Law Commons^™

Taxing Social Enterprise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Joseph R. Ganahl

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Since the first hybrid enabling law was passed in Vermont in 2008, the number of states offering hybrid forms has grown steadily, as has the number of entrepreneurs choosing statutory hybrids as a middle road between the for-profit and the nonprofit. Plaudits for and criticism of the hybrid form have also proliferated. Proponents have lauded their ability to facilitate socially conscious enterprise. Detractors have questioned the viability of the hybrid form and have suggested that they create more fiduciary conflicts than they resolve. To date, however, there has been no serious scholarly publication addressing the appro- priate tax treatment of …

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer Quoted In Propublica "The Irs Moves To Limit Dark Money – But Enforcement Still A Question", Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the ProPublica article "The IRS Moves to Limit Dark Money – But Enforcement Still a Question" by Kim Barker. The proposed regulations “are only as good as the extent of compliance with them, which history would indicate requires a realistic threat of enforcement and significant sanctions on the groups involved and probably the individuals running those groups,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in nonprofits and campaign finance.

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy Gerzog

Wendy Gerzog

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax system, but there are serious flaws with that idea. Those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses; and (4) significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs inherent in a system that taxes transferees on transactions that may be largely unmonitored.

This article reviews common characteristics of existing inheritance …

Carried Interest Reform For Hedge Fund Managers, John Ye

John Ye

Private investment managers’ compensation has been a hot topic since the 2012 presidential campaign. Candidate Romney’s tax returns were highly publicized by the media. Romney’s effective tax rate for his recent 2011 tax year was a paltry 14%.[1] Compared to the notional tax rates on ordinary income from 10% to 40%, this would seem too low for a well-off member of our society who made over $13 million in 2011.

Romney’s response was simply that it was not unfair because most of his income was derived from his investments. To discuss fully about the rationale behind why our tax …

Innocent Spouse Relief - Relief From The Sneaky Spouse, Corinna Marie Cicmanec

Corinna Cicmanec

Innocent Spouse Relief: Relief from the Sneaky Spouse

This article discusses Internal Revenue Code § 6015, also known the as Innocent Spouse provision. This provision offers relief to spouses from the joint and several liability that stems from filing a joint return. Innocent Spouse Relief is available in certain situations when one spouse is “sneaky” in regards to disclosing financial information to the other spouse and the IRS. This article specifically analyzes how §6015 affects women, and the hurdles women face when filing successful claims. This paper explores the current problems with §6015 claims process, and suggests options for the …

Taxing Social Enterprise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Joseph R. Ganahl

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

The fairly strict divide in the United States between for-profit and nonprofit forms presents a quandary for many entrepreneurs who want to combine doing good with doing well. On the one hand, for-profits offer great flexibility and access to capital and so attract entrepreneurs who would like to take advantage of the ability of for-profits to scale up rapidly to meet growing demand. At the same time, however, for-profit forms also limit entrepreneurs’ ability to engage in philanthropy, due to the fiduciary duties managers owe to the equity holders. On the other hand, nonprofits offer their founders the freedom to …

Tax Compliance And The Love Molecule, Susan Morse

Susan Cleary Morse

If oxytocin is the source of human reciprocity, then perhaps storytelling that evokes close human relationships is the key to using reciprocity to further tax compliance.

Repairing Facade Easements: Is This The Gift That Launched A Thousand Deductions?, Martha Jordan

Martha W. Jordan

This article explores the impact of such a covenant on the characterization for tax purposes of expenditures to maintain the facade. In particular this article explores the following question: Given that the charitable easement holder owns a nonpossessory interest in the facade, which imposes on the charity an obligation to repair and maintain the facade and entitles it to benefit from increases in the value of the facade, is a donor's assumption of the charity's obligation to repair the facade an additional charitable contribution to the charity? If a donor gratuitously makes improvements to property owned outright by a charity, …

Heteronormativity And The Federal Tax Code, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

Proponents of same-sex marriage demand equal marriage rights as a matter of fundamental human dignity and as a means to gain certain legal benefits and protections. The ability to file joint federal income tax returns is invariably listed as one of the benefits associated with marriage. This outsider perspective contradicts the popular notion that the income tax is anti-marriage and offers a useful vantage point from which to analyze the marital provisions of the federal tax code, the treatment of the provisions in tax scholarship, and legislative proposals for "pro-family" tax reform. The joint filing provisions are just one example …

Sales Of Remainder Interests: Reconciling Gradow V. United States And Section 2702, Martha W. Jordan

Martha W. Jordan

This article seeks to answer the question of whether the sale of a remainder interest for its actuarial value is exempt from transfer tax. Generally, when a taxpayer sells property for its fair market value, the taxpayer has been adequately compensated and, therefore, should not be subject to transfer tax. The sale of a remainder interest, however, raises various questions that are not present when property is sold outright. The sale of a remainder interest divides the underlying property into two split-interests: the remainder interest and the retained or present interest. The fair market value of split-interests is commonly determined …