This course is designed for those students who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the effect of certain U.S. rules governing the taxation of U.S. persons doing business overseas and foreign persons doing business in the United States. The course will cover a broad range of topics with particular emphasis on the tax consequences of cross-border reorganizations, liquidations and taxable acquisitions and dispositions. The course will cover the tax consequences of outbound transfers of assets, foreign-to-foreign transfers of assets, and inbound transfers of assets. Students will be expected to have a working knowledge of corporate taxation, and transactional aspects of subpart F and the foreign tax credit rules.

In 2017 the United States enacted a historic tax reform package that represents the most significant change to the U.S. international tax regime since 1986. Four years later, at the multilateral level, world leaders agreed to a fundamental reform of the international tax system involving a global minimum corporate tax.  Then in 2022 the United States did not follow through on implementing that agreement, leaving the question of whether the U.S. will implement the global minimum tax to 2025, when various provisions of the 2017 act phase out. 

This colloquium will offer students an opportunity to examine current tax policy issues in depth and at an advanced level, with discussions led by policymakers, economists, and other tax experts. The course will discuss various current and recent legislative proposals at a detailed level and examine the economic, tax policy, and political considerations underlying the decisions that have been made in each proposal.  This will include cross-border tax, capital taxes, energy tax, consumption taxes and other politically salient tax policy topics. It will explore the economic and policy literature surrounding the issues of economic welfare and competitiveness. The course will also examine issues such as tax expenditures, debt vs. equity, cost recovery, and various tax incentives. Reading materials generally will be supplied and will include economic and tax policy papers, legislative proposals, and technical explanations. The course is intended to be highly interactive with students discussing design and policy issues with leading experts in the field. The grade for this course will be based primarily on papers that students submit addressing policy topics discussed by the guest speakers. Useful class participation will be taken into account as a plus in determining the final grade. There will be no final exam.

Tax harmonization within the European Union is very difficult to achieve. Most legislative measures of the European Union in this area require the consensus of all 27 member states. The only real engine of harmonization seems to be the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The ECJ itself cannot harmonize the tax systems, however, the Court can force the member states to open their tax systems for tax competition within Europe. The judgments delivered by the ECJ are most of the time very surprising, even to experts.

The course focuses on very recent judgments of the Court of Justice. By analyzing some selected judgments, students should learn about the guiding principles of European tax law, as they have been developed by the ECJ on a case to case basis, and about the approach of the Court and the role the Court plays. Students should get an impression about possible future developments of European tax law.

During this century, the United States has raised revenue chiefly through the income tax, which is a per capita or direct tax. In many other countries, fiscal authorities rely far more heavily on indirect taxes. With the pace of globalization accelerating, U.S. tax professionals increasingly advise foreign clients, for whom indirect taxes may constitute a large percentage of aggregate tax liability. A basic knowledge of how these taxes work is thus a valuable asset for any lawyer doing corporate or international tax work.

This course will introduce students to indirect taxation, exemplified by the European Union’s Value Added Tax (“VAT”) and Canada’s Goods and Services Tax (“GST”), two of the fastest-growing indirect taxes globally. The course will examine the economic and policy rationales for such taxes and study in detail how different types of value added taxes work, including tax calculations and cross-border aspects. Finally, the course will compare the VAT with the retail sales taxes imposed by many U.S. state and local governments and will consider the feasibility of adopting some version of a VAT in the United States. At the end of the course, students will have a broad technical understanding of indirect taxes and an appreciation of the policy concerns that animate legislative and academic discussion of this important subject.

This two-credit course will be divided into nine 3-hour class sessions. All sessions will be taught by global indirect tax professionals from KPMG’s Washington D.C. office.

Taxes on goods and services continue to be the largest revenue source for jurisdictions, particularly low- (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs). On average across the OECD, taxes on goods and services accounted for 32.1% of total tax revenues in 2020 but represented 56% and 51% of total tax revenues in LICs and MICs, respectively. Value added taxes (VAT) produced 20.2% of total taxes in OECD countries on average in 2020, making it by far the main category of taxes on goods and services.

