Dhammika Dharmapala (born 1969/1970) is an

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

who is the Paul H. and Theo Leffman Professor of Law at the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...

. He is known for his research into corporate

tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdict ...

, corporate use of

tax havens A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or ...

, and the corporate use of ''

base erosion and profit shifting Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to "shift" profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions or no-tax locations where there is little or no economic a ...

'' ("BEPS") techniques.

Biography

Dharmapala was born in Sri Lanka, educated in Australia, and settled in the U.S. (he is a naturalized U.S. citizen), to pursue a career as an academic economist. He taught economics at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

and law at the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the Flagship#Colleges and universities in ...

before joining the Chicago faculty in 2014. Dharmapala's research on tax havens, often with James R. Hines Jr., is cited as important. In addition to his role as professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Dharmapala is an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, and has served on the board of directors of the

American Law and Economics Association The American Law and Economics Association (ALEA), a United States organization founded in 1991, is focused on the advancement of economic understanding of law, and related areas of public policy and regulation. It promotes research in law and econo ...

and the

National Tax Association The National Tax Association - Tax Institute of America (NTA) is a US non-profit, non-partisan organization committed to the study and discussion of public taxation, spending, and borrowing decisions by governments around the world. Since its fou ...

. Dharmapala is sometimes interviewed in the main U.S. financial media on U.S. corporate tax issues.

Dharmapala tax havens

Dharmapala-Hines 2009 list

Because it is cited as one of the important papers on the research of tax havens, the 48 jurisdictions from the Dharmapala-Hines 2009 paper are listed below, per the markings in the paper (♣ & †): 6 of the 7 tax havens that Dharmapala-Hines identified in 2009, but which have never appeared in any OECD list (e.g. marked as †), namely, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland, would become ranked in the world's top ten global tax havens, when academics used quantitative methods to analyse tax havens (i.e. the "OECD havens", plus Singapore and Hong Kong). (†) Tax havens that were in the 41 from the Hines-Rice 1994 list, but not in the 35 from the OECD 2000 list (the largest), which include the four "OECD tax havens".
(♣) Tax havens that were in the 35 from the OECD 2000 list (the largest), but not in the 41 from the Hines-Rice 1994 list.

Bibliography

References

External links