Law Commons^™

Taxing Sales Of Depreciable Assets, James R. Hines Jr.

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Investors in depreciable assets used in a trade or business claim depreciation deductions following investment, and upon sale or other disposition of their assets are taxed on gain or loss equal to differences between amounts realized and adjusted basis. The taxation of these realized gains and losses is asymmetric: losses are deductible against ordinary income, whereas a portion of the gain on sales of personal property, and virtually all gains on sales of real property, are taxed at more favorable capital gain tax rates. Evidence from U.S. tax returns in 2012 indicates that the aggregate annual magnitude of the tax …

Towards A Universal Framework For Insurance Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ronen Avraham, Kyle D. Logue, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

Discrimination in insurance is principally regulated at the state level. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics in how and the extent to which risk classification by insurers is limited. Some statutes expressly permit insurers to consider certain characteristics, while other characteristics are forbidden or limited in various ways. What explains this variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics? Drawing on a unique, hand-collected data-set consisting of the laws regulating insurer risk classification in fifty-one U.S. jurisdictions, this Article argues that much of the variation in state-level regulation of risk classification can in …

The Economic Impact Of Backdating Of Executive Stock Options, M. P. Narayanan, Cindi A. Schipani, H. Nejat Seyhun

Michigan Law Review

This Article discusses the economic impact of legal, tax, disclosure, and incentive issues arising from the revelation of dating games with regard to executive option grant dates. It provides an estimate of the value loss incurred by shareholders of firms implicated in backdating and compares it to the potential gain that executives might have obtained through backdating. Using a sample of firms that have already been implicated in backdating, we find that the revelation of backdating results in an average loss to shareholders of about 7%. This translates to about $400 million per firm. By contrast, we estimate that the …

"Eggshell" Victims, Private Precautions, And The Societal Benefits Of Shifting Crime, Robert A. Mikos

Michigan Law Review

Individuals spend billions of dollars every year on precautions to protect themselves from crime. Yet the legal academy has criticized many private precautions because they merely shift crime onto other, less guarded citizens, rather than reduce crime. The conventional wisdom likens such precaution-taking to rent-seeking: citizens spend resources to shift crime losses onto other victims, without reducing the size of those losses to society. The result is an unambiguous reduction in social welfare. This Article argues that the conventional wisdom is flawed because it overlooks how the law systematically understates the harms suffered by some victims of crime, first, by …

Prevention Of Double Deductions Of A Single Loss: Solutions In Search Of A Problem, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

In the current tax system, a corporation is treated as a separate taxable entity. This tax system is sometimes referred to as an entity tax or a double tax system. Since a corporation is a separate and distinct entity from its owners, the shareholders, the default rule is that transfers between them are treated as realization events. Without a specific Internal Revenue Code (Code) provision providing otherwise, such transactions will also require the parties to recognize the realized gain or loss. Congress has enacted several nonrecognition corporate provisions when forcing the recognition of income could prevent changes to the form …

The Genie And The Bottle: Collateral Sources Under The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth S. Abraham, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 (the Fund) was part of legislation enacted just eleven days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th in the wake of extraordinary national loss. It is possible, therefore, that the Fund will always be considered an urgent and unique response to the unprecedented events of September 11th. On that view, the character of the Fund will have little longterm policy significance. It is equally possible, however, that the enactment of the Fund will prove to be a seminal moment in the history of tort and compensation law. The Fund adopts a new …

If Taxpayers Can't Be Fooled, Maybe Congress Can: A Public Choice Perspective On The Tax Transition Debate, Kyle D. Logue

Reviews

In When Rules Change: An Economic and Political Analysis of Transition Relief and Retroactivity , Shaviro takes the various strands of the existing literature on retroactivity and weaves them together, applying his unique combination of legal expertise, political pragmatism, and theoretical sophistication in public finance economics as well as political science. The result is a subtle, balanced, and scholarly treatise on transition relief and retroactivity that should serve as the starting point for all future research in the field. In its stated objectives, the book is admirably ambitious.

