Law Commons^™

Unifying Depreciation Recapture, Richard L. Schmalbeck, Jay A. Soled

Faculty Scholarship

To achieve fairness and accuracy, an income tax system must accomplish two objectives: allow depreciation deductions for the erosion in the value of assets used to produce income, and correct errors that may result from excessive depreciation allowances. The Internal Revenue Code currently fares well in accomplishing the first objective but conspicuously fails to achieve the second.

One of the two main depreciation corrective mechanisms is embodied in Internal Revenue Code § 1250. This section requires that upon the disposition of depreciable real estate used in a trade or business, a portion of the gain that reflects the taxpayer’s prior …

For Better And Worse: The Differing Income Tax Treatments Of Marriage At Different Income Levels, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

Although both marriage penalties and marriage bonuses exist at all income levels under the federal income tax, the system is tilted toward penalties for lower-income couples, toward bonuses for middle-income couples, and back toward penalties for upper income couples. This Article begins by explaining how the tax rules produce these differing treatments of marriage at different points in the income distribution. It then argues that the increase in recent decades in the social acceptability and prevalence of cohabitation makes tax marriage effects a more serious concern--in terms of both behavioral, effects and fairness-than in earlier decades. After demonstrating that Congress …