Stephen Daly (King’s College London; Google Scholar) presents The Rule of Law in Comparative Tax Administration at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation:
That the Rule of Law is an “essentially contested concept,” like Democracy, Human Rights and Legitimacy, prompts scholarly inquiry. Many scholars discuss the Rule of Law at a level of abstraction, sometimes entirely divorced from any particular field of law. Whilst there is value in such analyses, so too is there a place for sector specific studies of how the Rule of Law manifests itself. For this purpose, the rules governing tax administration in Germany, the UK and the US, specifically with regards those tax authorities’ management powers and collection powers, are chosen to articulate several arguments about the Rule of Law. First that Rule of Law compliance should be judged against the system as a whole as opposed to discrete aspects of a given system. Secondly, that Germany and the UK do exhibit fidelity to different accounts of the Rule of Law. Thirdly, nevertheless, that administrative tax systems can be differently constituted does not mean that they subscribe to different accounts of the Rule of Law.
Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar) presents The Other Taxation at Columbia today as part of its Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Michael Love:
Native Americans pay taxes. The territories do not. Both live with the legacy of American imperialism. Both seek the elusive fiscal self-governance and autonomy promised by Congress. The Supreme Court—through preemption, the plenary-power doctrine, and tax interpretive principles—has hollowed out the Native tax base, forcing tribes to compete fiercely with Congress, states, and localities for revenue. By contrast, territorial residents pay no federal or state taxes by edicts of Congress and geography. This Article argues that the conceptual underpinnings of the divergent tax treatment of tribes and territories are unsound. Under a more robust vision of fiscal autonomy, judicial limits on Native tax sovereignty are misguided. The territories’ wide latitude in designing revenue streams merits heightened scrutiny. While imperfect, a uniform, nonrefundable federal income-tax credit for tribal and territorial taxes paid is a promising path forward. This Article thus provides the first systematic study of subfederal taxation beyond states and localities—the “other” American taxation often overlooked in scholarship.
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