Tax-Expatriation

Exploring the Vexing Issues of U.S. Citizenship Based Worldwide Taxation – University of Michigan School of Law (October 8th and 9th, 2015)

Posted on August 31, 2015

Those of us who are international tax practitioners have to deal with the messy details of the tax law.  Advising private clients on the law and its consequences and finding opportunities within the law is a large part of the practitioner’s role.  Additionally, as private tax practitioners, we find ourselves advocating for client’s best interests vis-à-vis the U.S. federal government, state governments, the Courts and other governmental agencies.

Policy makers and academics have the luxury of dedicating much of their time to exploring what they think should be the law and what changes should be made to current law.

I have the privilege of participating at an upcoming academic conference on TAXATION AND CITIZENSHIP held at the University of Michigan School of Law.  The agenda and speakers will explore numerous issues surrounding taxation and citizenship. It is set out below, for those who might find the topics of interest (and most of the participants have published extensively on the topic):

DRAFT 7/31/15

TAXATION AND CITIZENSHIP

Conference Organizers: Reuven Avi-Yonah & Allison Christians

Conference Sponsors:

University of Michigan Center for Comparative and International Law

Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP

Michigan Journal of International Law

October 8, 2015

7:30-9:00 Student Panel

Gene Magidenko (University of Michigan) chair

Montano Cabezas (Georgetown)

Christine Kim (NYU)

Gianluca Mazzoni (Brescia)

Miguel Nicolas (University of Paris)

October 9, 2015

University of Michigan Law School

8:30-9:00 Registration

9:00-9:15 Welcome

Monica Hakimi, Associate Dean, University of Michigan School of Law

9:15-10:30 Panel One

Hugh Ault, (Boston College and OECD) Senior Advisor to the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration

Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law, Director, International Tax LLM Program

Constructive Unilateralism

Wei Cui (UBC), Co-Director, Tax LL.M. Program at The Allard School of Law at University of British Columbia

• Source and Residence as Interconnected Concepts

Tessa Davis (University of South Carolina School of Law)

Of Tax Evasion and “Bad” Citizens: The Role of Tax Law in Making a Citizen

Michael Kirsch (University of Notre Dame, the Law School)

• Citizenship-Based Taxation vs Residence-Based Taxation: Distilling the Competing Normative Arguments

• 10:30-10:45 Coffee Break

Philip West (Steptoe), Chairman

Allison Christians (McGill), H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Tax Law

• 10:45-12:20 Panel Two

• Uncle Sam Wants Who?

• Patrick Martin (Procopio), tax team leader

• The Need for Consistent Tax Treatment of All Individuals Residing Overseas

• Ruth Mason (University of Virginia School of Law)

• Defining the National Community

• Linneu Mello (Bichara)

• How the Brazilian IRS keeps an eye on Brazilian residents and what FATCA has to do with it

• Saul Templeton (University of Calgary Law)

• FATCA: Problems and Potential in the Developing World

12:20-1:30 Lunch Break

1:00-1:30            Keynote: Elise Bean, Co-Director of the Levin Center at Wayne Law School, Former Chief of Staff, US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

1:30-2:45 Panel Three

Ed Zelinsky,  Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law – Yeshiva University

Ajay Mehrotra (Director of American Bar Foundation)

 The Problems of Defining Residence: The U.S. Experience

Jane Frecknall-Hughes (University of Hull)

• Tax and the citizen: the philosophical underpinnings

Christine Harlen (University of Leeds)

• Making America Exceptional: Perfectionist Civic Republicanism and the Taxation of Americans Abroad in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920

Sagit Leviner (Ono Academic College)

• Citizenship Transcended

2:45-3:00 Coffee Break

Allison Christians (McGill), chair

• Henry Ordower (St. Louis University School of Law)

3:00-4:15 Panel Four

• Is the Expatriation Tax Constitutional? Mark to Market and the Macomber Conundrum

Adam Rosenzweig (Washington University Law, St. Louis)

• Once a US Person, Always a US Person

• Daniel Shaviro,  Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation, New York University School of Law

• Taxing Potential Community Members’ Foreign Source Income

• Peter Spiro, Temple University, Beasley School of Law

• Citizenship Overreach and FATCA

4:15-5:00 Concluding Panel 

 Hugh Ault, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Allison Christians, Ajay Mehrotra and Philip West