This Review will, in a broad sense, follow Shaviro's characterization of the …

Goldstein's Curse, James J. White

Articles

ON April 16, 1980, a man using the name Marvin Goldstein opened a bank account at a Baltimore branch of Union Trust Company. He deposited $15,000 in cash. He told the branch manager that he planned to establish a Baltimore office of his father's New York business, "Goldstein's Precious Metals and Stones." Goldstein identified himself with a New Jersey driver's license and gave a bank reference from New York. On May 6, Goldstein deposited a check for $880,000 at another Union Trust branch near the branch where he had opened the account. Words on this check indicated that it was …

Automobile Accident Costs And Payments: Studies In The Economics Of Injury Reparation, Alfred F. Conard, James N. Morgan, Robert W. Pratt Jr, Charles E. Voltz, Robert L. Bombaugh

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The report is presented as a pool of data which will serve many purposes. First of all, the report furnishes a perspective on the largeness and the smallness of the reparation process, and of its many parts. Second, the report supplies much more specific information than has ever before been available on many points, such as the high or low level of reparation in relation to losses; the number of people who get paid, and those who receive nothing; the levels of legal expense, including attorneys' fees. Third, it will furnish a guide for future research directed to narrower questions, …

Constitutional Law-Eminent Domain-Government Seizure Of Business Property To Avert Strike As A "Taking" Under Fifth Amendment-Amount Of Wage Increase As Measure Of "Just Compensation", John F. Spindler

Michigan Law Review

In 1943, in an attempt to end a strike of the United Mine Workers which threatened the national war effort, the Government, acting under an executive order directing the Secretary of the Interior to take possession of the mines where necessary, seized most of the nation's coal mines. Although mine officials were required to agree to conduct operations as agents of the Government, to keep separate books for the period of government operation, to fly the American Flag over the mines, and to post notices that the mines were "United States Property," they were instructed to carry on the mining …

Taxation - Federal Estate Tax - Gift In Contemplation Of Death, Edmund O'Hare

Michigan Law Review

Decedent, when eighty years old and while still in good health, set up an irrevocable trust of one-third of his property, with a life estate to his daughter and remainder over on the daughter's death to her children and descendants. Under the trust deed the income was to be accumulated and added to the principal until the donor's death. The Supreme Court found that decedent, who was thinking about speculating on the stock exchange, was anxious to insure adequate provision for his daughter and her descendants upon his death, and that he therefore determined to make an irrevocable disposition of …

Trusts - Validity - Subject Matter - Profits To Be Acquired In The Future, Paul R. Trigg

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff contemplated trading in the stock market and in 1927 declared a trust of the proceeds of his stock trading for the year 1928 in favor of various members of his immediate family, agreeing to assume all losses personally and to distribute all profits equally among the beneficiaries after deducting a reasonable compensation for his services. At the expiration of the year 1928, plaintiff deducted $10,000 as compensation, which he reported in his tax return for that year, and credited the named beneficiaries with the remainder on his books, these amount being reported in their respective tax returns for …

Business Associations - Joint Adventure Distinguished From Partnership

Michigan Law Review

The defendants, husband and wife, agreed with the plaintiff for the construction and sale of a house on the wife's land, she to be paid a certain sum from the proceeds, and the husband and plaintiff to receive fair compensation for their work, with the balance, if any, to be divided between the husband and plaintiff. Held, that the agreement created a joint adventure between the plaintiff and the husband rather than a partnership. Garber v. Whittaker, (Del. 1934) 174 Atl. 34.

Public Utilities--Confiscatory Rate-Operation Enforced In Accord With Contract Between Predecessor And Municipality

Michigan Law Review

This action was brought to compel the defendant to operate in Decatur about a mile of its interurban system at an admittedly confiscatory rate. Defendant's predecessor, chartered by the Georgia legislature to acquire and operate street railways, contracted with plaintiff, in return for permission to remove one Decatur line, to operate the line involved and never charge more than a five-cent fare. The cost of service, aside from compensation to capital, exceeded the revenue. With a paving assessment imminent, the carrier offered to surrender its permit to operate, and notified plaintiff that it would discontinue service. The city refused to …

Going Value And Rate Valuation, Ben W. Lewis

Michigan Law Review

From the mere circumstance "that a controversy has been long kept on foot, and remains still undecided, we may presume that there is some ambiguity in the expression, and that the disputants affix different ideas to the terms employed ...... " Although David Hume was not here concerning himself with twentieth century utility regulation, his observation finds appropriate employment as a preface to a present day study of the problem of going value. The problem is an open one-temptingly open. Years of contention, an impressive array of publications by economists, attorneys, and engineers, and hundreds of opinions of courts and …