Tax Law Commons^™

Does The Supreme Court’S Decision In Wayfair Apply Retroactively?, Walter Hellerstein, Andrew D. Appleby

Scholarly Works

A recent decision of the Oregon Tax Court suggests that it may be premature to dismiss the challenging questions raised by the retroactive application of Wayfair as entirely hypothetical. Accordingly, after providing an overview of the case law governing retroactive application of Supreme Court state tax decisions repudiating preexisting constitutional doctrine, we examine the Oregon Tax Court’s opinion in Global Hookah Distributors Inc. v. Department of Revenue, which addressed the question whether Wayfair applied retroactively to the state’s tobacco products tax.

How Not To Read International Harvester: A Response, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In this article, Hellerstein examines a recent article by Alysse McLoughlin and Kathleen Quinn and seeks to clear up the confusion surrounding International Harvester.

Branding Taxation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Georgia Law Review

Branding is important not only to businesses, but also to the economy. The intellectual property laws and tax laws should thus further the legitimate goals of encouraging and protecting brand investments while maintaining a sound tax base. Intellectual property protections for branding depend on advertisement and enforcement, both of which demand significant amounts of private investment by firms. Although one would expect similar tax treatments of both categories of investment, the categories are actually treated as vastly different for federal income tax purposes. Under the current tax system, advertising costs incurred to foster brand equality are generally expensed whereas litigation …

A Hitchhiker’S Guide To The Oecd’S International Vat/Gst Guidelines, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

The OECD’s International VAT/GST Guidelines, which were released in their consolidated form at the OECD’s Global Forum on VAT in Paris in late 2015, are the culmination of nearly two decades of efforts to provide internationally accepted standards for consumption taxation of cross-border trade, particularly trade in services and intangibles. This article provides a roadmap to the Guidelines, especially for readers who may be unfamiliar with consumption tax principles, in general, or VATs in particular. Part II of the article provides the background to the Guidelines, describing the basic features of a VAT, the problems with which the Guidelines are …

International Tax Free Exchanges: The Structure Of I.R.C. Section 367, Vikram A. Gosain

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Beer, Liquor, Or A Little Bit Of Both? Getting To The Bottom Of Properly Classifying Flavored Malt Beverages In The United States And Australia, Bryan A. Schivera

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Federal - State Tax Coordination: What Congress Should Or Should Not Do -- Testimony Of Walter Hellerstein On Tax Reform: What It Means For State And Local Tax And Fiscal Policy, Before The Committee On Finance, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

Testimony of Walter Hellerstein, Francis Shackelford Professor of Taxation Distinguished Research Professor, before the Committee on Finance, hearing on Tax Reform: What It Means for State and Local Tax and Fiscal Policy, United States Senate, April 25, 2012.

Fixing Section 409a: Legislative And Administrative Options, Gregg D. Polsky

Scholarly Works

This symposium contribution to the Villanova Law Review describes the legislative calamity that is section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 409A manages, all at once, to (i) fail to better neutralize the tax treatment of deferred compensation with that of current compensation, (ii) impose significant compliance costs on sophisticated taxpayers, and (iii) provide a dangerous trap for unsophisticated taxpayers.

Ideally, Congress should repeal section 409A and replace it with a system that taxes deferred compensation more neutrally vis-a-vis current compensation. Failing that, Congress should either replace section 409A with a broad grant of authority to the Treasury and …

Fiscal Federalism In The United States, Walter Hellerstein

Presentations and Speeches

This presentation explores the fiscal powers of U.S. Federal and State governments with respect to taxation and spending.

What Are We - Laborers, Factories, Or Spare Parts? The Tax Treatment Of Transfers Of Human Body Materials, Lisa Milot

Scholarly Works

Transfers of human body materials are ubiquitous. From surrogacy arrangements, to sales of eggs, sperm and plasma to clinics, to black markets for kidneys, to pleas for donations of body materials, these transfers are covered and debated daily in popular and academic discourse. The associated philosophical and legal issues have been explored by a wide range of commentators. The appropriate tax treatment of these transactions, however, is mostly unexamined.

