Law Commons^™

A Constitutional Wealth Tax, Ari Glogower

Michigan Law Review

Policymakers and scholars are giving serious consideration to a federal wealth tax. Wealth taxation could address the harms from rising economic inequality, promote equality of social and economic opportunity, and raise the revenue needed to fund critical government programs. These reasons for taxing wealth may not matter, however, if a federal wealth tax is unconstitutional.

Scholars debate whether a tax on a wealth base (a “traditional wealth tax”) would be a “direct tax” subject to apportionment among the states by population. This Article argues, in contrast, that this possible constitutional restriction on a traditional wealth tax may not matter. If …

Federalism And The Commerce Clause: A Comparative Perspective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court has on numerous occasions addressed the constitutionality of state taxes under the U.S. Constitution (most often under the Commerce Clause, but sometimes under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses). In general, the Supreme Court has granted wide leeway to the states to adopt any tax system they wish, only striking down the most egregious cases of discrimination against out-of-state residents. Thus, for example, the Court has generally refused to intervene against state tax competition to attract business into the state. It has twice upheld a method of calculating how much income of a multinational enterprise …

Comparative Fiscal Federalism: What Can The U.S. Supreme Court And The European Court Of Justice Learn From Each Other's Tax Jurisprudence?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In October 2005, a group of distinguished tax experts from the European Union and the United States, who had never met before, convened at the University of Michigan Law School for a conference on "Comparative Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the U.S. Supreme Court and European Court of Justice Tax Jurisprudence." The purpose of the conference was to shed comparative light on the very different approaches taken by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the U.S. Supreme Court to the question of fiscal federalism. The conference was sponsored by the U-M Law School, U-M's European Union Center, and Harvard Law School's …

Vultures In Eagles' Clothing: Conspiracy And Racial Fantasy In Populist Legal Thought, Angela P. Harris

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article has three interrelated aims. First, I will briefly describe the online world of the legal populists. My second aim in this Article is to give an account of legal populism that connects it with the American tradition of conspiracy theory and with the political consciousness of survivalism. My third and final aim in this Article is to examine, as David Williams has done in a wonderful series of articles, the relationship between the nation dreamed of by many legal populists and the one inhabited by state-sanctioned legal insiders.

Is "Internal Consistency" Foolish?: Reflections On An Emerging Commerce Clause Restraint On State Taxation, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

Whatever role "internal consistency" may come to play in the Court's commerce clause jurisprudence, it has already emerged as a doctrine that warrants our attention. This article traces the development of the doctrine, explores its implications, and considers its defensibility as a limitation on state taxing power. The article suggests that the results the Court reaches under the "internal consistency" doctrine could be reached by rigorous application of a more familiar commerce clause principle - one to which the Court has been less than faithful.

State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

The first part of this Article, State Income Taxation of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections on Mobil, Exxon, and H.R. 5076, did not contemplate a sequel. The Supreme Court's decisions last term in two state corporate income tax cases, however, created an irresistible opportunity to write one. The Court's opinions in ASARCO and Woolworth picked up where its opinions in Mobil and Exxon left off. Yet the direction taken by these more recent decisions veers sharply from the course ostensibly set by their predecessors. This Article will consider the Court's latest pronouncements in this area in a continuing if quixotic effort to …

Constitutional Uniformity And Equality In State Taxation, Wade J. Newhouse

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The method of approach and arrangement of materials are developed during the course of the monograph. Therefore, it is not necessary to repeat them here. The purpose of the study is twofold. First, it should provide background material for constitutional revision. Second, it should aid counsel and court in deciding cases arising under existing constitutional limitations and state legislatures in drafting tax measures in such a way that pitfalls in existing limitations are avoided. The greater part of this monograph was prepared during a two year period from June 1951 to 1953, while I was a Research Assistant with the …

Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Constitutional Law - Criminal Law And Procedure - Presence Of Accused During Arguments Of Law, Arthur B. Lathrop

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was indicted for a felony on charges of wilfully attempting to "evade or defeat'' federal income taxes based on his failure to report money allegedly received by him from "backers" of numbers games in exchange for political protection. On cross-examination he was questioned about certain payments made in the year following the ones on which the indictment was based. His attorney objected on the ground that the question was going to be the subject of another indictment against the defendant, and asked that the jury be dismissed while an argument was had upon the point of law raised. …

Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Constitutional Law-Double Jeopardy-Acquittal In Prior Criminal Prosecution As Bar To Action For Penalties Based In Fraud, Allan A. Rubin

Michigan Law Review

Defendant had been acquitted of a criminal charge of wilfully attempting to evade or defeat an income tax under section 146(b) of the Federal Revenue Act of 1928. Subsequently this action was initiated for the collection of an additional fifty per cent of the total amount of the deficiency under section 293 (b) of the same act, which provides that if any deficiency is due to fraud with intent to evade the tax, fifty per centum of such deficiency in addition to the amount of the deficiency shall be collected. Plaintiff brought certiorari from an order of modification eliminating the …

Tyranny Of The Taxing Power, Andrew A. Bruce

Michigan Law Review

It has been frequently stated that our constitutions and our courts were made and organized for the protection of capital and of the vested interests. If this be the case, they are manifestly inadequate for their purpose, and the danger of the future is not that capital will be too much protected but that the reckless extravagance of today will continue and be increased, and that our representatives in our city councils, our state legislatures, and our national congress, who depend for their elections upon the votes of the majority who have accumulated little or nothing, will more and more …

Supreme Court's Theory Of A Direct Tax, J H. Riddle

Michigan Law Review

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case of 1895 was the beginning of an attempt on the part of the court to formulate a new definition of a direct tax, and since that time in every case which has called for a decision as to whether a particular tax was a direct tax the court has reverted to and tried to harmonize its decision with the reasoning set forth in the Pollock case. This decision overturned a fairly definite and universally accepted definition of a direct tax which had existed for nearly a century. In …

The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Seldom, if ever, in the history of the country has the Supreme Court been called upon within a comparatively short period of time to decide so many questions of widespread interest and vital importance as has been the case during the last year or two. Attempts on the part of the state and national governments to regulate and control corporations, which in recent years have come to exercise such a large and not always wholesome influence upon affairs generally, have been the occasion for the consideration by the court of many of the important cases recently presented. Among these are …

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Corporation Tax, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

During the special session of Congress held the past summer there was enacted as an amendment to the new Tariff Law what is generally known as the Federal Corporation Tax.1 At the time of its consideration in Congress and since its enactment there has been considerable discussion regarding the constitutionality of the measure, and no little doubt has been expressed as to its validity.