Workshop: Taxation, Corporations and the State

Taxation is a crucial dimension of the state of the 21st century, directly impinging on its capacity to govern and shape its relationship with society. Without the capacity to raise revenues effectively, the state is seriously constrained in its ability to provide security, meet economic and social needs, as well as forge and maintain legitimate ties to the population living within its territory. Where the state is unconsolidated and fragile, efforts at taxation are often seriously contested as taxpayers have little confidence in the institutional power of public authorities to raise revenues and spend them for public purposes. Where the state is more consolidated, taxation may have better institutional anchoring and legitimacy. In such cases, however, taxation may still be an issue. Citizens, of such states may, for example, have higher expectations to the quality of public service delivery than witnessed by existing state practices. Or non-state actors – private and civil society – may be seen as more capable of delivering the services commonly provided by the state. 

While taxation has always been a contested issue, mainly because of its intimate relationship to the organization of political and economic power, recent years have seen a surge of controversies around taxation. Often such controversies reflect the fact that globalization is making it increasingly difficult for states to obtain tax revenues to provide security and address basic needs for it citizens. Growing competition between states to attract foreign direct investments (FDI), the proliferation of corporate operations on an increasingly global scale, the general mobility of capital and the surge of tax havens, has opened the doorway for a wide number of social and economic ills, including tax evasion, tax avoidance and related corporate tax strategies that ultimately limits the ability of national governments to justify or raise taxes.    

The purpose of this exploratory workshop is to examine various theoretical and empirical dimensions of this complex issue. We welcome short papers of around 3000 words that address from various disciplinary perspectives one or more of the following issues:

• What is the relationship between taxation, corporate responsibility and corporate irresponsibility?
• How is the issue of taxation framed in public and corporate discourse?
• How are taxation practices shaping public trust in governments and corporations? 
• How is tax planning described and debated in (social) media?
• What are the social, political and corporate risks of tax evasion?
• How are we to understand the nature of the proliferating claims for tax transparency and how do governments, corporations and citizens respond to them?
• How can responsible tax principles be implemented across nations?

Organizers: 

Professors Lars Thøger Christensen, Hans Krause Hansen & Jeremy Moon 

Deadline for submission of short paper: June 15, 2016

Papers should be sent by email to grb@cbs.dk

Date and time: June 27th, 1 PM – 6 PM and June 28th, 9 AM – 5 PM

The workshop takes place at Copenhagen Business School, Porcelænshaven 18B, Room PH18A-S-0.23 (ground floor), 2000 Frederiksberg