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Markus Meinzer ■ Book review: Global Tax Governance – What is wrong with it and how to fix it

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9781785521263A guest blog by Rasmus Corlin Christensen, with his kind permission, originally published @FairSkat Blog

One of the major 21st century challenges for politicians and polities at both the national, regional and international levels is the governance of ever-more global, mobile and flexible economic and financial flows. No more so than in the area of taxation, which looks likely to remain the last bastion of entrenched perceptions of national sovereignty, an undisputed cornerstone of the independent and authoritative government, the undeniable prerogative of national policy-makers in the face of growing global economic integration.

Or perhaps world leaders are slowly warming to the fact that they need international co-operation, if they want to address tax competition and the pilloried global tax system in any meaningful way? Peter Dietsch and Thomas Rixen’s recent edited volume on Global Tax Governance (sub-titled “What is wrong with it and how to fix it” – straight to the point) certainly seeks to leave you with the feeling that it is both desirable and irrefutable, “an idea whose time has come”, with reform proposals waiting for the Obamas and Merkels of this world to wake up and smell the coffee.

Global Tax Governance comprises fifteen chapters from a very strong line-up of contributors across the disciplinary divides, compiled by Dietsch and Rixen into 350-or-so pages of excellent reading. International tax competition and co-operation are not simple issues; they are multifaceted, difficult, wicked phenomena, so the diversity of inputs is both welcome and necessary. The chapter authors include economists, legal scholars, political scientists, and political philosophers. This provides a well-rounded gathering of perspectives, which covers many of the key stories of both the problems and solutions related to global tax governance. But there is no denying that this is first and foremost a political economy book – the pure economic and pure legal perspectives, for instance, are marginal. Still, for anyone looking for an intermediate dive into tax competition and the state and issues of international tax governance, this is, to my mind, the top place to start today.

Compared to other recent books on global tax issues, this one scores as the least morality-born but most refined in terms of its problem-identification and solution-building. While Thomas Pogge and Krishen Mehta’s Global Tax Fairness covers more ground and is provocative in its content at times, Global Tax Governance is a more academic book (incidentally because they are more academic authors), with a greater focus on succinct analysis and structure, and probably greater overall coherence. And compared to Dietsch’s previous Catching Capital, as a compilation it is much more diverse and yet more detailed, though the reading flow is obviously worsened by its amalgamative nature.

Dietsch and Rixen have both written extensively on the topic before, and the book emanates with their footprints. Dietsch’s work on political philosophy and economic governance, which has often touched upon taxation, provides the backdrop to many of the normative and ethical arguments throughout the book, while Rixen’s research on the nature of tax competition and the international tax system as well as his proposed institutional framework solution (an International Tax Organisation) feature especially in the opening and closings of the volume. Moreover, the flavour of Dietsch and Rixen’s close associates (including Philipp Genschel and Laura Seelkopf) shine through. A quarter of the book chapters are written by this group, and several more are based on or build directly on their work. Which is okay (it is their book after all), though you might get the feeling that this analysis and solutions are the only game in town (and of course they won’t tell you otherwise).

The purpose of the book is to identify the need for global tax governance (i.e. the cause problem), take stock of the current international institutional make-up and its shortcomings, set out the normative foundations for a new direction, and propose specific political solutions. The book is divided into four parts to reflect these purposes.

In Part One, we’re treated with two superb walkthroughs by top tax economist Kimberly Clausing and Genschel/Seelkopf on the economic and political nature of tax competition and its impacts. Tax competition is damaging on national coffers and on the economy, we’re told in resounding detail. And it is widely harmful, except for capital and everyone in small open democracies, of course. But it’s a negative-sum game, so in the end the world is worse off. So why haven’t we fixed it? The “winner group” – small economies and capital owners – have powerful voices. And that voice includes the argument that every country has the sovereign right to set their tax rates as they see fit – a significant argument in a world apparently stuck in 1648 Westphalia. And besides, as Lyne Latulippe argues in chapter three, national policy-makers tend to internalise the idea (with a nudge or two from the “winner group”) that they must keep their tax offerings competitive, just like a firm’s market offering must be competitive, no matter that it is probably an awful and damaging analogy. Latulippe’s argument that national tax policy discussions are soaked with competitiveness discourse is something I have also shown for the international level in the OECD/G2o BEPS project.

So where we have gone wrong? In a lot of places, Part Two tells us. Enforcement of international tax governance is a mess (Richard Woodward, chapter five); it will only succeed when, once in a blue moon, the US gets its act together (Lukas Hakelberg, six and Itai Grinberg, seven); and even current international tax reforms are unlikely to succeed (Richard Eccleston and Helen Smith, eight). Woodward emphasises the national implementation dimension of international tax governance, arguing that tax havens do “mock compliance” to OECD’s tax information exchange standards, feigning alignment while muddling enforcement behind their backs. As we’re also seeing in the current BEPS project and elsewhere, the national take-up of global tax standards is highly varied, so this is an interesting point to follow – and Richard has promised more work on this topic, which is absolutely welcomed.