With economies becoming more interconnected, U.S. tax professionals increasingly advise clients investing abroad, for whom indirect taxes may constitute a large percentage of aggregate tax liability. A basic knowledge of how these taxes work is thus a valuable asset for any lawyer involved in corporate or international tax work.  This course will introduce students to indirect taxation, including customs duties, and its application in various jurisdictions.
The emphasis of the course is on major principles of VAT regimes, as opposed to exceptions to the general rules. Further, application of a particular principle may produce favorable results to one taxpayer but unfavorable results to another taxpayer. This phenomenon is often encountered when one taxpayer is a domestically registered corporation and the other taxpayer is a non-registered foreign corporation unable to reclaim VAT. Therefore, the course will encourage the student to approach an issue with an open mind regarding possibilities for tax registration in foreign jurisdictions.

The course will examine the economic and policy rationales for such taxes and study in detail how value added taxes work, including tax calculations and the impact of customs duties in cross-border transactions, as well as practical VAT considerations in the digital economy and M&A transactions. The course will also encourage students to give thought to public policy issues such as ease of administration within developing countries.

Course Goals/Student Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the course, students will have a broad technical understanding of indirect taxes and an appreciation of the policy concerns that animate legislative and academic discussion of this important subject.

At the conclusion of this course (i.e., for the take-home exam) the student should be able to apply basic principles of indirect taxes and identify issues.  The student should recognize when a client may have exposure for nonpayment of indirect and when a client may have failed to take full advantage of opportunities provided by various taxing systems.

This course is an introduction to the law and policy of U.S. taxation of U.S. and foreign persons engaged in cross-border activities. The course will address both how individual and corporate foreign taxpayers are taxed by the United States, and how U.S. individual and corporate taxpayers are taxed by the United States on income earned in or from other countries. Topics will include U.S. jurisdiction to tax, allocation of income, withholding taxes, the foreign tax credit, deferral, transfer pricing, and tax treaties. The course will also consider how the U.S. rules in these areas are influenced by developments in other countries. The goal of the course is to provide an overview of the relevant law and policy considerations, with a focus on specific issues that are presently contested as a policy matter. Students should leave the course with an understanding of the basic framework for U.S. international tax law and a sense of some of the policy debates surrounding the current rules.

The Workshop will use a "case study" approach to address the myriad technical, practical and strategic issues involved in counseling a company as it evolves from a start-up operating out of its founder's garage (in the first week of the semester) to a Fortune 100 global powerhouse with operations on every continent. Each week's hypothetical case study will consist of a fact pattern, including financial and operational data, presenting a set of business objectives and/or problems to resolve. The class will be divided into separate "law firms" of 4 or so students per firm. Each firm will be asked each week to undertake a new project for the senior partner/client relating to the facts and requests for advice/assistance set forth in the case study. Members of the firm will then collaborate on a brief written product for presentation and discussion during the next week's session. The form, format and audience for the deliverable will vary from week to week --a technical tax law memo for the VP-Tax, a tax/financial analysis for the CFO, a strategic powerpoint presentation to the CEO or Board, a submission to a foreign tax administration, a legislative, treaty or regulatory proposal, an outline for an oral argument in an international tax case before a Federal Circuit panel. The objective of the exercise will also vary from week to week --for example, a pre-filing conference memo aimed at persuading the IRS National Office international rulings personnel to respond favorably if a request is filed on a cross-border spinoff; the executive summary of a Competent Authority request to resolve a withholding tax interpretative issue under an applicable treaty; strategic analysis and recommendations regarding the most tax effective approach to bring products to the EU or APAC market, to finance an international acquisition or to tax-effect losses incurred in a particular country operations. The seminar's final exercise will involve yet another twist in the company's life cycle.

This course concentrates on real world civil and criminal tax controversies involving international tax matters facing today’s tax practitioners.  The course begins with an introduction to the U.S. compliance regime, including the obligation to report worldwide income, specified foreign financial assets and international business activity. Students will learn the various international tax reporting obligations, applicable statutes of limitations and tolling provisions, potential civil penalties under the Internal Revenue Code and the Bank Secrecy Act, options for resolving non-compliance, procedures for challenging proposed and assessed penalties, and the risk of criminal investigation and prosecution. The course concludes with study of current international enforcement and litigation trends involving cross-border business transactions and base erosion/profit shifting issues.

