The Use of Foreign Blocker Corporations by U.S. Nonprofits: Should Blockers Be Blocked?

Silber, Norman I.; Wei, John

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2860107

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Intermediary corporate subsidiaries can simultaneously play another function, drawing on a technique described in the parlance of US tax advisors as 'blockers' or 'stoppers'. The original blockers exploited US exemption rules granted to certain charitable entities (Silber and Wei, 2015;Taylor, 2010). Firms would set up charitable entities as their ultimate owner (top of chain) or more often insert a charitable entity on the corporate chain to serve as an intermediary.…”

Section: Intermediate Entitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The same period also saw the rise of a new type of corporate organization with logistical capabilities of operating and manufacturing over large spaces (Chandler, 1993; Elbaum and Wilkinson, 1979; Wilkins, 2005). The territorially fragmented system of law was well adapted to the development of national market economies and to trading relationships among companies located in different countries, but was less well suited to multinational enterprises (Steil and Hinds, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Arbitrage spaces in the offshore world: Layering, ‘fuses’ and partitioning of the legal structure of modern firms

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, we discuss the way offshore financial centres are used by the multi-subsidiary, multi-jurisdictional group structure known as the ‘multinational enterprise’ to arbitrage between social geographies of political jurisdictions. We define arbitrage as the use of corporate legal entities located in diverse jurisdictions to arbitrate a third country's rules and regulations. Using a new method to categorize firm-level data from Van Dijk’s Orbis, we operationalize the notion of arbitrage to systematically detail and compare the structural sequencing choices firms are making, likely in part for reasons of arbitrage. We base our techniques on legal theory of the firm, acknowledging the underpinning of social technologies of law and accounting by which business enterprises are constructed and maintained. We conclude that two specific types of entities, ‘standalones’ versus ‘in-betweeners’, are qualitatively different from others in the activities they perform. We also highlight the existence of liability structures, or ‘fuses’, which typically take the form of a split ownership arrangement. Ultimately, we demonstrate that the position of a firm’s subsidiary within the overall network ecology of that firm is as important as its jurisdictional registration location.

show abstract

Section: Intermediate Entitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%