Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Itai Grinberg

J.D. Seminar 1096 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

For more than half a century, scholars and international agencies have been making recommendations about taxation in countries outside the major developed economies. The advice lawyers and economists have offered to these countries has changed over time, particularly regarding income and consumption taxes. This seminar explores the literature associated with that advice, how it has changed and why, with the goal of understanding how tax regimes can influence a country’s economic development.

The seminar examines issues of relevance to emerging economies, developing economies, and post-conflict zones. It also explores the international political context in which tax and development advice emerges, with a particular focus on the G20’s newfound focus on strengthening tax regimes and fiscal policies in developing countries to provide a sustainable revenue base for inclusive growth and social equity. The seminar covers topics that relate to (1) primarily domestic tax policy concerns of emerging and developing economies (“domestic issues”) and (2) the ways the international tax system affects emerging and developing economies (“international issues”).

The seminar begins with readings that emphasize a comparative perspective. These readings explore where the goals of tax systems in developing and developed countries are similar, and where they appropriately differ. The first half of the seminar is then devoted to domestic issues such as:

• Taxation and economic growth
• Taxation and redistribution
• Domestic tax administration, transparency, accountability, evasion and corrupn

The second half of seminar covers international issues such as:

• Global standards for taxation of cross-border activities of multinational corporations (e.g. transfer pricing, tax treaties) and the debate on the impact of that global body of soft law on emerging economies and developing countries
• Administrative cooperation in the taxation of foreign-source income of high-net worth resident individuals, and
• The interrelationship of international tax and international trade policy.

The seminar requires regular participation in class discussion and a final paper.