Law Commons^™

The Once And Future Property Tax: A Dialogue With My Younger Self, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

As I look back on my youth (expansively defined as the first 40 years of my life), everywhere I went, the local real property tax was perceived as both bad and doomed. If I could speak with the brash young law student/graduate student/alderman I once was, he would undoubtedly tell me, with great confidence, that by the beginning of the next century (which then seemed very far away) the property tax would no longer play a role in the system of local public finance.

Alas, he was wrong.

This essay explains why the young man I once was, confident of …

Charities And The Constitution: Evaluating The Role Of Constitutional Principles In Determining The Scope Of Tax Law's Public Policy Limitation For Charities, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article expands the discussion of whether tax-exempt charities, for constitutional law purposes, should be treated as government actors, as private actors or as something in between. While government actors are subject to constitutional law restrictions concerning discrimination and free speech, private non-government actors are not generally subject to these same restrictions. Although tax-exempt charities are often thought of as sovereigns and, thus, government-like, the fact remains that charities are private entities created to serve public purposes. As private entities, charities - like all other private entities - are not necessarily bound by constitutional law principles. Still, the many “public” …

Little Boxes: Can Optimal Commodity Tax Methodology Save The Debt-Equity Distinction?, Herwig J. Schlunk

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Optimal commodity tax methodology has been proposed as a way of making difficult line drawing decisions in the income tax. This paper explores some practical difficulties with the approach, and concludes that in one area - the debt-equity divide - the approach is unlikely to prove useful over any significant time horizon.

Erwin Griswold's Tax Law – And Ours, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

It is a pleasure for me to be here today to deliver the Erwin N. Griswold Lecture. And it is an honor to follow those who have graced this lectern before me. They include important mentors to me. Several are close friends. Today, we are in a quiet interlude awaiting the next serious political debate about restructuring the nation's tax system. No fundamental tax policy concerns are at stake in the current disputes over economic stimulus or in the political huffing and puffing about postponing or accelerating the income tax rate cuts of the 2001 Act. Those arguments are concerned …

A Whirlwind Tour Of The Internal Revenue Code's At-Risk And Passive Activity Loss Rules, Boris I. Bittker, Martin J. Mcmahon Jr., Lawrence A. Zelenak

UF Law Faculty Publications

After providing a glimpse at the historical computation of business operating profit or loss, the authors describe the use of tax shelters as well as legislative responses to them. The authors examine the at-risk and passive activity loss rules, detailing the scope of these rules and offering guidance in the computation of deductions and losses.