Tax Law Commons^™

The Origins Of Affirmative Fiscal Action, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Mirit Eyal-Cohen

This article highlights an anomaly. It shows that two tax rules aimed to achieve a similar goal were introduced at the same time. Both meant to be temporary and bring economic stimuli, but received a dramatically different treatment. The less efficient or economically inferior survived. Its superior counterpart did not. The article reviews the reasons for this paradox. It shows that the reason is both political and an agency problem. The article not only enriches an important and ongoing debate that has received much attention in recent years, but also provides important lessons to policymakers.

Curb Your Enthusiasm For Pigouvian Taxes, Victor Fleischer

Victor Fleischer

Pigouvian (or "corrective") taxes have been proposed or enacted on dozens of products and activities that may be harmful in excess: carbon, gasoline, fat, sugar, guns, cigarettes, alcohol, traffic, zoning, executive pay, and financial transactions, among others. Academics of all political stripes are mystified by the public’s inability to see the merits of using Pigouvian taxes more frequently to address serious social harms.

This enthusiasm for Pigouvian taxes should be tempered. A Pigouvian tax is easy to design—as a uniform excise tax—if one assumes that each individual causes the same amount of harm with each incremental increase in activity on …

Virtual Currencies: Bitcoin & What Now After Liberty Reserve, Silk Road, And Mt. Gox?, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

During 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department evoked the first use of the 2001 Patriot Act to exclude virtual currency provider Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system. This article will discuss: the regulation of virtual currencies; cybercrimes and payment systems; darknets, Tor and the “deep web;” Bitcoin; Liberty Reserve; Silk Road and Mt. Gox. Virtual currencies have quickly become a reality, gaining significant traction in a very short period of time, and are evolving rapidly. Virtual currencies present particularly difficult law enforcement challenges because of their: ability to transcend national borders in the fraction of a second; unique jurisdictional issues; …

Is There A Justification For Imposing Criminal Liability On Corporate Managers In Tax Legislation?, Karnit Malka

Karnit Malka

No abstract provided.

"Shut Up. Pay More. This Is What You Voted For." Why You Don't See Me At San Francisco's Hall Of Justice., David D. Butler

David D. Butler

This 2,285 essay combines California's often violent history with European and American high and low culture to explain my decision to leave San Francisco in the 1970's and to study and practice law in other states. At the time, I was platflorm man (operator) on the 30 Stockton electric trolley through South of Market, the Financial District, Chinatown, Pacific Heights, and the Marina. Nevertheless, at the time the Nation of Islam had at least one armed group, the Zebra killers, murdering Whites, often slowly with machetes. I joined the White, Middle-Class, Taxpaying majority in their diaspora to safer places. My …

Legal Mirrors Of Entrepreneurship, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Small businesses are regarded the engine of the economy. But just what is a “small” business? Depending on where one looks in the law, the definitions vary and they differ from one section to another. Unfortunately, what these various size classifications fail to assess, are the policy considerations and the legislative intent for granting regulatory preferences to small concerns to begin with.

In the last century, the U.S. government has been cultivating one such policy of fiscal and economic growth. Consequently, Congress and private institutions have been acting to incentivize, support and reward entrepreneurship through the law in order to …

Coase V. Pigou: A Still Difficult Debate, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper examines the positions of Coase and Pigou about the problem of the externalities. From the reading of their most two important works it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for a evaluation of efficiency at the total, while Pigou, with some exception, is convinced that is possible to reach marginal efficiency through taxes or responsibility. It’s interesting that Coase, who has elaborated the famous theorem, is convinced that is not possible to reach the efficiency at the margin every time and that sometimes is necessary a valuation at the total, that tells us which solution is …

Carrots, Sticks, And Salience, Brian D. Galle

Brian D. Galle

This Article considers the second-best design of Pigouvian taxes and subsidies in the presence of agents who are imperfectly aware of the instrument. Until very recently, the price instrument literature has assumed perfect rationality, and even the handful of prior attempts to account for “hidden” prices focus mainly on the income tax. I extend these efforts in several directions. First, I show that the best available instrument for correcting negative externalities is often one whose price is partially adjusted upwards -- or, in the case of subsidies, downwards -- to counter-act the neglect of irrational actors. In addition, I argue …

The Role Tax Preparers Play In Taxpayer Compliance - An Empirical Investigation With Policy Implications, Sagit Leviner Dr.

Sagit Leviner Dr.

In January 2010, the IRS published its Return Preparer Review Final Report, recommending extensive increases in oversight of the tax return preparer industry. The IRS suggests achieving these increases in oversight through numerous measures, including preparer registration, competency testing, continuing professional education, ethical standards, and enforcement. Effective August, 2011, new paid preparer regulation requires all tax return preparers who offer their services for a fee to register and obtain a unique Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) that must be used to sign all returns they prepare. Given that additional preparer regulation is expected to come into effect within the next …

Casev. Pigou: A Still Difficult Debate, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper examine the positions of Coase and Pigou about the problem of the externalities. From the reading of their most two important works it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for a evaluation of efficiency at the total, while Pigou, with some exception, is convinced that is possible to reach marginal efficiency through taxes or compensation. It’s interesting that Coase, who has elaborated the famous theorem, is convinced that is not important to reach the efficiency at the margin every time and that sometimes is necessary a valuation at the total, that tells us which solution is …