Aside from technical and political shortcomings, Dietsch (in particular) and Rixen often emphasise the normative underpinnings of international tax governance. It’s not enough to say the system doesn’t work, we need to say, ethically, why it must work differently. Thus, Part Three takes us through the ethical case for global tax governance. Miriam Ronzoni (chapter nine) weighs global justice arguments in political philosophy, sketching out why and how either of various positions should address tax competition. And Laurens van Apeldoorn (10) discusses in detail different notions of sovereignty and how they relate to the argument for tax governance. While work by both Rixen and Dietsch (see my book review) have contended that national sovereignty isn’t harmed by tax competition, Apeldoorn mounts the stronger claim that tax competition outright harms national sovereignty, discussing sovereignty recast as a responsibility (rather than a right), requiring not merely non-interference in extraterritorial affairs but a positive obligation to support sovereignty and democracy abroad. Dietsch’s chapter (11) is essentially a shortened version of part I of his previous book, though without a discussion of implementation through an International Tax Organisation (you’ll see why shortly).

The book testifies to that fact that national sovereignty seems to have emerged as the favourite argument against tax competition/for tax governance among the Dietsch/Rixen et al. group (even if they discuss different types of sovereignty and related arguments). The sovereignty-focus has been picked up from earlier work on tax havens, such as that by Alan Hudson and Ronen Palan, but it aligns rather poorly with the political discourse of today. The book does tune into, occasionally, the popular stories of tax competition’s effect on inequality or the national coffers of developing countries, financial system risk or human rights, but those are peripheral to the sovereignty argument. I did say this book is less morality-borne than others, but in arguing their cause, it is strange to see so many well-known and well-founded arguments lay idle.

Having thoroughly assessed the issue and outlined the burning platform, Part Four finally gives us the solutions. To be honest, my hopes weren’t high for the final chapters, as I feared they would merely re-state old proposals. And indeed, the chapters pick up on existing reform ideas – unitary taxation and formulary apportionment (Reuven Avi-Yonah, chapter 13), financial transactions tax (Gabriel Wollner, 14), and an International Tax Organisation (Rixen, 15) – while not considering other fundamental questions of the international tax system (e.g. source v. residence). But still, I was to be pleasantly surprised. The chapters do a very good job of not only explaining the proposals in the context of the book, often the authors provide specific links back to the first three parts of the book, explaining to the reader why a given solution addresses current shortcomings identified in Part Two, or why they would fulfill the normative cases of Part Three.

Markus Meinzer (chapter 12), a Tax Justice Network board member and an academic, provides a strong and thorough study of and argumentation for the failure of tax haven blacklists (something I have also discussed). Not merely an advert for the TJN’s Financial Secrecy Index, his chapter is a detailed exploration of historical blacklist shortcomings, the moral and political foundations for change, and the needed response. Meinzer’s illustration of blacklist issues is very useful:

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Reuven Avi-Yonah, who has published an infinite (it seems like) number of pieces on unitary taxation proposes, as we would expect, to heal the broken global tax system through unitary taxation with formulary apportionment (UT+FA). However, here Avi-Yonah is more compromise-seeking than elsewhere, where he has mostly proposed UT+FA as a “system overhaul”. His short ‘sweeping away’ of UT+FA criticism leaves something to be desired, but he puts forth the applicability of the UT+FA solution to the current issues (including as identified throughout the book) with usual pomp. Rather than promoting a full UT+FA installment, he proposes here a compromise with the prevailing arm’s length standard (ALS), using the UT+FA method selectively (within the confines of the current ALS system, notably), in situations where transfer pricing requires profit split attribution, and he discusses the need for further reconciliation between the two approaches.

Rixen himself rounds it all off, detailing the institutional solution to others’ material policy proposals. And of course, it is the International Tax Organisation (ITO), untouched by Dietsch in chapter 11 but brought back to the surface here. Rixen’s ITO is a WTO-style arbitration/enforcement solution with a forum-capacity, just as described by Dietsch in his recent book (who has the idea, I believe, from Rixen in the first place). The novelty for regular Dietsch/Rixen readers is modest, but he does engage in a much more detailed explanation of the proposed institutional design, which may serve as a blueprint for policy-makers.

Still, while Part Four contains good chapters, it remains a compilation of various proposals with Rixen’s institutional shell, and not really a coherent solution on how to “fix” global tax governance, as the book’s sub-title promises.

