The 2009 International Tax Law Symposium, held on Sept. 11, at the Levin College of Law, offered students, faculty, and interested alumni the opportunity to hear scholarly presentations from an internationally diverse group of presenters concerning a wide range of topics concerning both the history and the future of international tax law policy. The symposium also included UF Law professors Yariv Brauner, Charlene Luke, and Paul McDaniel serving as commentators.
John F. Avery Jones, a native Briton and current special commissioner of Income Tax and Chairman of VAT (Value-added Tax) and Duties Tribunals, kicked off the International Tax Law Symposium with his presentation titled, “Understanding the OECD Model Tax Convention: The Lessons of History,” in which he chronicled the history surrounding the delicate yet arduous task of drafting international policy. On the importance of tracing the history of international tax policy, Jones commented, “History is interesting. It’s explaining things that are not clear just looking at the present.”
Jones emphasized the complications that have ensued when the complex and precise language upon which effective policy depends is written and translated into multiple languages: “‘Lost in translation’ is the answer to quite a lot of problems,” he explained.
In the next presentation, titled, “The New OECD Approach on Profit Allocation: A Step Forward Towards Neutral Treatment of Permanent Establishments and Subsidiaries,” Dr. Irene J.J. Burgers, professor of international tax law and professor of economics of taxation at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, discussed the broad question of “whether or not the legal form should make a difference in taxing companies.”
The third and final presenter, Lily Kahng, associate professor at the Seattle University School of Law, took a more narrow approach in her analysis of international tax policy and chose to focus on the comparative relationship between the United States and Germany in her presentation titled, “Investment Income Withholding in the United States and Germany.”
Kahng focused on what she deemed a “prominent disparity” in the United States’ broad enforcement of taxes on income from labor versus limited enforcement of taxes on income from investments. She contrasted the U.S. tax system with the “cautionary tale” of the German system, which enacted legislation taxing interest income using government withholding that led to “widespread evasion” instead of the tax equality that it sought to achieve.
Kahng noted that past Congressional efforts in the United States to enact tax withholding for investment income were met with great public opposition, largely due to protest campaigns begun by financial institutions themselves: “[m]easured by the amount of protest mail Congress received, interest and dividend withholding was more unpopular than the Vietnam War.”
Yet, Kahng contends that interest and dividend withholding is “a proven and effective tool” of collecting taxes and should therefore be reconsidered, especially given technological advances that would make it easier to administer than it would have been in 1983, the last time that a U.S. interest and dividend withholding policy was struck down.
Kahng concluded her presentation by echoing the sentiments of the other symposium speakers, regarding the key principles of tax law: “fairness, equality, and equal treatment matter,” adding that “we should try to be even-handed in the way we enforce taxes we impose.”
