Law Commons^™

The Case Against The Debt Tax, Vijay Raghavan

Fordham Law Review

Americans are increasingly agitating for debt relief. In the last decade, there have been national campaigns to cancel student debt, credit card debt, and mortgage debt. These national campaigns have paralleled local efforts to cancel taxi medallion debt, carceral debt, and lunch debt. But as the public increasingly pursues broad-scale debt relief outside bankruptcy, they face an important institutional obstacle: canceled debt is generally taxable.

The taxability of canceled debt is often raised by opponents as an objection to broad debt cancellation and potentially discounts the value of any debt relief. The conventional account for why we tax canceled debt …

Unplugging Heartbeat Trades And Reforming The Taxation Of Etfs, Jeffrey M. Colon

Faculty Scholarship

The much-touted tax efficiency of equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) has historically been built upon portfolios that track indices with low turnover and the tax exemption for in-kind distributions of appreciated property.

This rule permits ETFs to distribute appreciated shares tax-free to redeeming authorized participants (APs) and reduce a fund’s future capital gains. ETFs and APs, working together, exploit this rule in so-called heartbeat trades in which an ETF distributes shares of a specific company or companies to a redeeming AP, instead of a pro rata basket of the ETF’s portfolio. The distributed securities are appreciated shares of companies that …

Tax Benefits And Fairness In K–12 Education, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the tax law’s subsidies for inequality and segregation in primary and secondary education, analyzing the federal charitable deduction and education savings plans, and state tax credits for education. It argues that the tax system diverts funds from traditional public education into private education, fostering economic, racial, religious, and political separation. The tax law also operates to increase resource inequality within public education by subsidizing schools that affluent children attend. In a novel analysis, the Article contends that the jurisprudence around the charitable deduction for education—though longstanding—is legally incoherent, and argues that no deduction should ever be allowed …

Tax Now Or Tax Never: Political Optionality And The Case For Current-Assessment Tax Reform, David Gamage, John R. Brooks

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. income tax system is broken. Due to the realization doctrine and taxpayers’ consequent ability to defer taxation of gains, taxpayers can easily minimize or avoid the taxation of investment income, a failure that is magnified many times over when considering the ultra-wealthy. As a result, this small group of taxpayers commands an enormous share of national wealth yet pays paltry taxes relative to the economic income their wealth produces—a predicament that this Article condemns as being economically, politically, and socially harmful. The conventional view among tax law experts has assumed that the problems created by the realization doctrine …

Taxing Big Data: A Proposal To Benefit Society For The Use Of Private Information, Ziva Rubinstein

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Artificial intelligence, the technology that is currently shaping our world, relies on the data that each individual supplies. In 2017, the Economist magazine asserted that “the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” This assertion is supported by the current data market, which became a hundred-billion-dollar industry in the data broker market alone. However, despite its immense value, individuals are not compensated when their data is collected, shared, or when that data is used to replace them in the job market. Further, companies are legally avoiding taxes on this resource, both during its collection and on the …

The Lawyer, The Engineer, And The Gigger: § 199a Framed As An Equitable Deduction For Middle-Class Business Owners And Gig Economy Workers, Andrew L. Snyder

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Section 199A of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provides owners of noncorporate, pass-through businesses such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations-as well as independent contractors and certain trusts-with an unprecedented deduction of up to 20 percent of "qualified business income." But the statute draws distinctions between industries and professions, thus creating inequities without a well-articulated policy rationale. Section 199A's critics have called for the provision's repeal entirely, citing efficiency and equity concerns. But Congress should not repeal section 199A or allow it to sunset in 2025. The provision can potentially provide tax relief to gig economy workers, for …

Lawmakers As Job Buyers, Edward W. De Barbieri

Fordham Law Review

In 2013, Washington State authorized the largest state tax incentive for private industry in U.S. history. It is not remarkable for a state legislature to use tax benefits to retain a major employer—in this case, the global aerospace manufacturer Boeing. Laws across all states and thousands of cities routinely incentivize companies such as Amazon to relocate or remain in particular areas. Notably, however, Washington did not recover any of the subsidies it authorized despite Boeing’s significant post-incentive workforce reductions. This story leads to several important questions: (1) How effective are state and local legislatures at influencing business-location decisions?; (2) Do …

