Toward a New Framework and a Better Understanding of Credit Default Swaps
by Ari Brandes of Georgetown University
April 21, 2008
Abstract:Derivative contracts with contingent payments have been the subject of a great deal of financial commentary and news during the recent credit crunch. The taxation of one seemingly ubiquitous type of derivative contract with contingent payments - the credit default swap (CDS) - remains uncertain and is, indeed, a question without a simple answer, especially for investors and speculators using CDSs. The wide use of CDSs, as illustrated by the approximately $43 trillion of notional amount of CDSs outstanding in the middle of 2007, coupled with the broader question of how a certain broader class of derivative contracts with contingent payments, as described below, should be taxed, warrants continuing analysis and discourse in this area.
Published in:Derivatives and Financial Instruments, Vol. 10, No. 3, (2008), pp. 75-91.