(1) the purposive, technical, and semantic contours of what the term “minimum tax” is generally used to mean, along with the reasons why these matter – relating, for example, to the creation of clientele effects and discontinuous marginal incentives,
(2 the lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of the alternative minimum tax (AMT),
(3) the Biden versus Warren design question of whether, if one gave tax consequences to highly profitable companies’ financial statement accounting income, this should involve the use of a minimum tax structure or a standalone structure,
(4) the relationship between avowed minimum taxes and provisions, such as loss nonrefundability and applying foreign tax credit limitations, that set a zero percent floor on a particular tax rate,
(5) the issues posed by global minimum taxes, including GILTI in U.S. law and the OECD’s recent GloBE minimum tax proposal.
In general I am quite skeptical about minimum taxes, although there may at times be optical or political economy reasons for preferring them to a given, limited set of realistically available alternatives.
I’ll post it on SSRN soon, but probably not until I get some feedback from presenting it. The problem with posting too soon is that some of one’s readership looks at it too early, before it’s been improved. Barring travel restrictions from the coronavirus, I’ll be presenting it at the Critical Tax Conference in Gainesville, FL, on April 3 or 4, and then at the Maurer Law School’s 2020 Tax Policy Colloquium (in Bloomington, IN) on April 9. Also possibly in Oxford this summer, if international travel is feasible.