Law Commons^™

Congressional Control Of Tax Rulemaking, Clint Wallace

Faculty Publications

The notice and comment process is often touted as a mechanism for establishing political accountability, and providing a check on agency decision-making. Based on a survey of three years of recently proposed tax regulations, this Article shows that many notice-and-comment processes for tax regulations have been ineffective for these purposes. Fully one-third of the time, no one participated. The few participants there are have been heavily weighted towards private interests, which commented on approximately two-thirds of all proposed regulations from 2013 through 2015. In contrast, public interest groups commented on less than 24% of proposed regulations. If the notice and …

Open Source: The Enewsletter Of Rwu Law 09-22-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Payroll Tax & The Blockchain, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Ville Viitasaari

Faculty Scholarship

Bitcoin is an application that runs on blockchain technology. Blockchain is a foundational technology that is bringing in the second era of the Internet – the era where value can be transferred, rather than just information.

Blockchain is developing along a four-stage path similar to that which TCP/IP took. Both are foundational technologies. TCP/IP brought the Internet, and eventually brought significant (transformational) technological changes in business like Amazon.com and Skype. These are changes that could not have been forecast at the beginning of the Internet age.

Blockchain is an immutable distributed ledger. It replaces the inefficient use of multiple centralized …

Postpartum Taxation And The Squeezed Out Mom, Shannon Weeks Mccormack

Articles

Faced with too-short (or nonexistent) maternity leaves, inflexible work schedules, and the soaring costs of childcare in the United States, many new mothers temporarily leave the workforce to care for their young children. Although media attention has focused on the “opt-out” mom, many more mothers are squeezed out of the external workplace. But mothers that try to return to work may discover that it is difficult to do so, as employers have been shown to be less likely to hire mothers than others. A mother that does reenter may find that even short periods out of work cost (sometimes far) …

Income Taxation And Asset Valuation (Ii) The Value Of Preferential Taxation, Theodore S. Sims

Faculty Scholarship

The predecessor to this Article explored the properties of an income tax that uses economic depreciation in measuring capital income. This Article investigates some fundamental properties of an income tax that does not. The predecessor illuminated the equivalence between economic depreciation and accrual taxation, and highlighted the insight, due to Paul Samuelson, that either produces asset values that are independent of their holders' marginal rates, even in a system with graduated rates (and even if those rates vary over time). The current Article explores in qualitative terms the value of "preferential" departures from valuation-neutral taxation.

Tax Cannibalization And Fiscal Federalism In The United States, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

We began this project pondering a riddle. Most state governments have adopted what we-and many others-view as clearly suboptimal tax policies, especially in regard to the taxation of corporate income and capital gains. Yet, with the notable exception of those who oppose progressivity and the taxation of capital, state-level tax policymakers have had remarkably little appetite for reform.

This Article provides one major explanation for this riddle by identifying and demonstrating a phenomenon that we label as "tax cannibalization." We argue that flawed state-level tax policies derive in part from perverse incentives inadvertently created by the federal government.

Introduction To Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Could a feminist perspective change the shape of the tax law? Most people understand that feminist reasoning has tremendous potential to affect, for example, the law of employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and reproductive rights. Few people may be aware, however, that feminist analysis can likewise transform tax law (as well as other statutory or code-based areas of the law). By highlighting the importance of perspective, background, and preconceptions on the reading and interpretation of statutes, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions shows what a difference feminist analysis can make to statutory interpretation. This volume, part of the Feminist Judgments Series, brings …

The Tax-Immigration Nexus, Tessa R. Davis

Faculty Publications

Tax and immigration law have a shared interest in defining community. In order to implement a tax, we must know who belongs to the taxable community. At the same time, immigration law must define and administer the requirements for membership in the national community. Despite the differing objectives of tax and immigration law—raising revenue and deciding who may enter, remain, and become a citizen in the United States, respectively—both of these regimes uses a concept of citizenship to define their respective communities. Starting from this common thread of the relevance of citizenship to both immigration and tax law, this Article …

Taxing Social Impact Bonds, Orly Mazur

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

An exciting new way to fund social services has recently emerged. This new financing mechanism, called a social impact bond (SIB), has the potential to help us tackle some of our nation’s most challenging social problems. Broadly speaking, a SIB is a type of “pay for success” contract where private investors provide the upfront capital to finance a social program, but only recoup their investment and realize returns if the program is successful. Like any new financing instrument, SIBs create numerous regulatory challenges that have not yet been addressed. One unresolved issue is the tax implications of a SIB investment. …

Citizens Abroad And Social Cohesion At Home: Refocusing A Cross-Border Tax Policy Debate, Michael Kirsch

Journal Articles

Modern developments raise significant questions about the future importance (or non-importance) of formal citizenship status. For example, while many have interpreted the European Union project, with its emphasis on the free movement of individuals, as portending the decreasing relevance of nationality, recent developments, such as the “Brexit” vote, suggest that national identity remains an important factor for many individuals. While much of the public debate over citizenship focuses on areas, such as immigration, that are more obviously tied to formal citizenship status, this debate also impacts cross-border tax policy.

Over the past decade, several scholars have addressed the use of …

Pre-Enforcement Litigation Needed For Taxing Procedures, Stephanie Mcmahon

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Courts have opened tax guidance to procedural attack. Consequently, taxpayers who are found to owe tax may challenge the validity of the guidance implementing the tax if the procedure used by the Treasury Department in adopting the guidance failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, in particular, with notice-and-comment. This increased willingness to consider tax guidance's procedural defects offers little to most taxpayers unless they are also given a better means to raise procedural challenges. Under current law and in most circumstances, generally, taxpayers can bring a challenge only after they have been found to owe taxes in an …

Energy Subsidies: Worthy Goals, Competing Priorities, And Flawed Institutional Design, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

The United States uses on targeted subsidies for both "green" energy and hydrocarbons. These subsidies pursue worthwhile goals. But unfortunately, many have design flaws that make them less effective or even counterproductive. The goal of this Article is to show how to do better.

Specifically, this Article focuses on three sets of issues. First, there often is tension between our environmental and national security goals. Unfortunately, the economics literature on energy largely ignores these trade-offs by omitting national security from the analysis. This Article takes issue with this approach and suggests ways to manage these trade-offs. Second, this Article argues …

Heading Off A Cliff? The Tax Reform Man Cometh, And Goeth, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

The major tax policy challenge of the 21st century is the need to address the nation’s fiscal condition fairly and in a manner conducive to economic growth. But since California adopted Proposition 13 nearly forty years ago, antipathy to taxes has served as the glue that has held the Republican coalition together. Even though our taxes as a percentage of our economy are low by OECD standards and low by our own historical experience, anti-tax attitudes have become even more important for Republicans politically, since they now find it hard to agree on almost anything else. So revenue-positive, or even …