Prohibition by Price
Step into the shadows of illicit trade where taxation, incentives, and criminal networks intersect to fuel the lucrative cigarette smuggling market.
Step into the shadows of illicit trade where taxation, incentives, and criminal networks intersect to fuel the lucrative cigarette smuggling market.
Taxation plays a key role in driving illicit trade. People respond to incentives, and sizable price markups for legal cigarettes create incentives for tax avoidance.
4 min readSens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Christopher Coons (D-DE) have recently introduced a bill laying the groundwork for a possible solution to the problem: a tax on the carbon content of imports. But it falls short of the optimal approach in several ways.
4 min readWith inflation continuing to skyrocket, especially for food, which reached 10.4 percent in June, it is worth examining how the ongoing U.S. trade war with China and U.S. tariff policy overall has impacted U.S. agriculture and food prices.
3 min readWhile the U.S. tariffs were intended to protect American industries, they have largely hurt the U.S. economy. Rather than pass on the tariffs to Chinese consumers, analysis shows that most U.S. firms simply bore the costs.
4 min readFederal policymakers are debating a legislative package focused on boosting U.S. competitiveness vis-a-vis China; however, it currently contains little to no improvements to the U.S. tax code.
34 min readOne unintended consequence of the tax proposals in the Build Back Better Act is a higher potential burden on wireless spectrum investments, which could slow the build out of 5G technology as the U.S. races to compete with other countries—moving in the opposite direction of countries like China that are actively subsidizing 5G expansion.
5 min readAs economies are starting to recover and growth is expected to rebound in the region during 2021, Asian and Pacific countries should start exploring changes to their fiscal tax policies while carefully evaluating the optimal time for eliminating fiscal stimulus and temporary tax relief.
4 min readBecause of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis, countries in the Asia-Pacific region will see a differentiated impact on their capacity of mobilizing domestic revenue depending on the structure of their economy. According to the OECD report, those economies that rely mostly on natural resources, tourism, and trade taxes are especially vulnerable.
5 min readCountries around the world are implementing emergency tax measures to support their economies under the coronavirus (COVID-19) threat.
51 min readThe Chinese approach to base erosion and profit shifting is more focused on the application of transfer pricing rules and not on the application of CFC rules. Even with the rules in place, the Chinese tax authorities have not enforced the rules as much as other countries have.
3 min read