Taxation-Federal Commons^™

2011 Federal Tax Update, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

This update explains several developments in the substantive federal income, estate and gift tax laws affecting individual taxpayers and small businesses. It contains summaries of significant cases, rulings, regulations, legislation and other matters from August, 2010, through August, 2011. This update generally does not discuss developments in the areas of qualified plans or the taxation of business entities (except to a very limited extent).

Acing Federal Income Tax, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

No abstract provided.

Federal Income Taxation Of Individuals: Cases, Problems & Materials, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

No abstract provided.

Employee Compensation And Related Expenses, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

No abstract provided.

2000 Federal Tax Update, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

No abstract provided.

2001 Federal Tax Update, Samuel Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

No abstract provided.

Of More Than Usual Interest: The Taxing Problem Of Debt Principal, Charlene D. Luke

Seattle University Law Review

Leverage is an essential but often troubling component of the U.S. market. The financial crisis highlighted the risks and complexity of a leverage web that includes flesh-and-blood people from all walks of life and paper people from all corners of the business and investment world. In the tax area, the potentially problematic incentive effects of interest deductibility have long engaged a wide array of tax commentators and policymakers. While interest deductibility rightly receives widespread scrutiny, a more comprehensive approach to leverage is needed. This Article focuses on the surprisingly complicated tax treatment of cash (and cash equivalent) borrowings. This Article …

Federal Tax Update, Stephen L. Owen

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

With Marriage On The Decline And Cohabitation On The Rise, What About Marital Rights For Unmarried Partners?, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Law & Economics Working Papers

Part I of this paper uses recent government data to trace the decline of marriage and the rise of cohabitation in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the population grew by 9.71%, but the husband and wife households only grew by 3.7%, while the unmarried couple households grew by 41.4%. A counter-intuitive finding is that the early 21st century data show little correlation between the marriage rate and economic conditions. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), same-sex marriage is now universally available to same-sex couples. Part I considers the impact of same-sex marriage on …

Becker V. Becker, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 85 (Oct. 29, 2015), Paul George

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In response to a certified question by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada, the Court concluded that under NRS 21.090(1)(bb) a debtor can exempt his stock in the corporations described in NRS 78.746(2), but his economic interest in that stock is still subject to the charging order remedy in NRS 78.746(1).

Partnership Audits And Litigation (Tefra), Robert D. Probasco, Jason Freeman

Robert Probasco

No abstract provided.

Basing Budget Baselines, David Kamin

William & Mary Law Review

Measuring the cost of legislation or even projecting the course of the federal budget requires defining a budget baseline—a starting point capturing the current state of the budget. Budget baselines underlie most measures employed in federal budget debates and enforcement rules. Yet, despite their widespread use, budget baselines engender considerable confusion and abuse.

For instance, when legislators enact temporary tax breaks, the breaks are officially estimated to cost far less than they likely will because of a loophole in federal budget baseline rules. Then, later efforts to extend the tax cuts are counted as increasing deficits when, in fact, by …

Tax Incentives To Exportation: Alternatives To Disc, Timothy A. Peterson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Through The Antiboycott Morass To An Export Priority, Mark D. Menefee, Don Samuel

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Cancellation Of Debt And Related Transactions, Jeffrey H. Kahn, Douglas A. Kahn

Scholarly Publications

If a taxpayer borrows money, the borrowed funds are not included in the taxpayer’s gross income. That treatment is proper even though the taxpayer has increased his assets by the amount he borrowed because he also has created a corresponding liability to pay back the loan. The taxpayer’s net wealth has not increased. The more difficult and interesting questions arise when the taxpayer fails to repay the loan. At first blush, it would appear that upon cancellation of a loan, the taxpayer should have income for the amount that was cancelled. However, the current tax treatment is not that simple. …

Dodging The Taxman: Why The Treasury’S Anti-Abuse Regulation Is Unconstitutional, Linda D. Jellum

University of Miami Law Review

To combat abusive tax shelters, the Department of the Treasury promulgated a general anti-abuse regulation applicable to all of subchapter K of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The Treasury targeted subchapter K because unique aspects of the partnership tax laws—including its aggregate-entity dichotomy—foster creative tax manipulation. In the anti-abuse regulation, the Treasury attempted to “codify” existing judicially-created anti-abuse doctrines, such as the business-purpose and economic-substance doctrines. Also, and more surprisingly, the Treasury directed those applying subchapter K to use a purposivist approach to interpretation and to reject textualism.

In this article, I demonstrate that the Treasury exceeded both its …

The Supreme Court's Casual Use Of The Assignment Of Income Doctrine, Brant J. Hellwig

Brant J. Hellwig

In early 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court answered a question that had been plaguing courts for years: whether plaintiffs should be taxed on the portion of contingent fee awards paid to their attorneys. The Court determined that they should. In this article, Professor Brant J. Hellwig focuses on the analysis employed by the Court to reach its conclusion in Commissioner v. Banks and the implications of that analysis for future cases. Although Professor Hellwig believes that the Court correctly ascertained the plaintiff's tax burden, he suggests that the Court's use of the assignment of income doctrine was both unnecessary to …

Judicial Activism Is Not The Solution To The Attorney's Fee Problem, Brant J. Hellwig

Brant J. Hellwig

The report responds to criticism of the Tax Court's decision in Biehl v. Commissioner, in which the court determined that contingency fees paid to the taxpayer's attorney in employment litigation did not constitute an above-the-line deduction under section 62(a)(2)(A). The report examines the relevant statutes, regulations, and legislative history and concludes that the Tax Court reached the correct decision. Professor Hellwig further contends that had the Tax Court interpreted section 62(a)(2)(A) to grant above-the-line status to the attorney's fees in this case to avoid the disallowance of the miscelleaneous itemized deduction for attorney's fees under the alternative minimum tax, the …

Is The Real Estate Investment And Jobs Act A Good Idea?, Willard B. Taylor

Willard B. Taylor

The Real Estate Investment and Jobs Act of 2015 would significantly relax the rules of the 1980 Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act for investments in U.S. real property made through U.S. real estate investment trusts and, in the House version, would simply exempt from FIRPTA investments by foreign pension funds. Taylor discusses the bills and argues that it would make more sense to repeal FIRPTA (including the U.S. real property holding corporation rules) and then seek to achieve parity of treatment for investments in U.S. real property by foreign persons that are made directly, through partnerships or through …

Silent Tax Changes: The Political Economy Of Indexing For Inflation, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The federal income tax adjusts many but not all of its dollar components automatically to account for inflation. In this article I analyze the benefits and burdens this process confers on some taxpayers and the political logic behind them. I discuss the choice of the proper index for making the adjustments, as well as the effects of the failure to adjust specific dollar amounts. I conclude that some adjustments have become overly generous, while unadjusted provisions suffer slow repeal, sometimes intentionally. Indexation thus can have the effect of tax legislation by stealth.