The tax law’s race-blind approach produces bad tax policy. This essay uses three very different examples to show how failing to openly and honestly address race generates bias, and how devasting the results can be. Ignoring race does not solve problems; it creates them. ProPublica has shown,...

For nearly a century, international tax cooperation enjoyed a golden age buoyed by its promise to allow countries to do well by doing good. Over the last two decades, a narrower focus on enforcement has stripped international tax cooperation of that collective purpose. International tax...

There has been a decades-long effort to repair an increasingly fragile international tax system. One reason it has foundered has been what we identify as the ‘Liberia problem.’ In 2000, the powerful Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development identified Liberia—but not...

The ABA Tax Section Teaching Taxation Committee hosted a panel on promoting diversity in tax, as part of the ABA Tax Section Fall 2021 Meeting. This document is the panel organizer’s and presenters’ slides for Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Tax: Ideas and Resources to Mentor...

To show why the taxation of cross-border transactions has remained largely unaltered across a century of upheaval, this article reveals a steady hand in control. To explain how those complex rules have changed—and could change in more profound ways—it does the same. Demonstrating how...

The hybrid organizational forms designed with social enterprises in mind have proven to be hothouse flowers. Flourishing in state legislatures, even those with the most distinguished pedigrees — such as Delaware's public benefit corporation — have so far failed to thrive in the marketplace....

The social enterprise trust deficit -- Prioritizing mission with a mission-protected hybrid (MPH) -- Evaluating the current menu of legal forms for social enterprise -- From form to finance -- The holy grail of retail investment -- The promise of metrics -- Social enterprise exits -- Conclusion

Social entrepreneurs and socially motivated investors share a belief in the power of social enterprise, ventures that pursue a “double bottom line” of profit and social good. Unfortunately, they also share a deep mutual suspicion. Recognizing that social ventures — just like traditional...

Specifying the content of a requirement or a prohibition up front — e.g. replacing a “reasonable speed” requirement with a fifty-five miles per hour speed limit — can make life easier for enforcers and citizens alike. Recent efforts to substitute international tax rules for decades-old...

Like a student cutting the electrical cord on his television to help him study, governments across the globe rely on commitment devices to generate fiscal discipline. From the collapse of the Congressional Supercommittee in the United States to the near-cataclysmic failure of a mechanism...