Law Commons^™

The Case For Retaining The Corporate Amt, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

PROFESSORS Chorvat and Knoll present us with a strong argument for repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT). In 2001, repeal was recommended by the Joint Committee on Taxation as part of their simplification study, endorsed by the ABA/AICPA/TEI tax simplification project, and included in a bill passed by the House of Representatives. Since this issue is likely to arise again, it seems worthwhile to review the arguments raised by Chorvat and Knoll. Upon review, none of these arguments seem particularly persuasive; at best, they make a case for reforming the corporate AMT, not for repealing it. On the other …

The Easy Case Against Tax Simplification, Samuel A. Donaldson

Faculty Publications By Year

There is growing political momentum to simplify the Internal Revenue Code. While the federal tax laws should be no more complex than necessary, this Article demonstrates that tax complexity is not as bad as political rhetoric leads us to believe. The Article makes four arguments in support of this thesis. First, the forces comprising tax complexity are either inevitable or net beneficial, so calls for simplification are ultimately pointless. Second, the alleged harms of tax complexity are either unproven or overstated, so the need for simplification is questionable. Third, significant proposals for simplification are flawed because they either overcorrect for …

Race Conscious Affirmative Action By Tax Exempt 501(C)(3) Corporations After Grutter And Gratz, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment generally acts as a legal limit on the permissible bounds of government action. Accordingly, public universities and other government entities are constitutionally prohibited from engaging in acts that violate equal protection of the laws. The Supreme Court recently reinforced this point when it ruled, in two related cases, that public universities may consider the race of applicants when making admissions decisions, so long as an applicant's race does not amount to a deciding factor when granting admission. By its very terms, the constitutional limitation imposed by the Equal Protection Clause only directly …

Business Law Reform In The United States: Thinking Too Small?, Douglas C. Michael

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Dean Johan Henning presents the South African experience with business entity reform as one part of a coordinated whole. It included, for example, government funding for business, tax reforms, accounting and securities changes. Henning says that these reforms, though multi-faceted, had a uniform purpose: to use small business as an engine to improve the economy and to move “historically and socially disadvantaged groups” into the mainstream of the economy and the society.

These are noble goals and far reaching efforts, and a lot to ask of business entity reform. But because the South African experience was nonetheless successful by all …

Legal Transitions, Rational Expectations, And Legal Progress, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

In the literature on legal transitions, the term "transition policy" is generally understood to mean a rule or norm that influences policymakers' decisions concerning the extent to which legal change should be accompanied by transition relief, whether in the form of grandfathering or phase-ins or direct compensation. Legal change within this literature is defined broadly, and somewhat counter-intuitively, to include any resolution of the uncertainty regarding what the law will be in the future or how the law will be applied to future circumstances. Thus, a legal change would obviously include an unexpected repeal of a tax provision, such as …

Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

Gifts have been given special treatment by the income tax laws since the first post-16th Amendment tax statute was adopted in 1913. The determination of how the income tax law should treat gifts raises a number of issues. For example: should gifts be given special treatment? If so, what should qualify as a gift? Should gifts to a private party be taxable to the donee? Should gifts to a private party be deductible by the donor? Should the donee's basis in a gift of property be determined by reference to the basis that the donor had, and should any modifications …

Book Review: Tax Stories: An In-Depth Look At Ten Leading Federal Income Tax Cases, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This piece is a book review of Tax Stories, a book edited by Paul L. Caron. It reviews the contributions of Tax Stories, and provides a summary of each of the book's ten chapters, comparing the American tax cases discussed to the Canadian treatment of the same issues.

Taxation Of Income From Mobil Capital: Some Recent International Developments, Hugh Ault

Hugh J. Ault

No abstract provided.

Estate Tax Exposure Of Family Limited Partnerships Under Section 2036, Brant Hellwig

Brant J. Hellwig

No abstract provided.

Proportionalitetsprincipen I Skatterätten, Christina Moëll

Christina Moëll

The principle of proportionality is one of the fundamental principles of law, and is frequently referred to in different contexts - tax law being no exception. This study deals with the interpretation and application of the principle of proportionality in tax law.

By way of introduction, the origin of the principle of proportionality and its role in German, French, English and Swedish law are described. Thereafter the meaning of this principle is studied in the context of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the law of the European Union. Furthermore, the reader is …

An Alphabet Soup Agenda For Reform Of The Internal Revenue Code And Erisa Provisions Applicable To Qualified Deferred Compensation Plans, Norman Stein

Norman P. Stein

No abstract provided.

The Tension Between Textualism And Substance-Over-Form Doctrines In Tax Law, Allen Madison

Allen Madison

This article discusses the tension that exists between the recent textualist approach taken in the U.S. Supreme Court and the judicially developed substance-over-form doctrines that pervade tax law. It sets forth Justice Antonin Scalia’s textualist approach, provides an overview of the substance-over-form doctrines, and then analyzes whether the current Supreme Court would uphold a case that overrode the literal text of the Internal Revenue Code on the basis of one of the doctrines. The article concludes that the current Supreme Court would reject any of these doctrines if faced with the issue.