Law Commons^™

The Moving Target Of Tax Reform, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

Grayson McCouch

In 2000, Professor William Turnier proposed a package of three reforms to make the estate tax more “equitable” and “taxpayerfriendly.” All of his proposals—allowing a surviving spouse to inherit a deceased spouse’s unused exemption, replacing the state death tax credit with a deduction, and indexing the exemption for inflation—were eventually enacted. Today, the estate tax remains on the books, but changes in rates and exemptions have severely curtailed its role in the larger federal tax system. Income tax rate reductions for capital gains and dividends have further lightened the tax burden on capital income, and international pressure to reduce the …

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

Martin J. McMahon

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.

The Moving Target Of Tax Reform, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

Karen Burke

In 2000, Professor William Turnier proposed a package of three reforms to make the estate tax more “equitable” and “taxpayerfriendly.” All of his proposals—allowing a surviving spouse to inherit a deceased spouse’s unused exemption, replacing the state death tax credit with a deduction, and indexing the exemption for inflation—were eventually enacted. Today, the estate tax remains on the books, but changes in rates and exemptions have severely curtailed its role in the larger federal tax system. Income tax rate reductions for capital gains and dividends have further lightened the tax burden on capital income, and international pressure to reduce the …

The Business Purpose Doctrine In Corporate Divisions, Stephen Rigsby

Akron Law Review

The corporate division, however, lends itself to schemes for avoidance of tax. These schemes are attempts to convert ordinary income into income taxable at capital gains rates. An elaborate statutory mechanism has been created to prevent this conversion. In addition, the courts have created judicial doctrines which sometimes work by adding to the statutory framework and sometimes overlap. The resulting confusion of statute and judicial doctrine is the subject of this article. The investigation will focus on that part of the statute known as the device clause and its interaction with the judicial doctrines which together are known as the …

Search: A Computer Program For Legal Problem Solving, Robert Hellawell

Akron Law Review

This article describes a computer program called SEARCH which is designed to assist a lawyer in legal analysis. SEARCH deals with a single subject in corporate taxation, but its approach can be used for a variety of legal problems. SEARCH's subject is the attribution rules of section 318 of the Internal Revenue Code (hereinafter Code). These rules, heartily disliked by many, are seemingly complex and often both difficult and time consuming to apply. Essentially, the attribution rules provide that a taxpayer, in certain cases, will be considered to own corporate shares that he does not actually own. Such shares are …

All Or Nothing? The Obama Budget Proposals And Beps, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

There is a wide bipartisan consensus that the U.S. international tax regime is broken. We have the highest corporate tax in the OECD, which at 35 percent imposes a real burden on corporations earning mostly U.S.-source income. At the same time, U.S.-based multinationals pay very low effective tax rates on foreign-source income earned through their subsidiaries, leading to a strong incentive to shift profits out of the United States. Finally, the United States is among the few countries to fully tax dividends paid by foreign subsidiaries to their domestic parents, leading to the “trapped income” phenomenon in which $2 trillion …

A Corporate Tax For The Next One Hundred Years: A Proposal For A Dynamic, Self-Adjusting Corporate Tax Rate, Adam H. Rosenzweig

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corporate Inversions: Realigning Tax Incentives To Keep Corporations In The United States, Michael A. Gose

CMC Senior Theses

ABSTRACT

This thesis analyzes the corporate income tax, more specifically related to foreign sourced income, and proposes a solution to reduce the desirability of tax inversions and restore the competitiveness of United States’ corporations. The paper introduces the topic and discusses why corporate taxation has returned to the forefront of political discussion. It then addresses early 2000s regulation passed in response to increased inversion activity of the late ‘90s and how that regulation failed to achieve its intended purpose. Then, the current laws will be introduced with a focus on corporate actions to circumvent these laws in order to reduce …

Cancellation Of Debt And Related Transactions, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

If a taxpayer borrows money, the borrowed funds are not included in the taxpayer's gross income. That treatment is proper even though the taxpayer has increased his assets by the amount he borrowed because he also has created a corresponding liability to pay back the loan. The taxpayer's net: wealth has not increased. 'The more difficult and interesting questions arise when the taxpayer fails to repay the loan. At first blush, it would appear that upon cancellation of a loan, the taxpayer should have income for the amount that was cancelled. However, the current tax treatment is not that simple. …

The Moving Target Of Tax Reform, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2000, Professor William Turnier proposed a package of three reforms to make the estate tax more “equitable” and “taxpayerfriendly.” All of his proposals—allowing a surviving spouse to inherit a deceased spouse’s unused exemption, replacing the state death tax credit with a deduction, and indexing the exemption for inflation—were eventually enacted. Today, the estate tax remains on the books, but changes in rates and exemptions have severely curtailed its role in the larger federal tax system. Income tax rate reductions for capital gains and dividends have further lightened the tax burden on capital income, and international pressure to reduce the …

企業の社会的責任と戦略的租税行動 [Corporate Social Responsibility And Strategic Tax Behavior], Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Keisaku Koga Translator

Articles

This paper addresses two questions. First, from the perspective of the corporation, should the corporation cooperate and pay the corporate tax, or should it engage in "strategic" tax behavior designed to minimize or eliminate its corporate tax burden? Second, from the perspective of the state, should the state use the corporate tax just to raise revenue, or should it also try to use it as a regulatory tool to steer corporate behavior in directions that it deems beneficial to society? The paper argues that whatever our view of the nature of the corporation and of the legitimacy of corporate social …