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Full-Text Articles in Tax Law
The Relevance Games: Congress's Choices For Economic Substance Gamemakers, Charlene Luke
The Relevance Games: Congress's Choices For Economic Substance Gamemakers, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
Codification of the economic substance doctrine in 2010 ushered in a new phase in the debate regarding the meaning and reach of the doctrine. The main statutory hint as to the intended scope of the codified economic substance doctrine is ambiguous, providing, “The determination of whether the economic substance doctrine is relevant to a transaction shall be made in the same manner as if this subsection had never been enacted.” This Article argues that this language should be read in light of the codification history, which stretches back for over ten years before enactment. This history suggests that the relevance …
What Would Henry Simons Do?: Using An Ideal To Shape And Explain The Economic Substance Doctrine, Charlene Luke
What Would Henry Simons Do?: Using An Ideal To Shape And Explain The Economic Substance Doctrine, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
The law and policy governing tax shelters is incomplete, sometimes contradictory, and occasionally incoherent. Indeed, consensus has yet to emerge even as to which transactions should bear the tax shelter label. Often reform efforts are grounded in theories that are largely external to tax law—for example, economic theory relating to incentives. Fewer approaches rely on intrinsic tax policies, including that most fundamental of income tax principles—the Schanz-Haig-Simons income concept ("H-S"). Under H-S, an income tax base should be expansive, requiring inclusion of an individual's increases in wealth and allowing reductions only for non-personal costs that reduce wealth. This Article seeks …
Risk, Return, And Objective Economic Substance, Charlene Luke
Risk, Return, And Objective Economic Substance, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
The economic substance doctrine is a judicial method used to assess transactions suspected of being nothing more than elaborate (and illicit) tax avoidance. Courts vary in their formulation of the doctrine. Generally, the test consists of (1) a subjective inquiry into the taxpayer's motivations for entering the suspect transaction and (2) an objective inquiry into whether the transaction accomplished anything beyond tax effects. Both inquiries frequently revolve around the profit potential of the suspect transaction. In making an objective inquiry into profit, courts focus on the profit potential exclusive of taxes - the pre-tax landscape. This Article suggests that although …
Beating The 'Wrap': The Agency Effort To Control Wraparound Insurance Tax Shelters, Charlene Luke
Beating The 'Wrap': The Agency Effort To Control Wraparound Insurance Tax Shelters, Charlene Luke
Charlene Luke
The first wraparound insurance tax shelter was marketed in the mid-1960s as a means for contract owners to exploit the inconsistency arising from the difference in the tax treatment of investment returns earned inside variable insurance contracts and the economically similar returns available outside such contracts. Federal income tax is deferred (and in some cases eliminated) on the income accruing inside variable insurance products - called inside buildup. In the most recent iteration of the wraparound insurance gambit, insurance companies wrapped private-placement, hedge-fund interests inside variable insurance products in order to allow contract owners to defer tax on the ordinary …
Managing The Next Deluge: A Tax System Approach To Flood Insurance, Charlene Luke, Aviva Abramovsky
Managing The Next Deluge: A Tax System Approach To Flood Insurance, Charlene Luke, Aviva Abramovsky
Charlene Luke
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has fallen short in fulfilling its promise as a social safety net for flood loss victims. In place of the NFIP, this Article proposes a mandatory social insurance plan that would harness the strengths of the federal taxing authority to provide basic relief for flood losses occurring at an individual’s primary residence. Any plan for addressing flood loss must navigate hotly debated, competing views about government intervention, redistribution, private markets, environmental protection, and property rights. This Article argues that government intervention in flood loss relief is inevitable, at least in the foreseeable future, and …