Jurisprudence Commons^™

Congressional Power To Institute A Wealth Tax, Will Clark

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Over the last few years, several high-profile politicians have pushed to impose a federal “wealth tax.” For example, a recent bill introduced in the Senate would create a two percent tax on the value of assets between fifty million and one billion dollars, plus a higher percentage on wealth valued over one billion dollars. The proponents of the tax argue that it would reduce the growing wealth inequality in the United States, while opponents say that it would disincentivize investment in the American economy.

Policy arguments, however, are only relevant if the federal government has the authority to institute such …

Catalogs, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein

All Faculty Scholarship

It is a virtual axiom in the world of law that legal norms come in two prototypes: rules and standards. The accepted lore suggests that rules should be formulated to regulate recurrent and frequent behaviors, whose contours can be defined with sufficient precision. Standards, by contrast, should be employed to address complex, variegated, behaviors that require the weighing of multiple variables. Rules rely on an ex ante perspective and are therefore considered the domain of the legislator; standards embody a preference for ex post, ad-hoc, analysis and are therefore considered the domain of courts. The rules/standards dichotomy has become a …

Taxation Without Limitation: The Prohibited Pretext Doctrine V. The Sebelius Theory, Brett W. Hastings

Brett W Hastings

The Article posits that the Supreme Court erred in its ruling regarding the Affordable Care Act by overlooking a well established constitutional principle, dubbed the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine. This doctrine, which prohibits the exercise of a prohibited power through the pretextual use of a power granted, faded from memory due to the post Lochner era expansion of the Commerce Clause. Nevertheless, the doctrine remains valid law. In overlooking the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine, the Supreme Court established a new and contradictory doctrine, dubbed the Sebelius Theory. The Sebelius Theory turns the Prohibited Pretext Doctrine on its head by explicitly allowing the …

Justice Scalia And The Elusive Idea Of Discrimination Against Interstate Commerce, Richard B. Collins

Publications

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