Items where Saïd Business School Author is "Vella, John"

Digitalization exacerbates the problems faced by the existing system for taxing corporate profit in an international context. It does so by making it much easier for all aspects of a company to be spread around the world: its shareholders and creditors, its operations and its consumers. As many of these problems ultimately stem from the fact that the existing system taxes companies in the location of their mobile factors, this article argues that a more direct and satisfactory response to these problems would be to move to a system in which companies are taxed where their immobile factors are located. The article considers two such possibilities: the location of shareholders and that of consumers. It also considers two specific issues which arise particularly in the context of digital companies, namely two sided markets and free usage.

This paper presents, analyses, and further develops the idea of a destination-based cash-flow tax (DBCFT). Its purpose is expositional: to describe the DBCFT, how it might work, what its effects would be and some of the challenges that its implementation would face. The paper starts by introducing the basic mechanics of the DBCFT before evaluating it against five criteria: economic efficiency, robustness to avoidance and evasion, ease of administration, fairness and stability. It does so both for the case of universal adoption by all countries and the more plausible case of unilateral adoption. The paper then looks closely at the application of DBCFT treatment to the financial sector, which is a familiar problem under the VAT but has been little considered under the DBCFT. Finally, the paper sets out some core implementation issues, and how they might be addressed. It also compares the implementation of a DBCFT with the economically equivalent reform option that introduces a broad-based, uniform rate VAT (or achieves the same effect through an existing VAT), and reduces taxes on payroll by the same proportion.

The central conclusion of this paper is that the Commission’s evidence is not persuasive and does not make the case for an FTT. Whilst some of the objectives pursued by the proposals are reasonable, others are questionable. More importantly, the Commission’s evidence does not support the choice of the FTT as the instrument which is best suited to achieve these objectives. More targeted and more efficient instruments should and could be used to achieve these objectives.

In the wake of the financial crisis, a number of countries have introduced levies on bank borrowing with the aim of reducing risk in the financial sector. This paper studies the behavioural responses to the bank levies and evaluates the policy. We find that the levies induced banks to borrow less but also to hold more risky assets. The reduction in funding risk clearly dominates for banks with high capital ratios but is exactly offset by the increase in portfolio risk for banks with low capital ratios. This suggests that while the levies have reduced the total risk of relatively safe banks, they have done nothing to curb the risk of relatively risky banks, which presumably pose the greatest threat to financial stability.

The most significant problems with the existing system for taxing the profit of multinational companies stem from two related sources. First, the underlying ‘1920s compromise’ for allocating the rights to tax profit between countries is both inappropriate and increasingly hard to implement in a modern economic setting. Second, because the system is based on taxing mobile activities, it invites countries to compete with each other to attract economic activity and to favour ‘domestic’ companies. The OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative essentially seeks to close loopholes rather than to re-examine these fundamental problems. As a consequence, it is unlikely to generate a stable long-run tax system. We briefly outline some more fundamental alternative reforms.

This article examines the European Commission’s Proposal for a Council Directive implementing a Financial Transaction Tax through the enhanced cooperation procedure published on February 14, 2013. It starts by providing a brief description and analysis of the Proposal and the accompanying Impact Assessment, focusing on the newly added features of the proposed tax and its potential impact on both participating and non-participating Member States. Next, the article examines the Proposal from the perspective of public international law, discussing the controversial extraterritorial reach of the proposed tax. It is argued that doubts exist with respect to the compatibility of the “contagion effect” and the issuance principle with internationally recognised legal principles. The article then turns to EU law and considers the legal requirements imposed by the EU Treaties on the use of enhanced cooperation. Whilst raising some concerns in relation to the Proposal’s compliance with these requirements, the article concludes that the political and judicial controlling mechanisms in place appear weak and therefore the outcome of any potential political or judicial challenge remains uncertain. The importance of this debate is not limited to the financial transaction tax, but also extends to the use of enhanced cooperation in other areas of taxation and beyond.

In summer 2012 the National Audit Office (NAO) commissioned the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation (OUCBT) to draw up an academic review of the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes regime (DOTAS) and the tax avoidance landscape. The academic review formed part of the evidence base behind the NAO’s report: “Tax avoidance: tackling marketed avoidance schemes” (November 2012). The NAO’s report “examines the effectiveness of the DOTAS regime and HMRC’s response to marketed tax avoidance schemes, particularly those used by large numbers of individuals and smaller businesses.”

The review produced by the OUCBT consisted of three papers on tax avoidance generally, DOTAS and the Tax Gap. These papers, with minor amendments, are being made available here as a matter of public record.

