There is a pressing need for global reform of inheritance taxation systems. On average, only 0.5% of total tax revenues are sourced from inheritance taxes across the 24 OECD countries that levy them. If designed properly, inheritance taxes could play a greater role in raising revenues for cash-strapped authorities seeking to overcome mounting public deficits. A new equity-based approach to inheritance taxes could also prevent wealth inequality from becoming even more concentrated as the baby-boomers transfer intergenerational wealth. The case explores the challenges facing public policy makers as they seek to balance variables like tax exemption thresholds designed to ensure heirs receive a fair share of wealth tax-free, the operative word being fair. The case also explains the tools used to avoid paying a fair share of inhertance tax, such as trusts and tax havens. Extra teaching materials are available at https://publishing.insead.edu/case/inheritance-tax

In a historic agreement on 8 October 2021, 136 countries approved the OECD two-pillar solution in a major overhaul of the century-old international taxation system. At the G20 Summit in Rome on 30 October 2021, the leaders of the world's biggest economies endorsed the two-pillar solution, decades in the making but which will be implemented in 2023. The new agreement will overcome the tax challenges arising from the digital economy and will ensure that big businesses pay a fair share of taxes on profits from market jurisdictions where they operate. The case explores the two parts, placing a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% on the profits of the world's largest businesses; and shifting tax revenues to market jurisdictions where large businesses have their customers and sell their products. Protagonist Janet Yellen, Secretary of the US Treasury, played an instrumental role in getting reluctant finance ministers on board. President Joe Biden supported the OECD plan in part because it will stop growing tensions between G20 countries over digital service taxes.

The case provides an alternative view of the antitrust dilemma facing Lina Khan, newly appointed commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission. Her nomination to the FTC by President Biden sent a clear signal to tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google that their enormous power would be reined in by his administration. Khan takes up an antitrust complaint filed against Facebook by her predecessor that its acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 violated antitrust regulations. This offers an opportunity to review current thinking about the acquisition of start-ups by large technology platforms and discuss the controversy over the privacy practices of social networking platforms. Beyond the legal dimensions, the case examines the growing competitive forces that could pose a threat to WhatsApp and its longstanding domination of the instant messaging market.

On 30 August 2016, Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, ordered Ireland to recover €13 billion in illegal state aid (plus interest) that Ireland was alleged to have granted Apple over a decade from 2003. Within months of the ruling, both Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime Minister, appealed the Commission's judgment to the European General Court in Luxembourg, the EU's second highest court. In mid-July 2020, the General Court returned its verdict and annulled the Commission's ruling giving Commissioner Vestager two months and 10 days to appeal. At the very last minute, the Commissioner announced that she would seek an appeal before the EU's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, citing "errors of law" committed by the lower court. No date has been set for the CJEU to decide on the merits of the appeal. The case explores these events from five analytical pillars: 1) the role of Ireland's low corporate tax rate in attracting FDI; 2) Apple's decision to allocate its earnings to a paper company in Ireland with no physical presence in the country; 3) the repatriation of foreign earnings to the United States; 4) the transfer payments that Apple makes to the USA to pay for R&D; 5) the Commissioner's decision to impose a retroactive tax penalty on a foreign company that acted in accordance with the tax arrangements granted by its host country.

The case accounts for the gender pay gap in companies and industries around the world. In Europe, women earn on average 84 cents per hour for every euro men make. In the United States, they earn between 80 and 82 cents per hour for every dollar made by a man. The gap widens further after women have children. Iceland is a rare exception; companies in Iceland are under a legal obligation to prove that they offer equal pay. Elsewhere, the under-representation of women in leadership roles in government, industry, the boardroom and c-suite means a dearth of role models for girls. The case shines a spotlight on ingrained behaviours and perceptions that condone the gender pay gap on the grounds that men have more responsible jobs and hold more senior positions.

The case explores the murky world of tax havens and hidden wealth. The so-called 'Panama Papers', 'Paradise Papers', 'Swiss Leaks' and 'LuxLeaks' are essentially digital dumps that exposed where the the ultra-rich had for decades stashed their billions to evade paying taxes. Academics such as Gabriel Zucman have mined these revelations for insights about global wealth inequality. Their research and that of investigative journalists have put public policymakers under pressure to make laws to "regain control over globalized financial capitalism" as economist Thomas Piketty calls it, arguing that the continued legality of tax havens puts at stake the basic social contract on which democracies are founded, and that the resulting shortfall in tax revenues deprives advanced economies of resources for nation building for future generations.

The case examines the reforms to the French labour code made by President Emmanuel Macron after his election in April 2017, essentially designed to loosen restrictions on hiring and firing. The new laws gave smaller companies more flexibility in negotiating wages and conditions directly with employees (rather than being bound by industry-wide collective deals negotiated by trade unions) and the right to lay off workers in periods of economic difficulty. In the context of an upturn, Macron was hoping the reforms would encourage foreign investment such as financial institutions relocating in response to Brexit. He resorted to issuing executive decrees (ordonnances) to avoid the massive street protests typically sparked by macro-economic adjustments in France, ultimately consolidating his leadership at home and in the larger European Union.