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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Taxation-Federal
Tax As Part Of A Broken Budget: Good Taxes Are Good Cause Enough, Stephanie Mcmahon
Tax As Part Of A Broken Budget: Good Taxes Are Good Cause Enough, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
The federal budget is a myth. Despite being a myth, Congress uses the budget to limit its choices by linking its revenue-raising and spending powers under a federal debt ceiling. Through its self-imposed limits, Congress puts tremendous pressure on how it calculates its budget, and that calculation generally assumes any tax provisions will raise revenue when the law becomes effective. However, many tax provisions require additional direction to ensure they operate as the budgetary process expects. That task falls to the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a bureau of the Department. Consequently, limiting the production of …
Pre-Enforcement Litigation Needed For Taxing Procedures, Stephanie Mcmahon
Pre-Enforcement Litigation Needed For Taxing Procedures, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Courts have opened tax guidance to procedural attack. Consequently, taxpayers who are found to owe tax may challenge the validity of the guidance implementing the tax if the procedure used by the Treasury Department in adopting the guidance failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, in particular, with notice-and-comment. This increased willingness to consider tax guidance's procedural defects offers little to most taxpayers unless they are also given a better means to raise procedural challenges. Under current law and in most circumstances, generally, taxpayers can bring a challenge only after they have been found to owe taxes in an …
The Perfect Process Is The Enemy Of The Good Tax: Tax's Exceptional Regulatory Process, Stephanie Mcmahon
The Perfect Process Is The Enemy Of The Good Tax: Tax's Exceptional Regulatory Process, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Many courts and academics critique existing tax exceptionalism or the ability of the federal income tax to be created, applied, or interpreted differently from other laws. Critics have successfully complained that the Treasury Department, and the IRS as a bureau of the Department, issues guidance implementing the Internal Revenue Code using different processes from those required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). At the same time, courts are increasing the level of deference given to this guidance to conform to that given other agencies. This article responds to these critics by urging they re-focus their attention on the objectives of …
A Bundle Of Confusion For The Income Tax: What It Means To Own Something, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
A Bundle Of Confusion For The Income Tax: What It Means To Own Something, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
ABSTRACT-Conceptions of property exist on a spectrum between the Blackstonian absolute dominion over an object to a bundle of rights and obligations that recognizes, if not encourages, the splitting of property interests among different people. The development of the bundle of rights conception of property occurred in roughly the same era as the enactment of the modem federal income tax. Nevertheless, when Congress enacted the tax in 1913, it did not consider how the nuances of property, and the possible splitting of the interests in an income-producing item, might affect application of the tax. Soon after the tax's enactment, the …
What Innocent Spouse Relief Says About Wives And The Rest Of Us, Stephanie Mcmahon
What Innocent Spouse Relief Says About Wives And The Rest Of Us, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Every time spouses sign joint returns, knowingly or not they accept joint and several liability, meaning that either spouse may be held liable for all of the tax due on the joint return. Although joint and several liability facilitates tax collection, it may conflict with a spouse’s claims to have signed the return while being lied to, abused, or manipulated. The question for Congress is how to balance these competing demands. Innocent spouse relief provides some tax relief for spouses Congress does not believe should be jointly and severally liable. The existence of this relief also offers an opportunity to …
An Empirical Study Of Innocent Spouse Relief: Do Courts Implement Congress's Legislative Intent, Stephanie Mcmahon
An Empirical Study Of Innocent Spouse Relief: Do Courts Implement Congress's Legislative Intent, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Under existing law spouses are jointly and severally liable for their joint tax returns. As a result, the IRS may pursue either spouse for any taxes owed on those returns. Concerned that the IRS was seeking taxes from the “wrong” spouse under the joint and several liability regime, Congress expanded relief for “innocent” spouses in 1998. Many critics of this relief complain that, as it is applied, the statute offers too little relief to spouses, generally wives, who sign returns while being deceived or compelled by their mates. However, there has been no empirical study of whether the current relief …
California Women: Trying To Use Federal Taxes To Put The 'Community' In Community Property, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
California Women: Trying To Use Federal Taxes To Put The 'Community' In Community Property, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Community property is thought to be a more equitable marital property regime than the common law because we assume that providing each spouse with an interest in fifty percent of the family’s income also provides a substantial amount of equality between spouses. Historically, however, as the regime operated in the United States, it was not especially favorable to wives. Although the concept implied a partnership between spouses, in practice wives were denied rights a partner would expect to enjoy. This article examines how women lobbied to enlarge the protection California wives enjoyed under the state’s community property regime in the …
London Calling: Does The U.K.'S Experience With Individual Taxation Clash With The U.S.'S Expectations, Stephanie Mcmahon
London Calling: Does The U.K.'S Experience With Individual Taxation Clash With The U.S.'S Expectations, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
The United States is one of the last countries to tax married couples jointly; most other countries have adopted individual taxation. In 1990, the United Kingdom completed transitioning its tax system from one that treated husbands and wives as a marital unit to one that mandates an individual-based system, and so it has two decades of experience with the new regime. This article provides American policymakers valuable information regarding the consequences of adopting individual taxation by examining the United Kingdom's experience. First, it establishes a matrix of factors that identifies and assesses differences between the two nations that affect the …
To Save State Residents: States' Use Of Community Property For Federal Tax Reduction, Stephanie Mcmahon
To Save State Residents: States' Use Of Community Property For Federal Tax Reduction, Stephanie Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
This essay analyzes the forces that led five common law states to adopt community property regimes between 1939 and 1947. Focusing on Oklahoma, the first state to switch, this article traces these laws from initial proposals through their repeal after Congress enacted nationalized income-splitting in 1948. Earlier studies have focused on the impact of these laws, primarily on wives as secondary earners within families, and not on their development. From the various political and social forces precipitating this trend, this study explores the actual reasons states adopted these regimes and shows that an economic goal, namely reducing married couples' federal …
Law With A Life Of Its Own: The Development Of The Federal Income Tax Statutes Through World War I, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
Law With A Life Of Its Own: The Development Of The Federal Income Tax Statutes Through World War I, Stephanie H. Mcmahon
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
This manuscript examines the development of the federal income tax within the United States fiscal system from the founding of the nation through World War I. The study reveals that, although the tax had become a permanent feature of the tax system by World War I, congressional debates had focused primarily on whether there should be an income tax as opposed to how it should or would operate in practice. This paper argues that the technical aspects of this tax received surprisingly little congressional attention because when the tax was originally passed it was a marginal revenue measure. Laden with …