Nothing stated here should be taken to represent the views of the NAO.

In September 2011 the EU Commission put forward a proposal for an EU-wide Financial Transaction Tax. This article assesses the proposal. It starts by looking at the design of the tax before moving on to the objectives it is meant to achieve. Two questions are asked in relation to each objective: (i) is the objective reasonable? (ii) is the FTT the most adequate tool to obtain it? The conclusions reached are that a case can be made for pursuing some objectives but not others, and the FTT is not the most adequate tool to obtain them.

To operate efficiently and effectively revenue authorities require discretion, but processes must be in place to keep discretion in check. This delicate balancing act takes place against the background of a more general constitutional framework. This working paper starts by outlining the unique features of the UK constitution that form the background to the way in which the discretion of the UK revenue authorities (HMRC) is assessed and controlled. It then discusses a limited, yet crucial, set of discretions vested in HMRC. The paper focuses particularly on the use of non-statutory guidance. It discusses the operation of judicial review, and in particular, the doctrine of legitimate expectations, in the context of such guidance. It then presents two case studies, which reveal a distinct uncertainty over the limits of non- statutory guidance. This is currently of considerable concern to the UK tax community. As the role of guidance appears to be increasing in the UK system, the case for addressing some of these causes of uncertainty strengthens. The paper concludes by offering some preliminary suggestions on how the problems may be addressed.

The relationship between tax authorities and large corporate taxpayers is a concern world-wide as can be seen from the 2008 OECD Study into the Role of Tax Intermediaries. In the United Kingdom, HMRC have been developing a risk rating approach to tax risk management as part of their Review of Links with Large Business. The approach is designed to promote an enhanced relationship between HMRC and the taxpayer, based on trust and transparency. The objectives include the improvement of resource allocation and the encouragement of companies to consider their position so as to achieve the benefits of low risk rating, which may involve altering their tax planning strategy. In addition, new approaches to tax avoidance legislation such as targeted anti-avoidance rules and principles-based legislation are being introduced or considered. This article discusses a survey of tax directors in which the authors used detailed tax planning scenarios to investigate the views of tax directors on the impact and success or otherwise of these new approaches. The views of tax directors are only one factor in judging the success of these developments, but given that one aim of current tax policy is an enhanced relationship with corporate taxpayers, directors’ views are significant in assessing the progress being made. The article analyses these views and comments on these new approaches to tax risk management.

This article deals with sham transactions. It starts off by establishing some basic groundwork on shams, before engaging more specifically with two questions that have recently come to the fore both in cases and in academic debate. The first concerns the relevance of an intention to enforce and of actual enforcement in the search for the true intention of the parties. The second considers whether a variant notion of sham, often called a pretence, is justified or even necessary.

Transactions designed to avoid statutory provisions bear the legal risk that courts deem them unsuccessful. As this legal risk is a function of the approach courts adopt towards them, identifying and understanding it fully is a sine qua non requirement, without which one simply cannot assess the risk ex ante. Confidence in the robustness of such transactions is based partly on the fact that UK courts characterise transactions according to their legal substance, ignoring factors such as economic substance. Courts have developed an approach in the tax field, the so-called “Ramsay Approach”, which can lead them to look beyond legal substance, but the view seems to be held in some quarters that it cannot be applied outside the tax field. It is argued here that, once its true nature is properly understood, this approach not only can but actually has been applied in a number of corporate law cases.

At a conference on “Tax risk management: new approaches to tax compliance” on 15th May 2014 the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation presented selected results from a survey on the relationship between HMRC and business.

The report, written by researchers Judith Freedman, Francis Ng and John Vella, details the responses to a 2013 survey on the relationship between HMRC and businesses sent to around 1,800 companies with 30 follow up face-to-face interviews. The survey follows on from a previous survey conducted by two of the three researchers in 2008. The 2013 survey covered co-operative compliance issues including the risk rating process and relationships with HMRC staff as well as dealings with tax disputes and the Litigation and Settlements Strategy.

This paper considers the implications of the destination-based cash flow tax (DBCFT) for three common ways of shifting taxable profits between countries: through manipulation of transfer prices, the use of debt, and locating intangible assets in low taxed jurisdictions. It shows that none of these planning devices would be available under a DBCFT, if adopted universally. This is because intra-group payments between two countries do not affect tax liabilities in either country . If adopted unilaterally, however, there would be an incentive to shift profit to the adopting country, at the expense of non-adopting countries.