Wolfgang Schön

In jüngerer Zeit werden immer mehr Rufe laut, die in Deutschland bundeseinheitlich geregelte Erbschaftsteuer zu "föderalisieren", d.h. wesentliche Teile der Gesetzgebung in die Hoheit der Bundesländer abzugeben. Neben der dazu geführten politischen Diskussion ist in einem Normenkontrollverfahren vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht die Frage gestellt worden, ob der Bund insoweit überhaupt die konkurrierende Gesetzgebungshoheit beanspruchen kann. Dafür ist Voraussetzung, dass die Wahrung der Rechts- und Wirtschaftseinheit in Deutschland eine solche Einheitsregelung erfordert, obwohl das Aufkommen der Steuer ausschließlich den Bundesländern zusteht. Das vorliegende Open Access Werk ist die (leicht abgeänderte) Fassung einer Studie, die das Max-Planck-Institut für Steuerrecht und Öffentliche Finanzen auf eine Anfrage des Bundesverfassungsgerichts erstellt hat und die – erstmals aus der Sicht des deutschen Erbschaftsteuerrechts – im Detail der Frage nach den rechtlichen und fiskalischen Konsequenzen einer solchen Föderalisierung nachgeht. Behandelt werden sowohl verfassungsrechtliche Grundfragen als auch Implikationen für das innere System des deutschen (Erbschaft-)Steuerrechts. Auf rechtsvergleichender Basis erfolgt außerdem eine Abschätzung der ökonomischen Folgen einer föderalisierten Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer, insbesondere mit Blick auf die zu erwartenden Reaktionen der Steuerpflichtigen, etwa in Form inländischer Wanderungsbewegungen bzw. Vermögensverlagerungen, und einen möglichen innerdeutschen Erbschaftsteuerwettbewerb zwischen den Bundesländern. Beleuchtet werden schließlich auch mit der Föderalisierung einhergehende Komplexitätssteigerungen bei der Gestaltung der Vermögensnachfolge sowie bei der – verfassungsrechtlich gebotenen – Integration einer föderalisierten Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer in das System des bundesstaatlichen Finanzausgleichs.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit—and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT). The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers—the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law—including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation—to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book undertakes a fundamental review of the existing international system of taxing business profit. It steps back from the current political debates on how to combat profit shifting and how taxing rights over the profits of the digitalized economy should be allocated. Instead, it starts from first principles to ask how we should evaluate a tax on business profit—and whether there is any good rationale for such a tax in the first place. It then goes on to evaluate the existing system and a number of alternatives that have been proposed. It argues that the existing system is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a need for radical reform. The key conclusion from the analysis is that there would be significant gains from a reform that moved the system towards taxing profit in the country in which a business made its sales to third parties. That conclusion informs two proposals that are put forward in detail and evaluated: the Residual Profit Allocation by Income (RPAI) and the Destination-based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT). The book is authored by group of economists and lawyers—the Oxford International Tax Group, chaired by Michael P. Devereux. It draws insights from both economics and law—including economic theory, empirical evidence on the impact of taxes, and an examination of practical issues of implementation—to assess the existing system and to consider fundamental reforms. This book will be useful to tax policy makers, tax professionals, academics, and anyone interested in tax policy.

The renowned authors of this ECFR special volume systematically develop legal standards and regulatory frameworks for closed corporations in Europe (including of course the Societas Privata Europaea), putting a strong focus on the economic practice and efficiency. The profound, in-depth analysis of the objectives and strategies comes to groundbreaking insights and also offers specific solutions for a multitude of practical aspects.

The closed corporation is the most important economic form of business organization worldwide; however, it is often neglected in international academic legal discussions. The new special edition of the ZGR (Zeitschrift f r Unternehmens- und Gesellschaftsrecht) attempts to fill this gap in research. The examination systematically addresses the typical areas of conflict with regard to a closed corporation. In do so, legally-based comparative experience and findings from business economics are applied, while the European private company is consistently taken into account.