Oct
11
An Overview of the Digital Services Tax
Webcast with Wei Cui, Meredith Lilly and Watson M. McLeish
C.D. Howe Institute events and webinars are open to members and their guests.
Please contact events@cdhowe.org to register.
Wei Cui teaches at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. His scholarship spans a wide range of topics in tax law and policy. In the area of international taxation, his recent writing has examined purported rationales for global tax cooperation, strategic incentives for adopting the global minimum tax, the destination-based cash flow tax, formulary apportionment, measures for taxing non-residents’ capital gains, and the digital services tax as a tax on location specific rent. He is currently writing a book that re-conceptualizes the history and subject matter of international income taxation in light of the evolution in international trade.
Professor Cui is the author of The Administrative Foundations of the Chinese Fiscal State (2022) and (with Schenk and Thuronyi) Value Added Tax: A Comparative Approach (2nd ed., 2015), both published by Cambridge University Press. He was a visiting professor of law at New York University School of Law in fall 2022, and had previously held visiting appointments at Michigan, Columbia, and Melbourne Law Schools, among other institutions.
Before becoming a full-time academic, Wei practiced U.S. and Chinese tax law for over 10 years in New York and Beijing. During 2009-2010, he was Senior Tax Counsel at the China Investment Corporation. He has also served as a consultant to China’s National People’s Congress, Ministry of Finance and State Administration of Taxation, as well as to the United Nations.
Meredith Lilly, Associate Professor and Simon Reisman Chair, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University
Meredith Lilly is an Associate Professor at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs where she holds the Simon Reisman Chair in International Economic Policy. Dr. Lilly is a national award-winning researcher with extensive experience in public policy development and executive branch decision making. She previously served as Foreign Affairs and International Trade Advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and oversaw within the Prime Minister’s Office Canada’s free-trade negotiations with the European Union, South Korea, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership among other files. Dr. Lilly’s current research is focused on North American trade relations, Canada’s trade diversification strategy, and economic sanctions. She is a member of the Deputy Minister’s Advisory Committee on International Trade, an Advisory Board member of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, an Expert Panelist with the Council of Canadian Academies, and a Canadian delegate to the North American Forum. She meets regularly with foreign governments and diplomats, and is a regular media commentator on Canadian trade strategy.
Watson M. McLeish, Senior Vice President, Tax Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Watson McLeish is Senior Vice President for Tax Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he serves as the primary adviser on all tax policy-related matters. This includes the development of tax policy positions, advocacy on tax issues, and coordination of efforts to influence tax legislation and regulations.
Watson previously served as tax counsel at Tax Executives Institute, Inc. (TEI), where he supported the advocacy and educational activities of TEI’s Tax Reform Task Force, Federal Tax Committee, and Canadian Income Tax Committee. He was responsible for advancing TEI’s advocacy priorities on Capitol Hill and with the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy and the IRS. Watson performed the same role in Canada before Parliament, the Department of Finance’s Tax Policy Branch, and the Canada Revenue Agency.
In addition, Watson facilitated TEI conferences and seminars throughout the U.S. and Canada bringing together members, tax practitioners, and policymakers. He also served as contributing editor to Tax Executive, the professional journal of TEI.
Before joining TEI in 2017, Watson was a member of the National Tax Department– International Tax Services practice at Ernst & Young LLP, where he advised both domestic and foreign clients on a wide range of U.S. federal income tax law and policy issues related to international business transactions.
Watson is as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches a graduate-level seminar on tax research and writing. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Elizabeth, and three-year-old daughter, Blythe.
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