The authors observe that consumption taxation is superior to income taxation because it does not penalize saving and investment and propose that the U.S. income tax system be completely replaced by a progressive consumption tax. They argue that the X tax, developed by the late David Bradford, offers the best form of progressive consumption taxation for the United States and outline concrete proposals for the X tax's treatment of numerous specific economic issues.

Parties to cross-border disputes arising anywhere in the vast Portuguese-speaking world – a community of more than 230 million in a space that offers a wide array of investment opportunities across four continents – increasingly seek Portugal as their preferred seat of arbitration. A signatory to all relevant international conventions, Portugal has proven to be an ‘arbitration-friendly’ jurisdiction. This volume is the first and so far only book in English that provides a thorough, in-depth analysis of international arbitration law and practice in Portugal. Its contributing authors are among the most highly regarded legal names in the country, including scholars, arbitrators, and practitioners. The authors describe how international arbitration proceedings are conducted in Portugal, what cautions should be taken, and what procedural strategies may be suitable in particular cases. They provide insightful answers to questions such as the following: What matters can be submitted to arbitration under Portuguese law? What are the validity requirements for an arbitration agreement? How do the State courts interact with arbitration proceedings and what is the attitude of such courts toward international arbitration? What are the rules governing evidentiary matters in arbitration? How is an arbitration tribunal constituted? How are arbitrators appointed? How may they be challenged? How can an international arbitral award be recognized and enforced? How does the Portuguese legal system address the issue of damages and what specific damages are admitted? How are the costs of arbitration proceedings estimated and allocated? The book includes analyses of arbitration related to specific fields of the law, notably sports, administrative, tax, intellectual property rights (especially regarding reference and generic medicines), and corporate disputes. Each chapter provides, for the topics it addresses, an examination of the applicable laws, rules, arbitration practice, and views taken by arbitral tribunals and state courts as well as those of the most highly considered scholars. As a detailed examination of the legal framework and of all procedural steps of an arbitration in Portugal, from the drafting of an arbitration agreement to the enforcement of an award, this book constitutes an invaluable resource for parties involved in or considering an international arbitration in this country. The guidance that it seeks to provide in respect of any problem likely to arise in this context can be useful to arbitrators, judges, academics, and interested lawyers.

This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax—called "the bible of the flat tax movement" by Forbes—explains what's wrong with our present tax system and offers a practical alternative. Hall and Rabushka set forth what many believe is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable tax reform plan on the table: tax all income, once only, at a uniform rate of 19 percent.

Value-added tax, or VAT, first introduced less than 50 years ago, is now a pivotal component of tax systems around the world. The rapid and seemingly irresistible rise of the VAT is probably the most important tax development of the latter twentieth century, and certainly the most breathtaking. Written by a team of experts from the IMF, this book examines the remarkable spread and current reach of the innovative tax and draws lessons about the design and implementation of the VAT, as experienced by different countries around the world. How efficient is it as a tax, is it fair, and is it suitable for all countries? These are among the questions raised. This highly informative and well-researched book also looks at the likely future of the tax.

The amounts of information that are ?ooding people both at the workplace and in private life have increased dramatically in the past ten years. The number of paper documents doubles every four years, and the amount of information stored on all data carriers every six years. New knowledge, however, increases at a considerably lower rate. Possibilities for automatic content recognition in various media and for the processing of documents are therefore becoming more important every day. Especially in economic terms, the e?cient handling of information, i.e., ?- ing the right information at the right time, is an invaluable resource for any enterprise, but it is particularly important for small- and medium-sized ent- prises. The market for document management systems, which in Europe had a volume of approximately 5 billion euros in 2000, will increase considerably over the next few years. The BMBF recognized this development at an early stage. As early as in 1995, it pooled national capabilities in this ?eld in order to support research on the automatic processing of information within the framework of a large collaborative project (READ) involving both industrial companies and research centres. Evaluation of the results led to the conclusion that research work had been successful, and, in a second phase, funding was provided for the colla- rative follow-up project Adaptive READ from 1999 to 2003. The completion of thesetwoimportantlong-termresearchprojectshascontributedsubstantiallyto improving the possibilities of content recognition and processing of handwritten, printed and electronic documents.

He is also the author of "Principles of International Tax".

This paper sets out some tools for understanding the performance of the value added tax (VAT). Applying a decomposition of VAT revenues (as a share of GDP) to the universe of VATs over the last twenty years, it emerges that developments have been driven much less by changes in standard rates than by changes in ‘C-efficiency’ (an indicator of the departure of the VAT from a perfectly enforced tax levied at a uniform rate on all consumption). Decomposing C-efficiency into a ‘policy gap’ (in turn divided into effects of rate differentiation and exemption) and a ‘compliance’ gap (reflecting imperfect implementation), results pieced together for EU members suggest that the former are in almost all cases far larger than the latter, with rate differentiation and exemptions playing roles that differ quite widely across countries.

A thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform, arguably the most overdue political debate facing the nation, from one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time. THE UNITED STATES TAX CODE HAS UNDERGONE NO SERIOUS REFORM SINCE 1986. Since then, loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions have distorted its clarity, increased its inequity, and frustrated our ability to govern ourselves. By tracing the history of our own tax system and assessing the way other countries have solved similar problems, Bruce Bartlett explores the surprising answers to all these issues, giving a sense of the tax code’s many benefits—and its inevitable burdens. From one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time, The Benefit and the Burden is a thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform.