Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

Weathering State And Local Budget Storms: Fiscal Federalism With An Uncooperative Congress, David Gamage, Darien Shanske, Gladriel Shobe, Adam Thimmesch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Throughout most of 2020, state and local governments faced severe budget crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand for state welfare services and rising state expenses related to controlling the spread of COVID-19 stretched state and local budgets to their breaking points. At the same time, layoffs, business closures, and social distancing measures reduced states’ primary sources of tax revenues. The traditional practice of American fiscal federalism is for the federal government to step in to provide aid during a national emergency of this magnitude, because state and local governments lack the federal government’s monetary and fiscal …

Federal Fairness To State Taxpayers: Irrationality, Unfunded Mandates, And The "Salt" Deduction, Brian Galle

Michigan Law Review

By sheer dollars alone, the largest impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax is to deny many taxpayers the deduction for the taxes they paid to their state and local governments under § 164 of the Internal Revenue Code. This Article provides a fine-grained analysis of the overall fairness of the state-andlocal- tax deduction--and, by implication, the fairness of its partial repeal through the Alternative Minimum Tax. I offer for the first time a close examination of how newly understood limits on taxpayer mobility and rationality might affect individuals' choices of bundles of local taxes and localgovernment services, which in turn …

The Real Estate Investment Trust: State Tax, Tort, And Contract Liabilities Of The Trust, Trustee, And Shareholder, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Comment will attempt to alert potential investors in and trustees of REITs to the full extent of the liabilities that they could suffer for contract debts incurred in the name of the trust and torts committed by trust personnel. Since state tax considerations also play a significant role in investment decisions, the manner in which each state taxes the REIT and its shareholders on income derived from property and business in that state will also be investigated. Finally, a rational path out of the morass created by current state law will be articulated in order to prompt renewed discussion …

Michigan Title Examinations And The 1954 Revenue Code's New General Lien Provisions, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

Title examiners, and more particularly their clients, have long suffered from a controversy-limited almost exclusively to Michigan- involving the methods by which the United States Treasury Department could perfect general federal tax liens. The December 1952 issue of the Michigan Law Review carried an article by the present writer pointing up the irreconcilable difference which has existed for a quarter of a century between the type of record notice which the Treasury was willing to provide prospective bona fide purchasers et al., and the quite different and more demanding type which the Michigan Legislature insisted upon if the local offices …

State Taxation Of Interstate Commerce--What Now?, Robert C. Brown

Michigan Law Review

Perennial indeed have been the problems of state taxation affecting interstate commerce and the problems of intergovernmental taxation as between state and federal governments. The two problems are quite similar except that the intergovernmental problem is mutual while the interstate problem affects only state taxing power. But both are alike in that the restrictions on the taxing power are entirely judicial, and that while some restrictions are desirable they must themselves be limited lest we have not regulation but destruction of taxing power.

The intergovernmental problem is virtually settled with the allowance of non-discriminatory taxation on both sides, except as …

Constitutional Law - Validity Of State Occupation Tax On Contractors With The Federal Government, James H. Kilbourne

Michigan Law Review

The increasing burden of both federal and state taxation during the past decade has multiplied the attempts by some of those affected to establish, in the courts, immunity from certain taxes. The limitations of the power of the governments to tax have, then, special significance for one who seeks, in that fashion, to challenge the imposition of a tax on himself. Two cases recently decided by the Supreme Court involved one of those limitations-that which denies to the states the power to enforce a tax which impedes the exercise of the powers of the federal government.

A Treatise On The Law Of Taxation Including The Law Of Local Assessments, Thomas M. Cooley

Books

"The following pages have been prepared with a view to present in a shape for practical use, the general rules which must govern the action of all authorities acting in matters of taxation ….

The preparation of any treatise on taxation necessarily involves the presentation of disputed points, and the expression of opinions upon them. This has been done in the following pages. It has not been the purpose, however, to take any positions which it was not believed the authorities would justify; and if this has been done in any instance, the references which are made to authorities will …

Principles That Should Govern In The Framing Of Tax Laws, Thomas M. Cooley

Other Publications

"The foregoing paper was prepared for, and read before, the American Social Science Association, at its meeting in Cincinnati on April 22, 1878. It is not, as will be seen, a discussion of legal questions, but of questions in political economy. Still, at this time, when attention is very generally being directed to the principles of taxation, it will be found not wanting in practice interest to the legal profession." Professor Cooley takes on the problem of suitable and just taxation, a problem "forever demanding solution, but never solved." How do we set equitable rates based on personal valuation for …

Principles That Should Govern In The Framing Of Tax Laws, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The problem of suitable and justtaxation is one which is forever demanding solution, butnever solved. Adam Smith gave to the world certain rules which should governin taxation, the first of which was that "The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities - that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state." While most writers on political economy have been disposed to accept this as a sound and just rule, some have objected to it that it …

A Treatise On The Law Of Taxation Including The Law Of Local Assessments, Thomas M. Cooley

Books

"The following pages have been prepared with a view to present in a shape for practical use, the general rules which must govern the action of all authorities acting in matters of taxation ….

The preparation of any treatise on taxation necessarily involves the presentation of disputed points, and the expression of opinions upon them. This has been done in the following pages. It has not been the purpose, however, to take any positions which it was not believed the authorities would justify; and if this has been done in any instance, the references which are made to authorities will …