International tax treaties determine why hedge funds are located where they are, how motion pictures are financed, whether the dispatch of employees abroad is economical, and why financial assets follow prescribed international paths. They determine why Netherlands and Luxembourg have a large positive balance of trade with the United States, and why recording studios are established in the Caribbean. They determine whether bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein are really secret. While tax treaties ostensibly are only about dividing up tax bases between countries and exchanging information between sovereigns, in reality they channel the flow of investment and development in the global economy.

This course assumes that students have some familiarity with basic tax treaty concepts and examines how provisions of the OECD Model Treaty and the United States Model Treaty are used by tax practitioners to achieve specific business objectives. Students will acquire an understanding of how treaty provisions help shape economic and financial decisions in different industries and economic sectors. The course uses examples drawn from actual practice to illustrate the creative use of tax treaty provisions. It is designed to be an interactive experience, with students working on case studies, discussing alternative approaches, and using different jurisdictions and changes in the form of the underlying transaction to achieve desirable tax results.

Learning objectives:

This course is intended to teach the concepts underlying the United States Model Tax Treaty and the OECD Model Tax Treaty. By the end of the course, students are expected to understand how tax treaties are organized and be able to apply the model tax treaties to factual situations in which the tax treaties are applicable.

At the same time, the course is intended to challenge the student to be aware of the ethical challenges and risks of practice in the area of international taxation. More and more, tax authorities are not only looking to penalize a taxpayer for improper tax planning, but also the tax advisor who recommended the course of action followed by the taxpayer. By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to understand where the borders of ethical behavior are when developing international tax structures and to be able to analyze risks to the clients and themselves when working in this area.

Finally, the course is intended to reinforce principles of close reading and attention to the specific wording used in the tax treaties and cases interpreting the tax treaties. By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to read and understand why specific words are used in tax treaties and the significance of these words.

This is a basic tax treaty course. It will cover fundamental tax treaty concepts such as residency, permanent establishment, business profits, limitation on benefits, and relief from double taxation (including operation of the U.S. foreign tax credit rules). There will be an overview of treaty provisions that apply to investment income and income from the performance of services. In addition, students will learn about the interaction of tax treaties with U.S. domestic tax law, the role of international organizations in interpreting tax treaties, procedures for resolving tax treaty disputes through the competent authority process, and strategies for researching tax treaties. This course is designed for students with little or no background in tax treaties. However, students will be expected to have a basic understanding of the U.S. tax rules that apply to foreign persons who receive income from the United States and U.S. persons who receive income from abroad. The course will be based primarily on the United States Model Income Tax Convention, together with selected case law and administrative authority. We will also look at selected provisions of the OECD Model Tax Convention.

The topic of international transfer pricing – that is, how a business conducting operations in a number of different countries should divide its taxable income among those countries – remains among the most practically important of international tax issues. This course seeks to provide an introduction to the United States' principals and current practice of international transfer pricing, as well as some understanding of the historical and conceptual basis of the current system. Specific goals of the course are to assist foreign students in gaining a general perspective on the United States system and to provide domestic students and practitioners a sufficient level of understanding of the area and practices to provide a platform for the development of further interest in the area.

Concentrates on the U.S. taxation of foreign persons and foreign investments in the United States. The course covers the U.S. taxation of passive and business income of nonresident aliens and foreign corporations, the source rules, the principles and application of U.S. tax treaties, special rules governing foreign investment in U.S. real estate and other business, cross border financing transactions, the base erosion and anti-abuse tax, and tax planning possibilities involved in the foregoing.

Concentrates on the U.S. taxation of U.S. persons and businesses earning income outside of the United States. The course examines, in depth, U.S. taxation of the international operations of U.S. multinational corporations. It covers the GILTI rules, the foreign tax credit provisions, Subpart F, repatriation, and overall strategic tax planning, including the significant new U.S. international tax rules and other changes introduced by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.