Friday, March 15, 2013

Free at last (!?!?!?!?!)

I have just completed what might be a full draft of my book-in-progress, Fixing The U.S. International Tax Rules.  It took 4 years and 4 fresh starts - whereas usually, once I have a book clearly in mind, I can write it in a few months.  The total damage is about 100,000 words, which is perhaps a bit on the long side.  But even at that length, there were a number of topics that I needed to keep fairly brief.  It is much more directed to how we should think about international tax policy than to pitching a particular solution, although I do try to relate the ideas discussed to concrete implementations.

It's not quite a completed draft just yet, as I need to read the whole thing over again, with an eye to its unity, consistency, and non-repetitiveness, among other key attributes.  The constant reloads and start-and-stop character of the process make this especially necessary, although they have also induced me to do a lot of re-reading and editing as I went along.

I'll be presenting the book at a conference in Hebrew University this June.  (My 3 discussants are probably glad to know that they will see it soon.)  And I have not as yet committed to a publisher.  I won't be posting it on SSRN, but hopefully it will be out as soon as 2014.

Some, but not all, of what I consider its more novel aspects are foreshadowed in articles that I have published over the last few years on foreign tax credits and U.S.corporate residence electivity.  But I have rethought some of the ideas in those articles, and the book is almost 100% new work, as opposed to being a cut-and-paste job.

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