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Full-Text Articles in Law
Solving The Valuation Challenge: The Ultra Method For Taxing Extreme Wealth, David Gamage, Brian Galle, Darien Shanske
Solving The Valuation Challenge: The Ultra Method For Taxing Extreme Wealth, David Gamage, Brian Galle, Darien Shanske
Faculty Publications
Recent reporting based on leaked tax returns of the ultra-rich confirms what experts have long suspected: for the wealthiest Americans, paying taxes is mostly optional. Some of the country's richest have reported annual incomes that would be modest for a school teacher, even as the share of wealth held by the top .1% is at its highest in nearly a century.
Experts have long understood that one problem sits at the root cause of many of the tax system's failures to reach the very rich: valuation. Because it is difficult to appraise complex or unique assets, modern tax systems instead …
Bankruptcy Reform: What's Tax Got To Do With It?, Michelle A. Cecil
Bankruptcy Reform: What's Tax Got To Do With It?, Michelle A. Cecil
Faculty Publications
The article takes a two-pronged approach to the issue. First, it argues that all post-petition appreciation should be taxed to the debtor rather than to the debtor's bankruptcy estate because the debtor enjoys the benefits of the asset's appreciation in value and because, from a tax perspective, the results will be identical irrespective of whether the debtor or the bankruptcy estate is taxed on the asset's post-petition appreciation. Second, the article proposes that the gain accruing before the termination of the bankruptcy proceeding be treated as discharge of indebtedness income so that the debtor can defer recognition of the gain …
Abandonments In Bankruptcy: Unifying Competing Tax And Bankruptcy Policies, Michelle A. Cecil
Abandonments In Bankruptcy: Unifying Competing Tax And Bankruptcy Policies, Michelle A. Cecil
Faculty Publications
This Article attempts to resolve one such issue: the tax consequences of property abandonments by the bankruptcy trustee.
Crumbs For Oliver Twist: Resolving The Conflict Between Tax And Support Claims In Bankruptcy, Michelle A. Cecil
Crumbs For Oliver Twist: Resolving The Conflict Between Tax And Support Claims In Bankruptcy, Michelle A. Cecil
Faculty Publications
This article is premised on the assumption that the congressional goal of preferring support claims over federal income tax claims is indeed a laudable one, based on three interrelated policy justifications. First, support claimants are unable to spread their risk of loss like the government is able to do by raising tax rates or increasing tax revenue from other sources. As three prominent bankruptcy scholars noted in their recent study of consumer bankruptcy entitled The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt:
Reinvigorating Chapter 11: The Case For Reinstating The Stock-For-Debt Exception In Bankruptcy, Michelle A. Cecil
Reinvigorating Chapter 11: The Case For Reinstating The Stock-For-Debt Exception In Bankruptcy, Michelle A. Cecil
Faculty Publications
This Article suggests that such a proposal will harmonize the bankruptcy policy of rehabilitating financially distressed corporations with the tax policy of ensuring that true economic income is subject to federal income taxation.27 Parts II and III of this Article will trace the common law evolution of the stock-for-debt exception and its statutory codification in 1980, with particular emphasis on the stated policy justifications for the exception. Part IV will then examine the history of the repeal of the stock-for-debt exception, demonstrating that the repeal was the result of hasty political maneuvering rather than reasoned legislative decision-making. In Part V, …
Tax Exemptions And The Establishment Clause, Erika Lietzan
Tax Exemptions And The Establishment Clause, Erika Lietzan
Faculty Publications
Churches are exempted from a variety of taxes collected by the various levels and jurisdictions of government in the United States. For instance, they are almost always exempt from payment of property tax at the local level and from payment of income tax to both state and federal government. They are often exempt from payment of state sales tax on the products they sell. A person making a contribution to a religious organization is usually entitled to deduct the contribution from his income when calculating both his state and his federal income taxes at the end of the taxable year. …
Comments On A Revised Filing System, R. Wilson Freyermuth
Comments On A Revised Filing System, R. Wilson Freyermuth
Faculty Publications
Professor Edward Adams's article, both in terms of its basic structure and the myriad of options it offers, neatly highlights the basic dilemma facing the Drafting Committee as it addresses the future Article 9 filing system. As he correctly notes, the filing system's shortcomings are largely due to its continued dependence on paper records, despite the increasing sophistication and availability of computerized information technology for both filing and searching. Should the Drafting Committee maintain the basics of the current system (a public, paper-based filing system) and merely attempt to identify and correct the existing shortcomings in that system, with some …
A Policy Analysis Of Fee-Shifting Rules Under The Internal Revenue Code, Gary Myers, Richard L. Schmalbeck
A Policy Analysis Of Fee-Shifting Rules Under The Internal Revenue Code, Gary Myers, Richard L. Schmalbeck
Faculty Publications
Until recently, the costs of litigating federal tax cases were borne exclusively by the parties who incurred them, regardless of whether the government or the taxpayer prevailed in the litigation. This practice reflects the application to tax disputes of the ‘American rule’ against fee shifting. Although the American rule continues to be predominant in the tax area, it has been modified in important respects. An explicit fee-reimbursement rule, benefiting prevailing taxpayers in cases in which the government is found to have acted unreasonably, was added to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) by the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of …
Use Of Government Funding And Taxing Power To Regulate Schools, Carl H. Esbeck, Kline Capps
Use Of Government Funding And Taxing Power To Regulate Schools, Carl H. Esbeck, Kline Capps
Faculty Publications
The past two decades in America have witnessed a resurgence of interest in religious-based schooling. Manifestations of this trend are evident in the increased number of primary and secondary students enrolled in religious schools and the rapidity with which new church-affiliated schools are being opened.
Partnership Taxation: A Deceased Partner's Final Year, Michelle A. Cecil
Partnership Taxation: A Deceased Partner's Final Year, Michelle A. Cecil
Faculty Publications
One significant and unresolved partnership taxation problem is the taxation of a deceased partner's final year. In a recent case of first impression, Estate of Hesse v. Commissioner, the Tax Court held that the widow of a deceased partner could not include his share of partnership losses incurred during the year of his death on their final joint income tax return. Consequently, the widow lost thousands of dollars in tax refunds because the loss deductions could not offset prior taxable income. The Tax Court believed the result was illogical and unfair, but nevertheless found that the Code required the decedent's …