Free Money, But Not Tax-Free: A Proposal For The Tax Treatment Of Cryptocurrency Hard Forks, Danhui Xu

Fordham Law Review

Cryptocurrency has attracted extraordinary attention as one of the greatest financial innovations in recent years. Equally noticeable are the increasingly frequent cryptocurrency events, such as hard forks. Put simply, a cryptocurrency hard fork happens when a single cryptocurrency splits in two, which results in original coin owners receiving free forked coins. Such hard forks have resulted in billions of dollars distributed to U.S. taxpayers. Despite ongoing regulatory efforts, to date, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has yet to take a clear position on the tax treatment of cryptocurrency hard forks. The lack of useful guidance when filing tax returns has …

Saved By Labell: Local Taxation Of Video Streaming Services, Salvatore Cocchiaro

Fordham Law Review

Over the last few years, Netflix and other video streaming services have erupted to become a preeminent form of entertainment for millennials and the public at large. With traditional forms of entertainment waning, video streaming services represent a novel source of revenue for cities. Local governments currently have numerous tax approaches that may be used to cover these services. Different cities and states have taken distinctive approaches to taxing these services. Certain jurisdictions tax them in line with traditional pay-TV providers under utility taxes, while other jurisdictions tax them under sales or amusement taxes. This Note considers these different approaches, …

The Games They Will Play: Tax Games, Roadblocks, And Glitches Under The 2017 Tax Legislation, David Kamin, David Gamage, Ari Glogower, Rebecca Kysar, Darien Shanske, Reuven Aviyonah, Lily Batchelder, J. Clifton Fleming, Daniel Hemel, Mitchell Kane, David Miller, Daniel Shaviro, Manoj Viswanathan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unraveling The Tax Treaty, Rebecca Kysar

Faculty Scholarship

Coordination among nations over the taxation of international transactions rests on a network of some 2,000 bilateral double tax treaties. The double tax treaty is, in many ways, the roots of the international system of taxation. That system, however, is in upheaval in the face of globalization, technological advances, taxpayer abuse, and shifting political tides. In the academic literature, however, scrutiny of tax treaties is largely confined to the albeit important question of whether tax treaties are beneficial for developing countries. Surprisingly little consideration has been paid to whether developed countries, like the United States, should continue to sign tax …

The Future Of The New International Tax Regime, Rosanne Altshuler, Fadi Shaheen, Jeffrey Colon, Michael Graetz, Rebecca Kysar, Susan Morse, Daniel Shaviro, Richard Phillips, Danielle Rolfes, David Rosenbloom, Stephen Shay, Steven Dean

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

The Great Etf Tax Swindle: The Taxation Of In-Kind Redemptions, Jeffrey M. Colon

Faculty Scholarship

Since the repeal of the General Utilities doctrine over 30 years ago, corporations must recognize gain when distributing appreciated property to their shareholders. Regulated investment companies (RICs), which generally must be organized as domestic corporations, are exempt from this rule when distributing property in kind to a redeeming shareholder.

In-kind redemptions, while rare for mutual funds, are a fundamental feature of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Because fund managers decide which securities to distribute, they distribute assets with unrealized gains and thereby significantly reduce the future tax burdens of their current and future shareholders. Many ETFs have morphed into investment vehicles that …

Show Me The Money: The Ceo Pay Ratio Disclosure Rule And The Quest For Effective Executive Compensation Reform, Biagio Marino

Fordham Law Review

This Note discusses past attempts to combat growing levels of executive compensation, analyzes the role of both shareholders and directors in the compensation-setting process, and discusses conflicting views concerning shareholder-director power, the disclosure mechanism, and the pay-ratio metric. Finally, this Note balances these views by proposing alterations to the CEO Pay Ratio Disclosure Rule that preserve the long-standing corporate structure, while also offering shareholders an accountability mechanism to enhance the Rule’s intended results.

