An Evolutionary Approach to Comparative Taxation

This paper discusses the methods of comparative taxation and provides an outline of an evolutionary approach to this new and promising field of study. The paper begins by discussing what comparative taxation can learn from comparative studies generally and what can it contribute to them. It then describes what a functional approach to comparative taxation looks like and discusses the two main methods that can be applied by comparative taxation: the theory of legal formants and the common core approach. These two functional approaches are placed into an institutional setting in which alternative solutions to tax problems found in different countries' policies are considered in local tax design and in which they manifest themselves in domestic tax mechanisms implementing tax models, frequently through legal transplants. The paper continues by discussing a de minimis agenda for future comparative tax work and distinguishes between static and dynamic comparative taxation: research in the former field may lead to important insights as to the formation of tax families. Yet, it is the research in the latter area that opens up a new set of important issues relating to tax transplants and to the circulation of tax models, showing its potential for applied empirical research. The paper concludes that the analysis of the circulation of tax models allows us to identify a possible agenda for future comparative tax research in which “five challenges for comparative taxation” must be faced

Comparative advantage · Comparative research · Core (optical fiber) · Double taxation · Economics · Field (mathematics) · International taxation · International trade · Public economics · Sociology · Tax reform · Computer Science · Corporate Taxation and Avoidance · Taxation and Compliance Studies · Taxation and Legal Issues