LIST OF PANELS

We welcome paper proposals examining contemporary developments (theoretical or empirical) in international tax governance, voluntary corporate regulation and evolution and influence of public interest groups in the fields of tax and financial regulation. We envisage that two sessions associated with this panel will be devoted to the research project described above, but hope to host additional sessions exploring recent developments in private/voluntary regulation more generally.

Five years after the ‘Great Recession’ governments the world over are struggling to address large, and in many cases unsustainable, levels of public debt. Budget consolidation in the context of the slow economic growth and recovery often involves difficult political choices, such as cutting long-stablished and popular social programs or increasing domestic taxes. Given this context, the growing numbers of high profile corporate tax avoidance cases since 2012 have precipitated strong political responses and a number of reform proposals. Amid growing pessimism about the prospects of achieving a formal intergovernmental agreement (such as the OECD’s BEPS project) capable of addressing corporate tax planning strategies (Palan and Wigan 2014), there is growing interest in innovative private and hybrid governance regimes designed to reduce corporate tax planning and influence corporate tax strategies and compliance behaviour.The proposed panel will be used to present papers which will collectively provide the first systematic analysis of voluntary governance strategies in the international and corporate tax arena. Systems of voluntary governance which encourage private companies to meet or exceed private regulatory standards have become well established in relation to environmental regulation (Vogel, 2008) and have been characterised ‘as perhaps the most common type of innovative transnational governance institution’ in recent years (Hale and Held 2011, 211). However, with the exception of, for instance, the extractive industries, voluntary governance regimes have not been a prominent feature of international tax governance. In response to recent corporate tax scandals, tax justice NGOs have actively been drawing consumers’ attention to corporate tax planning practices with a view to exerting market pressure on companies to ‘pay their fair share of taxes’ and improve their reputation both in the market and in the public sphere. In 2013 this campaign assumed a tangible form with the launch of the Tax Mark initiative, a private certification scheme designed ‘to offer businesses that know they are good taxpayers (or want to work towards becoming one) the opportunity to proudly display this to their customers’ (http://fairtaxmark.net/what-is-it/). This research project was initiated at the 2014 IPSA World Congress. The proposed panel (consisting of 3 sessions) will allow existing members of the research team to present preliminary findings and will provide an opportunity for additional scholars with an interest in international taxation and voluntary corporate governance regimes to participate in the research project. Our aims are both empirical in that we will systematically document the emergence of voluntary governance in the international tax arena and analytical in that we will critically assess the origins of private tax standards and the extent to which they influence corporate tax strategy. Theoretically the study represents a critical case concerning the scope and effectiveness of voluntary governance regimes because not only is international taxation policy highly contested, but the right to tax has long been regarded as the preserve of the nation state. This raises the question of whether the private regimes designed to influence tax compliance are feasible or legitimate. By examining these questions the study will provide broader insights into the dynamics of corporate governance.