The Curious Beginnings Of The Capital Gains Tax Preference, Ajay K. Mehrotra, Julia C. Ott

Fordham Law Review

Despite the importance of the capital gains tax preference, and the controversy it often evokes, there has been relatively little serious scholarly attention paid to the historical development of this highly significant tax provision. This Article seeks to move beyond the normative and presentist concerns for or against the tax preference to recount the empirical beginnings and early twentieth-century development of this important tax law. In exploring the curious beginnings of the capital gains tax preference, this brief Article has several aims. First, its main goal is to show that the preference is not a timeless or transhistorical concept, but …

Framing Middle-Class Insecurity: Tax And The Ideology Of Unequal Economic Growth, Martha T. Mccluskey

Fordham Law Review

This Article first explains how the prevailing discourse frames federal tax support for the middle class as either consumption or redistribution, both of which appear to be essentially unproductive and potentially destructive. Second, this Article examines the expansion of state and local tax support for elite private capital. In contrast to tax support favoring the middle class, this upper-class support is accepted widely as necessary for productive economic development. Operating below the radar of prominent tax debates, this state and local tax policy reveals more starkly and perversely how prevailing views of tax rationalize inequality and austerity. This Article concludes …

The Decline In Tax Adviser Professionalism In American Society, John S. Dzienkowski, Robert J. Peroni

Fordham Law Review

In Part I, this Article briefly examines the debate over the proper role of the tax professional in representing clients. Part II discusses whether tax professionals owe special duties to the tax system. Part III analyzes how the tax professionals’ involvement in several waves of tax shelter abuses is in sharp contrast to the high-minded rhetoric of the tax ethics debate. This part also discusses changes in the legal and accounting professions that have contributed to the current state of taxpayer representation. This Article advocates for the position that tax professionals owe a duty to the tax system and such …

Registered Savings Plans And The Making Of Middle-Class Canada: Toward A Performative Theory Of Tax Policy, Lisa Philipps

Fordham Law Review

Campaigning politicians and elected governments across Canada’s political spectrum strive to position themselves as defenders of the middle class. This is to be expected given the large proportion of the Canadian population that self-identifies as middle class. Since the term lacks precision, it is a claim that can accommodate a wide range of policy proposals. Tax policy serves as a prime vehicle for making this appeal to middle-class voters. Undoubtedly, any tax reform proposal can be examined critically to evaluate its likely distributional impacts and how well these map onto specific definitions of the middle class. This Article attempts, however, …

Foreword: We Are What We Tax, Mary Louise Fellows, Grace Heinecke, Linda Sugin

Fordham Law Review

On November 12 and 13, 2015, the Fordham Law Review hosted a symposium entitled We Are What We Tax. We invited scholars with a wide array of expertise inside and outside of the tax arena to consider how tax laws have shaped public and private institutions, cultural norms and hierarchies, and societal values.

Perpetuating Inequality By Taxing Wealth, Goldburn P. Maynard Jr.

Fordham Law Review

This Article attempts to correct this shortcoming in the progressive argument by returning narrative to its central place in the estate tax debate. Drawing on psychological insights, I hope to underscore the difficulty of the effort to preserve progressive taxation and combat wealth inequality.

Job Creationism, Victor Fleischer

Fordham Law Review

Does a low tax rate on entrepreneurial income create jobs? Tax scholars view this question as empirical in nature. But for many policymakers, voters, and even some academics, the relationship between taxes and entrepreneurship is a matter of faith. If there is a question, it is one of ideological commitment, not evidence and reason. Consider the ease with which politicians claim that tax cuts for entrepreneurs and investors create jobs and fuel economic growth. This claim would appear to be a falsifiable claim subject to empirical observation and testing. But evidence in support of the claim is, in fact, hard …

The Corruption Of Liberal And Social Democracies, Timothy K. Kuhner

Fordham Law Review

Thomas Piketty repeats throughout Capital in the Twenty-First Century that today’s levels of inequality are not inevitable, much less natural, and has connected the state of democracy worldwide to rising economic inequality. Wealth transfers from the state to the private sector, wealth transfers from labor to capital, and tax laws favorable to the concentration of wealth require that the participatory and representative facets of democracy be kept in check. Beyond suitable material conditions, the growth and maintenance of inequality necessitates a justificatory ideology. This Article explores the possibility that the laws of political finance can help connect the dots. Legal …

How Individual Income Tax Policy Affects Entrepreneurship, David Clingingsmith, Scott Shane

Fordham Law Review

This Article reviews the empirical literature on the effects of individual income tax policy on entrepreneurship. We find no evidence of consensus, even on relatively narrow questions such as whether individual income tax rates deter or encourage entrepreneurial entry. We believe the absence of consensus reflects both the complexity of mechanisms connecting tax policy to entrepreneurial decision making and the infeasibility of employing the most reliable empirical methods, such as experiments, in this domain.

