The James Hausman Tax Law & Policy Workshop
presents
Rebecca Kysar
Fordham University School of Law
Unraveling the Tax Treaty
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
12:30 - 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Coordination among nations over the taxation of international transactions rests on a network of some 2,000 bilateral double tax treaties. The double tax treaty is, in many ways, the roots of the international system of taxation as we know it. That system, however, is in upheaval in the face of globalization, technological advances, abuse by treaty beneficiaries, and shifting political tides. On the trade side, these same forces have caused intense political and scholarly scrutiny of the network of trade agreements. Yet serious examination of the worthiness of tax treaties remains nearly absent in the political sphere. In the academic literature, scrutiny is largely confined to the albeit important question of whether tax treaties are beneficial for developing countries. Surprisingly little to no consideration has been paid to whether developed countries should continue to sign tax treaties with one another. In fact, little evidence or theory exists to support entrance into a tax treaty by countries like the United States. And in many cases, tax treaties may be detrimental to their interests. The recent 2017 tax legislation makes these concerns even more pronounced. Although tax treaties may have, at one time, served salutary purposes, modern circumstances call into question their necessity for developing and developed nations alike, at least in their modern incarnation.
Professor Kysar joins the Fordham Law School faculty in the fall of 2018 after nine years at Brooklyn Law School, where she taught federal income taxation, international taxation, and legislation and statutory interpretation. Her recent scholarship examines tax treaties, the tax legislative process, as well as the new 2017 tax law.
Professor Kysar is a primary co-author of “The Games They Will Play: Tax Games, Roadblocks, and Glitches Under the New Legislation,” the most downloaded paper on SSRN in 2017. Her scholarly articles have appeared in the Cornell Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Washington University Law Review, and the Yale Journal of International Law, and other leading publications.
Professor Kysar testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in 2018, in a hearing on the new tax law, describing problems with the new international provisions. Several of her articles on the new GOP tax bill have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and Slate.
She has presented her scholarship at various forums, including the Columbia Tax Policy Colloquium, the Harvard Law School Seminar on Tax Law, Policy, and Practice, the Michigan Law School Tax Policy Workshop, the Northwestern University School of Law Colloquium on Advanced Topics in Taxation, the NYU Tax Policy Colloquium, and the UCLA Tax Policy and Public Finance Colloquium.
Professor Kysar clerked for the Honorable Richard J. Cardamone on the U.S Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. She worked as a tax associate at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP from 2005 to 2008. In the spring of 2012, Professor Kysar served as the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
For additional workshop information, please contact events.law@utoronto.ca
