This chapter provides, we believe, for the apogee of what we think will form the base for success of the quantum physics–like applications. Readers are invited in this chapter to carefully study the two-slit interference experiment with agents (and the agent two-preference interference) for a variety of real potential functions.

In modernity, large-scale group-based identity formation has arisen chiefly through religion, nation, and/or a political state. The digital transformation of society, however, has changed group-based identity formation. This chapter explores the connection between the evolving nature of identity formation with a parallel evolution in the social construct of money. We associate the power to create money (and taxation) with the sovereign state. In this way identity, money, and tax come together. What happens when they come apart? Identity may become attached to the creation of private money, raising the normatively unappealing prospect of ‘private taxation’. This chapter proposes a different path that would allow individual taxpayers to elect to allocate some fraction of payments on domestic tax liabilities (calculated under typical domestic tax rules) to the state of their choosing, in virtue of which they would receive a one-to-one credit offsetting domestic tax liability. Such a mechanism would allow taxpayers to ’vote’ directly with their tax dollars, thereby allowing individuals to associate with non-geographically proximate groups through the civic duty to pay taxes – but within the framework of fiat currency and sovereign state taxation.

This foundational chapter asks a counter-intuitive question: Must individuals pay taxes somewhere? Can taxpayers be blamed for accepting offers from sovereign states to reduce or even wipe out their personal tax burden? And should anyone be to blame, given the intrinsic and often confirmed value of fiscal autonomy as a central feature of statehood? It is found that – as long as there is no global tax organisation providing global public goods or global redistribution and as long as no state (neither the state of origin nor the state of destination) has a clear prerogative and obligation to tax those individuals – individuals are not morally obliged to submit to meaningful taxation in ‘some’ state.

The success of the development project of the twentieth century relied on economic growth to lift incomes, and on a tax-and-welfare state to share the wealth. It also relied fundamentally on an unequal and gendered care economy, primarily focused on care of children, in which women bore much of the cost of care. Today, economic and demographic conditions are increasingly unlike conditions of the mid-twentieth century. Population ageing increases care needs, but also contributes to higher wealth inequality and slower economic growth. Most governments have failed to address the tensions in the gendered distribution of work, care, and wealth. Tax and welfare policies must adjust in the context of these changing conditions to enable a more equal distribution of the cost of care and economic returns, so that we can live long and well in the next 100 years.

This contribution retells the familiar story of the international tax regime from an unconventional perspective, revealing how racial fears have burdened communities around the globe. It explores the impact of anti-Black racism on the international tax regime, tracing the evolution of international tax rules that have impoverished vulnerable states and eviscerated social safety nets in wealthier ones. Decolonisation granted political power and economic autonomy to erstwhile possessions only to watch it be stripped away by treaties designed to constrain fiscal sovereignty.

Globally, there exists no legitimate international tax policy-making institution. This has perpetually led to inequalities and deepening economic disparities in the current international tax governance system. This chapter argues that African countries should use the spirit of cooperation that the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) encapsulates to make difficult decisions about African tax governance. Since international tax governance is at a critical stage where it is uncertain that the status quo can continue, it is important for African countries to seize this opportunity to create a regional governance structure that could bring more fairness and justice to the international tax system as a whole. This chapter proposes that African countries through the African Union form their own international tax governance structure which would bring together existing regional economic communities (RECs) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) to create an international tax forum that would address specifically African concerns. Moreover, such a structure would give African countries the critical mass needed to rebalance the unequal power relations in international tax while also offering benefits to the African people.

The mobility of individuals raises a host of tax and non-tax issues. This chapter explains an underappreciated phenomenon: how the corporate income-allocation rules have developed in recent years in a way that magnifies the impacts of human mobility on the corporate income tax system. For example, activities of a relocated or remote employee might trigger the permanent-establishment threshold, thereby creating a taxable presence for the relevant employing company (and/or other group companies) in the state of relocation. In that event, additional questions would arise about the level of the reward to be assigned to those activities for the purposes of the transfer-pricing and/or profit-attribution rules. This chapter demonstrates how recent controversies about the interpretation of the income-allocation rules in the light of the BEPS changes to the arm’s-length principle and the taxable threshold rules are likely to further fuel corporate income tax difficulties from mobility, and in some cases create entirely novel problems. A prognosis of the likely future outturn relating to these issues concludes the discussion.

This chapter starts with a discussion on models informing probability versus the case where probability is inherent in the model. The chapter also goes into detail to argue why a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohmian economics, can be useful in finance. We provide for an example of how such mechanics can be applied to daily returns on commodity prices. We also briefly look into the potential connection between Bohmian mechanics and a macroscopic fluid system.