Oei Reviews Mason's The Transformation of International Tax

Shu-Yi Oei (Boston College), The New World of International Tax (JOTWELL) (reviewing Ruth Mason (Virginia), The Transformation of International Tax, 114 Am. J. Int'l L. ___ (2020)):

International tax law has been in the news a good deal lately, and one of the key developments widely discussed among international tax experts is the “OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS,” which aims to take on base erosion and profit shifting (i.e., “BEPS”) behaviors of multinational enterprises (“MNEs”). Ruth Mason offers a broad new view of these developments in her article, The Transformation of International Tax. ...

The OECD/BEPS project is often discussed in highly technical terms, with tax experts focusing on the specific doctrinal and policy mechanisms by which it intends to close tax loopholes. In her new paper, Ruth Mason argues, by contrast, that these changes aren’t merely technical. Instead, she writes that the international tax regime has undergone nothing short of a transformation since 2008. ...

Mason’s paper gives the tax field its most recent “big picture” work, a wide-ranging conceptualization of the state of the international tax field. Her paper should spark reams of subsequent research in light of the numerous important questions it raises. For example, obvious follow-up lines of inquiry include investigation into the role and participation of developing countries in the new international tax order, further examination of the role played by the OECD, the EU, and the G20 in the diffusion of tax norms and standards and the impacts of this on policy outcomes, and, of course, empirical research about the success or failure of the BEPS project and the ultimate distribution of worldwide tax revenues that will result. The answers to these questions are important. They not only affect the ability of revenue-strapped nations to fund welfare states and social safety nets but also carry fundamental implications for the future positions and roles of nation states in our world order.