'Base Erosion and Profit Shifting' and more radical proposals, identifying core challenges in the extractives sector. This book should become a core resource for both scholars and practitioners. It will also appeal to those interested in international tax issues more widely and those who study environmental economics, macroeconomics and development economics.

Christianity for GCSE is part of an exciting new series of text books carefully tailored to take into account the demands of all the GCSE syllabuses. The Series is user-friendly to pupils with a range od abilities, arranged in double-page spreads, flexible for pupils to use, includes a wide variety of exercises and examination-type questions, and uses photographs by the acclaimed photographer, Alex Keene.

There are few areas of economic policy-making in which the returns to good decisions are so high?and the punishment of bad decisions so cruel?as in the management of natural resource wealth. Rich endowments of oil, gas and minerals have set some countries on courses of sustained and robust prosperity; but they have left others riddled with corruption and persistent poverty, with little of lasting value to show for squandered wealth. And amongst the most important of these decisions are those relating to the tax treatment of oil, gas and minerals.

This book will be of interest to Economics postgraduates and researchers working on resource issues, as well as professionals working on taxation of oil, gas and minerals/mining.

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts-and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic-from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday's tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England's window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great's tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today's carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation-and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

The taxation of extractive industries exploiting oil, gas, or minerals is usually treated as a sovereign, national policy and administration issue. This book offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of the theory and practice involved in designing policies on the international aspects of fiscal regimes for these industries, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies. International Taxation and the Extractive Industries addresses key topics that are not frequently covered in the literature, such as the geo-political implications of cross-border pipelines and the legal implications of mining contracts and regional financial obligations. The contributors, all of whom are leading researchers with experience of working with governments and companies on these issues, present an authoritative collection of chapters. The volume reviews international tax rules, covering both developments in the G20-OECD project on 'Base Erosion and Profit Shifting' and more radical proposals, identifying core challenges in the extractives sector. This book should become a core resource for both scholars and practitioners. It will also appeal to those interested in international tax issues more widely and those who study environmental economics, macroeconomics and development economics.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit-and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT). The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers-the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law-including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation-to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

In January 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a group dominated by members of the Tuareg ethnic group, launched a military uprising seeking the independence of Mali's vast but sparsely populated north as the democratic, secular nation-state of Azawad. Azawad's Facebook Warriors tells the extraordinary story of a small group of social media activists who sought to broadcast the MNLA's cause to the world. Azawad's Facebook Warriors offers a groundbreaking new study of the MNLA's use of social media through the original analysis of more than 8,000 pro-MNLA Facebook posts published over a four-year period and interviews with key architects of the MNLA's media strategy. The book further places the MNLA's social media activism in context through a nuanced treatment of northern Mali's history and an unparalleled blow-by-blow account of the MNLA's role in the Malian civil war from 2012 through 2015. More broadly, through the case study of the MNLA, the book argues that studying rebel social media communications, a field that has until now unfortunately received scant scholarly attention, will prove an increasingly important tool in understanding rebel groups in coming years and decades.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit-and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT). The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers-the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law-including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation-to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

Efforts to control atmospheric accumulations of greenhouse gases that threaten to heat up the planet are in their infancy. Although the IMF is not an environmental organisation, environmental issues matter for the organisation's mission when they have major implications for macroeconomic performance and fiscal policy. Climate change clearly passes both these tests. This volume provides practical guidelines for the design of fiscal policies (carbon taxes and emissions trading systems with allowance auctions) to reduce greenhouse gases. Not only are these instruments potentially the most effective at exploiting emission reduction opportunities in the near and longer term, but they can also generate for many countries a valuable new source of government revenue. The chapters, written by leading experts, explain the case for fiscal policies over other approaches; how these policies can be implemented; reasonable levels for emissions prices; policies for the forest sector; appropriate policy for developing countries; the most promising fiscal instruments for climate finance; and lessons to be drawn from prior policy experience. This is essential reading for policymakers in finance and environment ministries in developed and developing countries alike, and others grappling with balancing environmental and development concerns.

W. W. Norton & Company is pleased to announce the Fifth Edition of Successful Writing by Maxine Hairston and Michael Keene. This new rhetoric builds on the strengths of earlier editions, offering students clear and useful suggestions for strengthening their writing and showing them how they can develop a piece of effective writing through a process that is manageable and reliable.

In the twenty years since the first edition of Successful Writing, the elements of good writing have not changed. But the kinds of writing college students now do and the ways they deliver their writing have changed a great deal. Students today still write essays and research papers, but they also create Web sites, give oral presentations (and thus write and design PowerPoint slides), produce brochures, and of course write a lot of email. The new edition of Successful Writing offers students the kind of sensible, real-world advice they need for these and many other writing situations.