Law Commons^™

The Federal Law Of Property: The Case Of Inheritance Disclaimers And Tenancy By The Entireties, David G. Carlson

Articles

The Supreme Court has issued two disturbing tax opinions which disrupt the notion that “property” (when used in federal statutes) refers to state-law notions. In Drye v. United States, the Supreme Court pierced the Arkansas fiction that inheritance disclaimers are retrospective in effect. Thus the Internal Revenue could claim that a tax lien attached to the pre-disclaimer inheritance. Disclaimer could not defeat this lien. In United States v. Craft, the Supreme Court pierced the Michigan fiction that a tenancy by the entireties does not belong to the individual spouses but, rather, the a corporate “marital” entity that is a separate …

Contribution Of A Built-In Loss To A Partnership, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Before 2004, it was possible to use the partnership tax provisions of the code to shift the benefit ofa loss deduction for a decline in property valuefrom the person who incurred it to another person.One method of accomplishing that goal involvedthe contribution of depreciated property to a partnership.

Gain From The Sale Of An Income Interest In A Trust, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

A tax doctrine that is related to the anticipatory assignment of income doctrine, but yet different from that doctrine is variously referred to as the "substitute for ordinary income doctrine" or the "anticipation of income doctrine." This latter doctrine arises on the sale of an item. The test often utilized to determine whether that latter doctrine applies is whether the sale of an item substantively represents the receipt of a substitute for future income - i.e., are the proceeds of the sale given "in lieu of" ordinary income that the seller would have otherwise received at a later date. The …

Guaranteed Payments Made In Kind By A Partnership, Douglas A. Kahn, Faith Cuenin

Articles

If a partnership makes a payment to a partner for services rendered in the latter's capacity as a partner or for the use of capital, to the extent that the payment is determined without regard to partnership income, it is characterized by the Internal Revenue Code as a "guaranteed payment" and is treated differently from other partnership distributions.' In addition, if a partnership makes a payment in liquidation of a retiring or deceased partner's interest in the partnership, part of that payment may be characterized as a guaranteed payment by section 736(a)(2). We will discuss in Part VI of this …

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

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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 …

Principles That Should Govern In The Framing Of Tax Laws, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The problem of suitable and justtaxation is one which is forever demanding solution, butnever solved. Adam Smith gave to the world certain rules which should governin taxation, the first of which was that "The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities - that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state." While most writers on political economy have been disposed to accept this as a sound and just rule, some have objected to it that it …