Law Commons^™

Comments: "Simplification" Is Not Enough: An Analysis Of The Home Office Tax Deduction And The Home Office Simplification Act Of 2009, Lauren Marini

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Linton Family Llc And The Step Transaction Doctrine, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses Linton, a district court decision about a family limited liability company, indirect gifts, and the step transaction doctrine.

Families For Tax Purposes: What About The Steps, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

At least 4.4 million families in the U.S. are blended ones that include step-children and step-parents. For tax purposes, these steps receive preferential treatment for their status because they are on the one hand included as family members for many income tax benefit sections, but on the other hand excluded as family members for business entity attribution purposes and for gift and estate tax anti-abuse provisions. In the interests of fairness and uniformity, steps should be treated as family members for all tax purposes where steps have in fact voluntarily acted as their biological or adoptive counterparts, both when such …

Negron: Circuits Now Split 2-2, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

The article discusses Negron and the circuit split on the issue of whether to value non-assignable lottery payments in a decedent's estate by means of the actuarial tables or whether that value needs to be discounted for non-marketability.

Integrating Subchapters K And S — Just Do It, Walter D. Schwidetzky

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The Code contains two “pass-through” tax regimes for business entities. One is contained in Subchapter K, which applies to partnerships, the other in Subchapter S, which, unsurprisingly, applies to S corporations. In the main, both Subchapters tax the owners of the entities rather than the entities themselves. Having two pass-through tax regimes creates obvious administrative and other inefficiencies. There was a time when S corporations served a valuable purpose, particularly when taxpayers needed a fairly simple and foolproof pass-through entity that provided a liability shield. But limited liability companies (LLCs), which are usually taxed as partnerships, 1 in most contexts …

Determining The Character Of Section 357(C) Gain, Fred B. Brown

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Under section 351, a person transferring property to a controlled corporation generally recognizes no gain or loss on the transaction. An exception to tax-free treatment is contained in section 357(c), which generally provides that a transferor in a section 351 transaction recognizes gain to the extent that any liabilities assumed by the corporation on the transfer exceed the transferor's aggregate adjusted basis in the assets transferred. An issue under section 357(c) is whether the recognized gain should be capital gain or ordinary income. The statute suggests that the character of section 357(c) gain should be based on the character of …

Valuation Discounting Techniques: Terms Gone Awry, Wendy G. Gerzog

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Fair market value is defined in the section 2031 Regulations. For its validity, that definition of fair market value relies on the normal definitions of its significant terms: a seller is someone who is seeking the highest price for her product and a buyer is someone who wants to obtain the lowest price for his purchase. It is only that tension that creates the realistic, and fair, market value of that asset. Indeed, without that conflict, the definition is comprised of hollow words.

In the context of family limited partnerships, terms have been misused. By utilizing the limited partnership shell, …

From The Greedy To The Needy, Wendy G. Gerzog

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In some instances when the taxpayer makes a charitable donation, the loss of revenue to the government, and the corresponding gain to the taxpayer, far exceeds the benefit to the charity. Some of these losses may be generated by government sanctioned complex transactions and even government created devices. This article proposes a new way to examine "quid pro quo" charitable gifts that reflects the rationale for the charitable deduction.The article analyzes various charitable donations in terms of the dollars gained by the taxpayer, the dollars lost by the government, and the dollars received by the charity. After considering a sliding …

Congress's Transformative Republican Revolution In 2001-2006 And The Future Of One-Party Rule, Charles Tiefer

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In 2001 - 2006, Republican leadership in the legislature circumvented procedural norms to implement an ideological agenda that precluded the minority party from making alternative proposals and voicing criticisms. With the Republican majority in the Senate falling to 50-50 in 2000, President Bush's assumption of office, despite having lost the popular vote, set the tone for what would become an era of illegitimate procedural reform cloaked in secrecy and deniability. Through closed-door conferences and closed-rules, Republican leadership in the House and Senate turned the clock back on civil liberties, passed unfavorable and convoluted tax cuts, and used transformed health care …

Proposed Regulations On Noncompensatory Options: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel, Walter D. Schwidetzky

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It has become increasingly common for partnerships to issue options. There is a dearth of authority on the federal tax treatment of options to acquire interests in partnerships. In this context, there are two main categories of options, services options and noncompensatory options. Services options, unsurprisingly, are options to acquire partnership interests where the option is received in exchange for services. Noncompensatory options cover the rest of the waterfront. The simplest version of the latter would be partnership analog to normal options found outside the partnership context: the option holder pays the partnership an option premium to acquire an option …

Options To Acquire Partnership Interests: Can The Tax Law Keep Pace?, Walter D. Schwidetzky

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It has become increasingly common for partnerships to issue options that give the holder the right to acquire an interest in the partnership for a set price. The holder of the option will exercise it if he feels that the partnership interest to be acquired is worth more than the exercise price. There is a dearth of authority on the federal tax treatment of option transactions, and the Service has recently asked for guidance from the tax bar as to what approach it should take. This article focuses on one piece of the partnership option puzzle, options to acquire partnership …

'Complete' Accrual Taxation, Fred B. Brown

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Under the realization rule, accrued gains and losses generally are not taken into account for income tax purposes until a disposition occurs. Thus, the realization rule is responsible for tax deferral, which in turn likely leads to economic inefficiencies and inequities. The realization rule also contributes greatly to the complexity of the federal income tax system by necessitating numerous Internal Revenue Code provisions that address the many consequences arising from the decision to postpone taxation until a disposition occurs.