The Currency Of Taxation, Tsilly Dagan

Fordham Law Review

In its canonical rendition, income taxation aspires to achieve the sometimes-conflicting goals of maximizing social welfare and promoting distributive justice. We do not usually think about tax law as participating in the formation of our identities, shaping the ways in which we perceive ourselves, or influencing how we interact with others. I argue, however, that income tax is a powerful social instrument that plays an important role in the construction of our identities and interactions with one another. Income tax law, I claim, simultaneously reflects and shapes our identities, self-perceptions, and social interactions in various contexts, including within our families …

The Semantics Of Sin Tax: Politics, Morality, And Fiscal Imposition, Bruce G. Carruthers

Fordham Law Review

In this Article, I consider how negative social meanings can be projected through public revenue systems and propose to examine the link between taxation and representation in a new light.7 First, I discuss how social meanings are attached to money and then explain how, through the use of earmarking, this works in the case of tax revenues. I next briefly review the history of sin taxes at both the state and federal levels. Finally, I use computational linguistic methods to suggest that the fiscal significance of sin taxes, and their cultural significance, are loosely coupled.

The Social Boundaries Of Corporate Taxation, Sloan G. Speck

Fordham Law Review

This Article argues that, while important, efficiency considerations should not function as the sole arbiter of the boundary between corporate and conduit tax treatment. First, classical corporate taxation is, in many ways, deeply embedded within a larger network of legal and social meanings. Classical corporate taxation operates in concert with, rather than separately from, these legal and social meanings. For this reason, the rules governing entities’ tax classification should take these interrelationships into account, if not as a primary norm, then as a secondary consideration when empirical or other uncertainties preclude a clear choice based on efficiency. The social boundaries …

Rhetoric And Reality In The Tax Law Of Charity, Linda Sugin

Fordham Law Review

This Article contrasts the rhetoric of public benefit connected to charity in the law with the reality of private control of charitable organizations. It argues that the tension between the rhetoric and reality have produced norms of entitlement that undermine taxation. It offers an approach to the role of charity under the law by defining the obligations of government in a just society, qualifying the economic framework dominant in the literature concerning charities, and identifying what private charity can achieve that governments cannot. This Article concludes by endorsing the charitable deduction in the tax law on terms consistent with this …

Liberalism, Philanthropy, And Praxis: Realigning The Philanthropy Of The Republic And The Social Teaching Of The Church, Rob Atkinson

Fordham Law Review

This Article seeks a common ground for theists of the Abrahamist religious faiths and agnostics in the Socratic philosophical tradition on the role that the liberal state should play in advancing the two coordinate aims of traditional philanthropy: helping society’s least well off and advancing the highest forms of human excellence. It focuses particularly on Abrahamists who are orthodox Catholics and Socratics who are left-liberals, distinguishing their broad views on the liberal state’s proper philanthropic role from the far narrower views of libertarians and other right-liberals. It concludes that adherents of Catholic Social Teaching and advocates of secular left-liberalism can …

Don't Give Up On Taxes, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Sugin discusses professor Edward D. Kleinbard's latest book, We are Better Than This (2015, Oxford) about the fiscal system and the broader implications of progressive taxation as a policy goal.

Payroll Taxes, Mythology And Fairness, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

As the 2012 fiscal cliff approached, Congress and President Obama bickered over the top marginal income tax rate that would apply to a tiny sliver of the population, while allowing payroll taxes to quietly rise for all working Americans. Though most Americans pay more payroll tax than income tax, academic and public debates rarely mention it. The combined effect of the payroll tax and the income tax produce dramatically heavier tax liabilities on labor compared to capital, producing substantial horizontal and vertical inequity in the tax system. This article argues that a fair tax system demands just overall burdens, and …