The Strategic Planning Component in the Policymaking Process for Municipalities in Canada
Canadian municipalities are the products of precedent and the statute law of their respective provinces. Their nonpartisan politics have focussed on the servicing and enhancement of the interests, largely related to property, of a long-dominant commercial elite. Contrary priorities have been subverted by provincial conditional grant programs and other administrative guidance. Even in the largest cities, the realities of fiscal austerity beginning in the 1980s encountered structures and practices unable to manage imaginatively under conditions of stress.
Electoral Reform in Local Government: The Case of Winnipeg
La réforme électorale au niveau municipal: le cas de Winnipeg La recherche en politique urbaine au Canada s'est peu intéressée à l'analyse comparative des systèmes électoraux locaux. Ceci s'explique en partie à cause du désir d'objectivité des analystes et de la prééminence de la non-partisannerie comme idéologie politique municipale au Canada. Mais lorsque la communauté urbaine est fortement divisée socialement et politiquement, il est impossible de découvrir la déformation partisane à l'oeuvre dans le système électoral, en particulier dans le découpage des circonscriptions. Cette étude du cas de Winnipeg, inspirée par les initiatives du gouvernement provincial néo-démocrate en matière de réformes urbaines entreprises en 1971 (Unicity), analyse la rationalité qui sous-tend l'organisation des élections municipales à trois moments différents: avant et après la grève générale de 1919, et à la suite des changements de 1971. Chacun des trois systèmes est analysé en relation avec l'idéologie de la classe politiquement dominante. En conclusion, l'auteur fait une évaluation des résultats de 1971 dans les petites circonscriptions à partir de l'analyse du succès politique des candidats locaux dans la première élection sous le régime de l'Unicity.
The Timing of Tax Transparency
Fairness in the administration of the tax law is the subject of intense debate in the United States. As recent headlines reveal, the Internal Revenue Service has been accused of failing to enforce the tax law equitably in its review of tax-exempt status applications by political organizations, the international tax structures of multinational corporations, and the estate tax returns of millionaires, among other areas. Many have argued that greater “tax transparency” would better empower the public to hold the IRS accountable and the IRS to defend itself against accusations of malfeasance. Mandatory public disclosure of taxpayers’ tax return information is often proposed as a way to achieve greater tax transparency. Yet, in addition to concerns regarding exposure of personal and proprietary information, broad public disclosure measures pose potential threats to the taxing authority’s ability to enforce the tax law.Given the competing values of accountability and enforcement, what tax return information should be observable by the public? This Article argues that timing matters. The IRS continually engages in enforcement actions ex post, after taxpayers have pursued transactions and claimed tax positions, such as by conducting audits or settlements. But it also frequently engages in actions ex ante, before taxpayers pursue transactions and claim tax positions, by issuing advance tax rulings to and entering into agreements with specific taxpayers. While current law appears to require public disclosure of certain types of ex ante tax administration, many forms of ex ante tax administration remain concealed from public view. This Article argues that documents related to a specific taxpayer’s tax affairs that reflect ex ante tax administration should be publicly accessible as a means of accountability, but that documents that reflect ex post tax actions should remain private in order to preserve effective tax enforcement. Further, this Article proposes that the public should have access not only to ex ante tax administration actions where the taxing authority grants taxpayers’ requests, but also to those actions where the taxing authority denies such requests, even if it does so without issuing an official written determination, a concept it defines as “dual tax transparency.”The Article then applies this analysis to several types of ex ante tax administration that are currently obscured by the curtain of tax privacy: withdrawn private letter ruling requests, adverse tax-exempt determination letters and advance pricing agreements. It concludes by exploring approaches to improving the accountability of the IRS regarding its ex post tax enforcement other than public disclosure of tax return information.