An alternative to the realization rule is accrual taxation - the inclusion in the tax base of annual increases and decreases …

Federal Income Taxation Of U.S. Branches Of Foreign Corporations: Separate Entity Or Separate Rules?, Fred B. Brown

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Foreign corporations conduct U.S. business activities either through U.S. subsidiaries or U.S. branches. A U.S. subsidiary of a foreign corporation generally is taxed as any other domestic corporation, that is, as a separate taxable entity apart from its foreign parent. In contrast, a U.S. branch of a foreign corporation is not treated as a separate taxable entity; instead, the Code and regulations employ a set of special rules that allocate and apportion to the U.S. branch a portion of the foreign corporation's income in order to determine the net income subject to U.S. tax.

The rules used for taxing U.S. …

Tax Symposium: An Overview Of The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, Andrew Zack Blatter, Elena Marty-Nelson

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tax Symposium: Capital Losses: Falling Short On Fairness And Simplicity, Fred W. Peel Jr.

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Shifting Of Income Within The Family: Will 1986 I.R.C. Changes Bring Significant Reform, John A. Lynch Jr.

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In challenging Congress and the citizenry to embrace tax reform, President Reagan stated:

While most Americans labor under excessively high tax rates that discourage work and cut drastically into savings, many are able to exploit the tangled mass of loopholes that has grown up around our tax code to avoid paying their fair share-sometimes to avoid paying any taxes at all.

Fairness and simplicity were clearly overriding objectives of the tax reform movement that culminated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

From the perspectives of both fairness and simplicity, one of the most egregious features of prior law was …

Below Market Loans: From Abuse To Misuses – A Sports Illustration, Phillip J. Closius, Douglas K. Chapman

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Below market loans have been traditionally used as substitutes for gifts, salaries, and dividends for the primary purpose of tax avoidance in the transfer of wealth. The Supreme Court's opinion in Dickman v. Commissioner subjected both demand and term loans in an intrafamilial setting to the federal gift tax. Congress, while subjecting all below market loans to either income or gift tax, applied different valuation formulas to term and demand loans and, in so doing, favored the use of demand loans as a salary substitute. This Article analyzes the current status of below market loans by examining their use in …

Casenotes: Federal Income Tax — Taxpayers Can Defer The Gain Recognized On The Sale Of Their Primary Residence And Deduct Depreciation And Maintenance Expenses On The Rental Of That Same Property. Bolaris V. Commissioner, 776 F.2d 1428 (9th Cir. 1985), Kendel L. Sibiski

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comments: Conflict Between The Internal Revenue Code And The Fifth Amendment Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Richard B. Stanley

University of Baltimore Law Review

The privilege against self-incrimination contained in the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution is invoked with some frequency in the reporting of income to the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, no definite standard for the applicability of this privilege to income reporting has emerged. In this comment, the author reviews decisional law on the applicability of this privilege to income reporting and analyzes under what circumstances this privilege can be invoked.

Casenotes: Federal Income Tax — Charitable Contributions — An Individual's Assignment Of Premium Refunds To The American Bar Endowment Is Deductible When The Relationship Between The Endowment And The Taxpayer Is Not Predominately Of A Business Nature And The Transaction Has A Substantial Charitable Component. American Bar Endowment V. United States, 761 F.2d 1573 (Fed. Cir.), Cert. Granted, 106 S. Ct. 522 (1985), James M. Di Stefano

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taxation Of The Disposition Of Partnership Issues: Time To Repeal I.R.C. Section 736, John A. Lynch Jr.

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As part of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 Congress enacted section 736. This section specifies the tax treatment of the various types of payments that a partnership may make to a withdrawing partner. It introduced the concept of a liquidation of a partnership interest by the partnership itself, as opposed to the sale of that interest to an outsider or to the continuing partners. In some instances it provides tax consequences for continuing and withdrawing partners which are different from those attendant to a sale. It was designed to make the law concerning disposition of partnership interests simpler and …

Commments: Putting The House In Order: An Analysis Of And Planning Considerations For Home Office Deduction, Mark T. Holtschneider

University of Baltimore Law Review

Section 280A of the Internal Revenue Code allows a taxpayer to deduct expenses incurred with respect to his home office only if the home office qualifies as a principal place of business, is a place of business where he meets or deals with patients, clients, or customers, or is in a separate structure detached from his residence. These exceptions, designed to permit a home office deduction only to deserving taxpayers, have been a point of contention between the Internal Revenue Service and taxpayers. In this comment, the author examines the statutory components of section 280A, reviews the decisional law, suggests …

Casenotes: Federal Income Tax — Foreign Currency Transactions — Loss On Borrowing And Repayment Of Foreign Currency, Even Though Foreign Currency Is A Capital Asset, Results In An Ordinary Loss As There Was No Sale Or Exchange. National-Standard Co. V. Commissioner, 80 T.C. 551 (1983), Neil Z. Insel

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.