Current law is unclear about what the tax consequences of these transfers are. There are no statutory provisions directly on point, Internal Revenue Service guidance is outdated and conflicting, and the …

International Income Allocation In The Twenty-First Century: The Case For Formulary Apportionment, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

From an international perspective, formulary apportionment has traditionally been viewed as little more than transfer pricing’s “poor relation” as a division-of-income methodology. It receives only grudging recognition as a method of attributing the profits to a permanent establishment under Article 7 of the OECD Model Tax Convention; it receives no mention at all in Article 9 as a method for distributing the profits of associated enterprises among the contracting states in which they conduct their activities; and it was assailed by the international business community and by the EU Member States as out of step with internationally excepted norms in …

Race And Equality Across The Law School Curriculum: The Law Of Tax Exemption, David A. Brennen

Scholarly Works

What is the relevance of race to tax law? The race issues are apparent when one studies a subject like constitutional law. The Constitution concerns itself explicitly with such matters as defining rights of citizenship, allocating powers of government, and determining rights with respect to property. Given the history of our country -- with slavery followed by periods of de jure and de facto racial discrimination -- these constitutional law matters obviously must have racial dimensions.

Tax law, however, does not generally concern itself explicitly with matters of race. Tax law is often thought of as completely race neutral in …

Current Problems Of International Taxation Of Electronic Commerce, Nuran G. Kerimov

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis discusses the main problems that face tax authorities of many countries in the process of taxation of electronic commerce. It analyzes examples of problems posed by the growth of e-commerce in the context international direct and indirect taxation. Current international policy issues are the subject of discussion of the thesis. The thesis also analyzes some of the proposals regarding taxation of electronic commerce.

Evolution Of The Arm's Length Standard In The Us Transfer Pricing Legislation And Russian Arm's Length Perspective, Andrei A. Shutov

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis analyzes the evolution of the arm's length standard (ALS) as the key element of the transfer pricing control system in the US. This thesis also addresses some issues on creation of transfer pricing legislation in the Russian Federation and focuses on three sets of problems. First, it provides the general outline of the legislative history of the ALS as well as the history of the ALS' application in the US, including an overview of landmark cases, which revealed some conceptual problems with respect to the ALS. Secondly, the thesis addresses core problems associated with the ALS, such as …

Taxation Of U.S. Llc With Foreign Participation, Victor Ianovitch

LLM Theses and Essays

The instant thesis is organized in three main parts. The first contains an overview of U.S. law including constitutional issues of the topic focusing on the separation of tax powers between federal and state authorities with special attention to the basis and extent to which a State is entitled to impose levies on business organizations; a brief analysis of federal legislation allowing the pass-through regime; and summary concerning LLC legislation in the States. The second analyzes the application of the main, basic principles of international taxation (such as residence, source rules, application of international treaties, and connected with it the …

Taxing The Reticulum Taxation And Tariff Issues In Electronic Commerce, Neil Lovett Wilkinson

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis will explore, first within a historical context, and second, in a contemporary model, the impact and effect of electronic commerce in both a general and Electronic magazines. The thesis will explore governmental and legal responses, from a taxation and tariff point of view to the challenges posed by commercial transactions initiated and completed via the Internet and the World Wide Web. The broad question is therefore presented: How should governments, primarily American state and local governments, but also governments worldwide, respond to changes in technology that have a direct effect on the way business is conducted within their …

Equitable Recoupment: Revisiting An Old And Inconsistent Remedy, Camilla E. Watson

Scholarly Works

This Article examines the development of recoupment by first comparing and contrasting other equitable remedies. Because discussions of related equitable remedies have filled tomes in themselves, this Article concentrates only on the more salient aspects of these remedies as they pertain to the development of recoupment in the federal tax context. Next, the established elements of recoupment will be discussed in depth, with particular emphasis on the views of Professor Andrews. The Article questions whether Professor Andrews's views represent the most effective analysis of the recoupment criteria in light of the judicial inconsistencies.

In discussing the ineffectiveness of recoupment as …

Commerce Clause Restraints On State Business Development Incentives, Walter Hellerstein, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In this Article, we explore the ill-defined distinction between the constitutional carrot and the unconstitutional stick in state tax, subsidy, and related cases. Part I examines the restraints that the Commerce Clause imposes on state tax incentives. It canvasses the general principles limiting discriminatory state taxation, explores the Court's decisions addressing state tax incentives, and proposes a framework of analysis for adjudicating the validity of such incentives. Part I concludes by considering the constitutionality of a variety of state tax incentives within our suggested framework and also under alternative approaches that courts might utilize. Part II examines the restraints that …

Michelin Tire Corp. V. Wages: Enhanced State Power To Tax Imports, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages, the Supreme Court abandoned a century of precedent in holding that the Import-Export Clause does not bar a state from imposing a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax on imported goods. The provision forbidding the states from laying "any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports" was never intended to prohibit such a levy, the Court now tells us, and the case first suggesting that it did, Low v. Austin, was "wrong decided." Over a mild protest of Mr. Justice White, the Court thus obviated any examination of the principal issue the parties …