New series of papers on why government can and should bring financial services into the tax base

The Victoria University of Wellington (Australia) has a new SSRN issue of interest, featuring a series of papers by Sybrand van Schalkwyk and the ever-prolific John Prebble, all on the topic of consumption tax and financial services. The first of these is the big picture:

"Value Added Tax and Financial Services"  Asia-Pacific Tax Bulletin, Vol. 10, pp. 363-370, 2004 Victoria University of Wellington Legal Research Paper No. 29/2013 Value added tax (VAT) is a relatively modern development. Designers of VAT recognized from the outset that the way in which financial institutions are remunerated creates significant difficulty when the tax is applied to their services. Administrative difficulties relate to imposing invoice-based VAT on service fees charged as part of the margin between buy and sell rates. Theoretical reasons relate to arguments that financial services should not be taxed under a consumption tax because, it is argued, financial services are not consumed in the way in which goods and services are consumed. Because of these difficulties, most jurisdictions have opted to exempt financial services from VAT. However, the commonly accepted reasons to exempt financial services from VAT are not compelling, since financial services are no different in relevant respects from other services. Moreover, there are methods by which financial services could be brought within the VAT base. Furthermore, although exemption is the simplest way for a VAT to treat financial services, it causes significant distortions in the economy.  This paper is of special interest to me because it confirms my own view that societies are increasingly accepting tax systems that intentionally tax the "easy-to-tax" most vigorously, the "hard-to-tax" much less vigorously and more randomly, and the "impossible-to-tax" not at all, and that these categories have been intentionally constructed from regulatory decision-making that renders various activities to a given category in systematic and purposeful ways. There are fundamental justice issues at stake in these regulatory outcomes. If Prebble and van Schalkwyk are correct that exempting financial services from VAT is a policy choice that has been made on the basis of an unexamined theory that these flows are hard or impossible to tax which in turn has been decided because of a failure to institute measures that would make them easy (or at minimum easier) to tax, then the failure to include financial services within existing VAT systems is a grave source of injustice within that tax policy choice (that is, in addition to and apart from the question about whether consumption taxation is itself a violation of justice in the exercise of taxation by states). The papers that follow focus on various ways to increase the coherency of the taxation of financial flows--what I would suggest is an effort to show us that financial flows could in fact be easier to tax, if not "easy-to-tax," given various regulatory reforms: "Defining Interest-Bearing Instruments for the Purposes of Value Added Taxation"   Asia-Pacific Tax Bulletin, Vol. 10, pp. 418-426, 2004Victoria University of Wellington Legal Research Paper No. 30/2013  This is the second of a series of four articles on the taxation of financial services under a value added tax. The first article considered whether, from a theoretical viewpoint, financial services should be included under a value added tax. It concluded that the arguments in favour of treating financial services in the same manner as any other service outweighed the arguments against doing so. This second article considers the definition of interest bearing financial instruments in some detail. It also considers the kinds of activities that qualify as financial services in relation to the instruments. The definition of financial services is important where a different type of treatment is applied to financial services. If financial services were taxed like any other service, then no definition would be needed. However, where, as in New Zealand, supplies of financial services can be exempted, the definition of financial services becomes very important. Alternatively, if some financial services are to be zero rated or taxed but not others, then it is necessary to have a global definition of financial services followed by individual definitions of the particular kinds of service that are to be brought within the tax base one way or the other. This article begins by considering interest-bearing instruments.  "Imposing Value Added Tax on Interest-Bearing Instruments and Life Insurance"  Asia-Pacific Tax Bulletin, Vol. 10, pp. 471-468, 2004 Victoria University of Wellington Legal Research Paper No. 31/2013  Exemption of financial services from Value Added Tax (VAT) is commonly accepted as being an anomaly in the New Zealand goods and services tax legislation. While exempting financial services from VAT is attractive to the legislature because it is a simple way of addressing the difficulties of applying VAT to financial services, it causes significant distortions, for instance tax cascading, which in turn causes price distortions. The application of VAT to interest-bearing financial instruments and life insurance is complicated by the way in which financial intermediaries charge for these services. The first part of this article investigates how interest-bearing instruments can be taxed under VAT, and the second part how life insurance can be taxed under VAT. There are several options for the treatment of interest-bearing instruments. They can be exempted, zero-rated, or included in the tax base. In this last category, there are three possible methods of including interest-bearing instruments: the invoice, cash flow, and truncated tax flow systems. The last is recommended because policy makers have come to realize that the cash flow system cannot be applied without significant modification.  "Imposing Value Added Tax on the Exchange of Currency"  Asia-Pacific Tax Bulletin, Vol. 10, pp. 469-483, 2004 Victoria University of Wellington Legal Research Paper No. 32/2013  Exemption of financial services from Value Added Tax (VAT) is commonly accepted as being an anomaly in the New Zealand goods and services tax legislation. While exempting financial services from VAT is attractive to the legislature because it is a simple way of addressing the difficulties of applying VAT to financial services, it causes significant distortions, such as tax cascading, which in turn causes price distortions. The application of VAT to services that bring about the exchange of currency is one instance where financial services could be included in the VAT base. Services bringing about the exchange of currency are a species of financial service, but are inherently different from other financial services since they are relatively simpler than other financial services. Reasons advanced for exempting financial services in general do not necessarily apply to services bringing about the exchange of currency. Bravo to the authors--this represents a lot of work and adds much to the discussion of how economically-integrated yet politically independent nations can approach the subject of taxation from the perspective that justice matters in policy decisions.