All in all, though, this is a fine body of work, recommendable and readworthy. It provides the fundamentals of tax competition, the burning platform, and a number of well-known policy proposals, all nicely wrapped in a book that explains well what it wants and where it is going. It can be read as a whole or as individual chapters, each of stands on their own as contributions to the literature. There are some odd chapters here and there, and there is a definitive bias in favour of certain argument (e.g. sovereignty), which leaves some interesting points and explorations on the table. But those are minor appeals in the grander scheme. The authors have told us why tax competition is damaging, why international tax cooperation is needed, and the direction of travel for policy-makers. Now, I think the authors would agree, it is up to policy-makers, academic colleagues and other interested parties to take up and discuss their ideas more widely.

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Comments • 1

  • August 2, 2016 - 2:20 pm

    Considering that this new book is a descriptive work about different kinds of taxation and their implications on the social system, I find it surprising that nothing has been mentioned about the most socially just form of taxation, that of Land Value Tax or LVT. LVT was proposed by Henry George in 1879 in his seminal book “Progress and Poverty”. I am concerned that this method of taxation has not apparently come to your attention and that the various advantages and disadvantages of it have not been included in this new book. Perhaps you and your experts should seriously consider the various aspects of LVT . Below please find my essay about the LVT–the most socially just kind of tax.

    Socially Just Taxation and Its Effects (17 listed)

    Our present complicated system for taxation is unfair and has many faults. The biggest problem is to arrange it on a socially just basis. Many companies employ their workers in various ways and pay them diversely. Since these companies are registered in different countries for a number of categories, the determination the criterion for a just tax system becomes impossible, particularly if based on a fair measure of human work-activity. So why try when there is a better means available, which is really a true and socially just method?

    Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations”, 1776 REF. 1) says that land is one of the 3 factors of production (the other 2 being labor and durable capital goods). The usefulness of land is in the price that tenants pay as rent, for access rights to the particular site in question. Land is often considered as being a form of capital, since it is traded similarly to other durable capital goods items. However it is not actually man-made, so rightly it does not fall within this category. The land was originally a gift of nature (if not of God) for which all people should be free to share in its use. But its site-value greatly depends on location and is related to the community density in that region, as well as the natural resources such as rivers, minerals, animals or plants of specific use or beauty, when or after it is possible to reach them. Consequently, most of the land value is created by man within his society and therefore its advantage should logically and ethically be returned to the community for its general use, as explained by Martin Adams (in “LAND”, 2015, REF 2.).

    However, due to our existing laws, land is owned and formally registered and its value is traded, even though it can’t be moved to another place, like other kinds of capital goods. This right of ownership gives the landlord a big advantage over the rest of the community because he determines how it may be used, or if it is to be held out of use, until the city grows and the site becomes more valuable. Thus speculation in land values is encouraged by the law, in treating a site of land as personal or private property—as if it were an item of capital goods, although it is not (Prof. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, 2005 REF. 3).

    Regarding taxation and local community spending, the municipal taxes we pay are partly used for improving the infrastructure. This means that the land becomes more useful and valuable without the landlord doing anything—he/she will always benefit from our present tax regime. This also applies when the status of unused land is upgraded and it becomes fit for community development. Then when this news is leaked, after landlords and banks corruptly pay for this information, speculation in land values is rife. There are many advantages if the land values were taxed instead of the many different kinds of production-based activities such as earnings, purchases, capital gains, home and foreign company investments, etc., (with all their regulations, complications and loop-holes). The only people due to lose from this are those who exploit the growing values of the land over the past years, when “mere” land ownership confers a financial benefit, without the owner doing a scrap of work. Consequently, for a truly socially just kind of taxation to apply there can only be one method–Land-Value Taxation.

    Consider how land becomes valuable. New settlers in a region begin to specialize and this improves their efficiency in producing specific goods. The central land is the most valuable due to easy availability and least transport needed. This distribution in land values is created by the community and (after an initial start), not by the natural resources. As the city expands, speculators in land values will deliberately hold potentially useful sites out of use, until planning and development have permitted their values to grow. Meanwhile there is fierce competition for access to the most suitable sites for housing, agriculture and manufacturing industries. The limited availability of useful land means that the high rents paid by tenants make their residence more costly and the provision of goods and services more expensive. It also creates unemployment, causing wages to be lowered by the monopolists, who control the big producing organizations, and whose land was already obtained when it was cheap. Consequently this basic structure of our current macroeconomics system, works to limit opportunity and to create poverty, see above reference.

