Tax-paying for Fun and Profit

"Tax-paying for Fun and Profit" is the title of an unusual working paper by Robert Kunstadt and Ilaria Maggioni, which you can read here on MPRA. According to the abstract,

"Modern advances give us the ability to re-engineer the taxation system to benefit from computerized automation and the insights of modern psychology. People like to do things that bring a tangible reward. Tax-paying should be made FUN, not a chore. You will want to participate if you perceive a direct benefit. This new model selectively adapts the old English system of raising money by granting royal monopolies. A tax-paying entity would be allowed to make a bid on the percentage of tax it would pay for acquiring monopoly rights on a particular venture, posted publicly on a government-auction website for others to see and to post their alternative bids. Proposals put out for bid could immediately be tested for market viability by getting a thumbs-up/thumbs-down from the general public. The rewards to the proposer and to the public can be immediately perceived by all. Hence, the conditions for a positive stimulus-response-reward loop are fulfilled. Tax-paying becomes both fun and profitable, even more gratifying than betting in Las Vegas, because the bidder gets a perceptible benefit from it right away. The advantage to the state and its citizens is that monopoly efficiency does not just serve the monopolist but also the public. The would-be monopolist must make a precise calculation of how much to offer the state in taxes; upon pain of losing the auction to a competitor. With minimal government intervention, the “invisible hand” of economic theory is put to the task of serving the public good".

Robert and Ilaria are attorneys with the intellectual property-based practice of R. Kunstadt PC: they also have a very original view of the world. This working paper is based on an earlier publication by the same authors on public patent pools, published in Les Nouvelles.

Personal property securities and IP in Australia: a new article

"The Personal Property Securities Act and IP: a simpler way?" is the title of an article by the Allens Arthur Robinson triumvirate of Tim Golder, Tom Reid and Thomas Middleton. This article has just gone live on the website of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice (JIPLP), where it may be accessed by subscribers or rented for a limited time by non-subscribers. According to the abstract:

"Australia's new Personal Property Securities Act came into operation on 30 January 2012. It regulates security interests in nearly all kinds of personal property, including IP, and contains rules governing priority between competing security interests. The Act expands the traditional concept of a security interest to include interests such as those arising under retention of title clauses.

The Act has replaced a range of registers of personal property security interests with a new, online Personal Property Securities Register, or PPSR, which will serve as an authoritative record for priority purposes. New security interests must be registered on the PPSR if the secured party is to have priority over holders of security interests in the same property, although there is a 24-month transitional period during which unregistered pre-existing security interests will remain protected.

IP practitioners should be aware of practical issues that may arise when registering or searching for security interests in unregistered IP, such as copyright. Non-Australian practitioners will also need to be mindful of the potential for the Act to apply to transactions involving Australian registered IP, even where the owner of the IP is not Australian".

The IP Finance blog has been monitoring this topic since it was first mooted back in 2008 (see earlier posts here, here and here).