Using taxes to correct trade imbalances

John Whalley, who has done a lot of work on tax, trade, and development, has a new paper with Chunding Li entitled Indirect Tax Initiatives and Global Rebalancing, in which the authors suggest that value added taxes can be used strategically to correct the global trade, current account, savings, debt and deficit imbalances that led to the 2008 financial crisis.  Exchange rate policies have been the main tool for rebalancing, but Whally and Li suggest that with cooperation, the US, Germany, and China could use VATs to achieve it.  From the abstract:

We suggest that if China and Germany (as major surplus countries) switch their present VAT systems from a destination principle to an origin principle, and the US (as the major deficit country) adopts a VAT on a destination principle, jointly these actions can significantly reduce the three countries’ joint imbalances and so contribute to global rebalancing.  ... VAT structures are not only good for global rebalancing but also the changes we consider are beneficial for welfare and revenue collection. 

And from the paper:

both China and Germany (and the EU more broadly) operate destination based value added taxes under which imports are taxed but exports leave the country tax free. Both have large trade surpluses of about 5% of GDP. Switching to an origin basis which taxes exports and allows imports tax free entry will, given these significant imbalances, raise taxes and effectively also tax imbalances potentially lowering their size. The long claimed neutrality of origin/destination basis switches for the VAT ... only holds for balanced trade, and not for today’s world. In the US there is no VAT, but revenue pressures given the debt and deficit situation could in the next few years potentially result in its adoption. Were this to happen, given the large US trade deficit a VAT in the US introduced on a destination basis could similarly serve to reduce the US imbalance. We also suggest that an internationally coordinated indirect tax change involving China and Germany switching to an origin based VAT, and the US introducing a destination based VAT could potentially lead to a significant change in global external sector rebalancing. 

There are plenty of formulas, charts, and jargon-filled paragraphs in the paper, but it also includes a straightforward explanation of how VAT works.   I'm not a proponent of VAT in general, but am interested in how these taxes might impact trade.  I think the political appetite for new taxes in the U.S. is too low to produce a federal VAT even if it could promise to reverse the trade imbalance, but the authors argue that "any individual country’s VAT changes will significantly reduce world total and individual country’s imbalances, improve individual country’s welfare and increase revenues."