    The most basic cause of our continuing poverty is the lack of properly paid work and the reason for this is the lack of opportunity of access to the land on which the work must be done. The useful land is monopolized by a landlord who either holds it out of use (for speculation in its rising value), or charges the tenant heavily for its right of access. In the case when the landlord is also the producer, he/she has a monopolistic control of the land and of the produce too, and can charge more for this access right than what an entrepreneur, who seeks greater opportunity, normally would be able to afford.

    A wise and sensible government would recognize that this problem derives from lack of opportunity to work and earn. It can be solved by the use of a tax system which encourages the proper use of land and which stops penalizing everything and everybody else. Such a tax system was proposed 136 years ago by Henry George, a (North) American economist, but somehow most macro-economists seem never to have heard of him, in common with a whole lot of other experts. (I would guess that they don’t want to know, which is worse!) In “Progress and Poverty” 1879, REF. 4, Henry George proposed a single tax on land values without other kinds of tax on produce, services, capital gains etc. This regime of land value tax (LVT) has 17 features which benefit almost everyone in the economy, except for landlords and banks, who/which do nothing productive and find that land dominance has its own reward.

    17 Aspects of LVT Affecting Government, Land Owners, Communities and Ethics

    Four Aspects for Government:
    1. LVT, adds to the national income as do other taxation systems, but it should replace them.
    2. The cost of collecting the LVT is less than for all of the production-related taxes–tax avoidance becomes impossible because the sites are visible to all and who owns each is public knowledge.
    3. Consumers pay less for their purchases due to lower production costs (see below). This creates greater satisfaction with the management of national affairs.
    4. The national economy stabilizes—it no longer experiences the 18 year business boom/bust cycle, due to periodic speculation in land values (see below). The speculation in and withholding of unused land is eliminated, see item 7.

    Six Aspects Affecting Land Owners:
    5. LVT is progressive–owners of the most potentially productive sites pay the most tax. Urban sites provide the most usefulness and resulting tax. Big rural sites have less value and can be farmed appropriately to their ability to provide useful produce.
    6. The land owner pays his LVT regardless of how his site is used. A large proportion of the present ground-rent from tenants becomes the LVT, with the result that land has less sales-value but a significant “rental”-value (even when it is not used).
    7. LVT stops speculation in land prices because the withholding of land from proper use is not worthwhile.
    8. The introduction of LVT initially reduces the sales price of sites, even though their rental value can still grow over a longer term. As more sites become available, the competition for them is less fierce.
    9. With LVT, land owners are unable to pass the tax on to their tenants as rent hikes, due to the reduced competition for access to the additional sites that come into use.
    10. With LVT, land prices will initially drop. Speculators in land values will want to foreclose on their mortgages and withdraw their money for reinvestment. Therefore LVT should be introduced gradually, to allow these speculators sufficient time to transfer their money to company-shares etc., and simultaneously to meet the increased demand for produce (see below, items 12 and 13).

    Three Aspects Regarding Communities:
    11. With LVT, there is an incentive to use land for production or residence, rather than it being unused.
    12. With LVT, greater working opportunities exist due to cheaper land and a greater number of available sites. Consumer goods become cheaper too, because entrepreneurs have less difficulty in starting-up their businesses and because they pay less ground-rent–demand grows, unemployment decreases.
    13. Investment money is withdrawn from land and placed in durable capital goods. This means more advances in technology and cheaper goods too.

    Four Aspects About Ethics:
    14. The collection of taxes from productive effort and commerce is socially unjust. LVT replaces this national extortion by gathering the surplus rental income, which comes without any exertion from the land owner or by the banks– LVT is a natural system of national income-gathering.
    15. previous bribery and corruption for gaining privileged information about land cease. Before, this was due to the leaking of news of municipal plans for housing and industrial development, causing shock-waves in local land prices (and municipal workers’ and lawyers’ bank balances).
    16. The improved use of the more central land of cities reduces the environmental damage due to a) unused sites being dumping-grounds, and b) the smaller amount of fossil-fuel use, when traveling between home and workplace.
    17. Because the LVT eliminates the advantage that landlords currently hold over our society, LVT provides a greater equality of opportunity to earn a living. Entrepreneurs can operate in a natural way– to provide more jobs because their production costs are reduced. Then untaxed earnings will correspond to the value that the labor puts into the product or service. Consequently, after LVT has been properly and fully introduced as a single tax, it will eliminate poverty and improve business ethics.

    References:
    1. Adam Smith: “The Wealth of Nations”, 1776.
    2. Martin Adams: “LAND– A New Paradigm for a Thriving World”, North Atlantic Books, California, 2015.
    3. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, Shepheard-Walyn, London, 2005.
    4. Henry George: “Progress and Poverty” 1897, reprinted by Schalkenbach Foundation, NY, 1978.

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