Taxes Aren't Beautiful: A Singer Moves to Switzerland to Avoid British Taxes

From Taxprof/typepad.com:

"British singer-songwriter James Blunt -- best known for his hit single You're Beautiful -- has decided to establish residence in Switzerland to avoid British taxes. From press reports:
Blunt, who earned £5 million ($9.8 million) from his debut album Back To Bedlam, is the latest in a long line of high-earners to quit their homeland for Switzerland - Phil Collins resides there and French rock legend Johnny Hallyday set up residence in Gstaad only last month.
Patrick Messeiller, director of tourism for Verbier, confirmed a report in the Swiss daily Le Matin that Blunt, who is a frequent visitor to the mountain village, had registered with the tax office there.

Each Swiss canton (state) sets its own tax rates, and can cut special deals with wealthy foreigners that allow them to pay only a fraction of what they would have to pay elsewhere. "

Taxation at Casinos and Gambling

Stream, Christopher., Thompson, William. and Myers, Nathan. "Casino Taxation Rates: Politics as Unusual" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Hotel InterContinental, New Orleans, LA, Jan 03, 2007 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p141982_index.html

Abstract: Taxes matter to business. They affect location decisions, job creation and retention, international competitiveness, and the long-term health of a state’s economy. But relatively little attention has been paid to the taxes on casinos and legalized gambling businesses. Research on gambling and casinos has largely focused on the adoption of such policy innovations in the states.

Less attention has been paid to the taxes rates on these types of firms. Among the states, the gaming tax rates vary considerably. Some states have adopted tax rates in the low teens while others collect close to 50 percent of a casino’s profits. It appears that while states with legalized gambling mimic each other in terms of the types of gaming allowed, they do not appear to follow each other in the types of rates “charged” to the casino firms. This Article examines gaming taxation rates and identifies some changes across all fifty states. We attempt to identify the factors that influenced the adoption of these tax rates in each state. We argue that state policymakers view casino taxes differently than the way they view taxes on other business firms.

These views greatly alter the politics of casino taxation in the states. The authors also provide updates on the status of gambling in several venues and suggest future research questions on the impact of gambling as an economic development tool for the states.

Exchange-of-Information Clauses in International Tax Treaties

Philippe Bacchetta (University of Lausanne; Swiss National Bank - Study Center Gerzensee; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Swiss Finance Institute) and Maria Paz Espinosa (Universidad del Pais Vasco - Department de Fundamentos del Analisis Economico) published this 2001 paper in International Tax and Public Finance, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2000

Here is the Abstract:

This paper examines bilateral double taxation treaties, with an emphasis on information exchange among tax authorities. A major objective is to understand which countries are more likely to sign a tax-relief treaty and when information-exchange clauses will be added to a treaty. A simple model with two asymmetric countries and repeated interactions among governments is used. The paper shows that no information exchange clause may be added to a tax treaty when there is a reciprocity requirement, when there is a high cost of negotiation, when there is a cost of providing information, or with one-way capital flows. It is also shown that an information clause increases the gains from a tax relief treaty, but may make it less sustainable.

Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=261971

Note on International Tax Regimes

Note on International Tax Regimes
Mihir A. Desai (Harvard Business School) posted the note at HBS Publishing Case No.: 9-206-014

Here is the Abstract:

Provides a framework for understanding different types of international tax regimes. Examines how alternative tax regimes tax the foreign income of their citizens (including corporate citizens); how tax regimes define foreign and domestic income; and how foreign tax credits and deductions are used in worldwide tax regimes to mitigate double taxation. Discusses in detail the current U.S. system of worldwide taxation and the managerial incentives created by the U.S. tax system.

Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=924675

Reaganomics at 25

Well deserved to view editorial in the Weekend Wall Street Journal, entitled Reaganomics at 25:

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act. The bill cut personal income tax rates by 25% across the board, indexed tax brackets for inflation and reduced the corporate income tax rate. The anniversary is worth commemorating as a seminal moment that continues to influence policy for the better in the U.S., and around the globe....

[T]he top marginal personal and corporate tax rates are 35%, compared with 70% and 48% in 1981. In the late 1970s the tax on dividends was 70% and the capital gains rate was 50%; now they're both 15%....

The rest of the world, meanwhile, has followed the Gipper down the tax-cut curve. Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation finds that the average personal income tax rate in the industrialized world is now 43%, versus 67% in 1980. The average top corporate tax rate has fallen to 29% from 48%. This decline in global tax rates has been the economic counterpart to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of Eastern Europe has adopted flat tax rates of 25% or lower, and the Russians now have a flat income tax of 13%. In Old Europe, Ireland's corporate and personal income tax rate cuts have helped generate the swiftest economic growth in the EU.

LLCs are up, Corporations are down

Are Corporations Going the Way of the Edsel?
Posted by Peter Lattman, from http://blogs.wsj.com/law.

LLC’s are way up and corporations are down, according to the latest data from the International Association of Commercial Administrators, which collects state-by-state filings.
Limited Liability Companies are popular because, like corporations, owners have limited personal liability for the debts and actions of the LLC. Other features of LLCs are more like those in partnerships, providing management flexibility and the benefit of pass-through taxation. Here’s the IRS site on LLCs.

Thanks to Larry Ribstein at Ideoblog, here’s the IACA report, which shows that filings for LLCs are up in almost every state, while filings for corporations are down in most states. Of the 35 states with filing data for the past four years, 32 reported increases in LLC filings and 21 reported decreases in corporation filings.

As Ribstein puts it, “the corporate form is hanging on — it’s what most practitioners know. But it’s looking less and less like the future of business associations.”

The Competence of Nations and International Tax Law

Eric T. Laity (Oklahoma City University) published the article "The Competence of Nations and International Tax Law"

Here is the Abstract:

This article proposes a conceptual foundation for the field of international tax law. The article refers to this foundation as the institutional competence of nations in global economic development. A nation's institutional competence is its discretion to make decisions in pursuit of our collective goal of global economic development, discretion that is subject to a number of standards and limitations. The article constructs the institutional competence of nations in global economic development from institutional economics, simple game theory, and the literature on social norms. The article expresses the institutional competence of nations through standards and limitations that reduce the abuse of sovereign discretion and address international collective action problems in the pursuit of global economic development. These standards and limitations allocate prescriptive jurisdiction among nations over the global income tax base. The foundation proposed by the article would coordinate international taxation with the international regulation of trade.

The article also addresses the proper place of capital export neutrality in the hierarchy of values for economic development, the choice between territorial and worldwide tax systems, the evaluation of tax havens and appropriate responses, the use of anti-deferral regimes, and the possible need for a multilateral tax treaty. On this institutional foundation, the role of the state is both essential and subordinate: sovereignty becomes an instrumental value and national law-making is seen in terms of a conceptual subsidiarity, to use the European term, or a consequentialist federalism in the realm of global economic development. Moreover, non-state actors facilitate sovereign competition and the benefits that such a constraint on the abuse of sovereign discretion brings to the world's people.


Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=897082