Law Commons^™

Sinking The Island Of Constitutional Tax Immunity: A Uniform Approach To State Taxes On Goods In Transit Under The Import-Export Clause, Warren F. Smith

Georgia Law Review

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution adopted the
Import-Export Clause to prohibit the states from
interfering in international relations, to preserve import
revenue for the federal government, and to ensure
harmony between the states. The purposive inquiry
established by Michelin and Washington Stevedoring is
applied for all imports and exports except one category:
export goods in transit. The pre-Michelin decision,
Richfield Oil, provides complete constitutional tax
immunity for export goods in transit. This island of
constitutional tax immunity forces local taxpayers to
subsidize exporters and foreign consumers and unfairly
burdens coastal states with the regulatory,
administrative, and environmental costs of …

Digital Taxation Lessons From Wayfair And The U.S. States’ Responses, Walter Hellerstein, Jeffrey Owens, Christina Dimitropoulou

Scholarly Works

This article provides a detailed and structured synthesis of the discussion that took place in the context of the "fireside chat" event held by the WU Global Tax Policy Center at the Institute of Austrian and International Tax Law on December 17, 2018, at which Hellerstein was the guest speaker. The event was one of the initiatives of the Digital Economy Tax Network, a multi-stakeholder forum, which organized a workshop on the VAT/goods and services tax and the digital economy December 17-18, 2018, in Vienna. In this article, the authors examine the lessons that the U.S. Supreme Court's Wayfair decision …

Guidance Is Definitive, Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate: The Lingering Saga Of Rev. Rul. 91-32, Robert L. Daily

Georgia Law Review

Partnership and international taxation are two of the
most mind-numbing and inconsistent areas of the law.
Even more confusion occurs when the two intersect, such
as when a nonresident sells an interest in a U.S.
partnership. Many have wasted precious time and
abundant ink to come up with a solution. The IRS first
tried in Rev. Rul. 91-32, concluding that a nonresident
would be subject to tax if the partnership had assets
producing income generated from property in United
States. Although the guidance was appropriately
criticized for being statutorily inconsistent, this Note
argues that it nonetheless got to the right …

America’S (D)Evolving Childcare Tax Laws, Shannon W. Mccormack

Georgia Law Review

Proponents touted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the
TCJA)—enacted in the twilight of 2017—by claiming it
would help American working families. But while the
TCJA expanded some benefits available to parents with
dependent children, these parental tax benefits may be
claimed regardless of whether or to what extent
childcare costs are incurred to work outside the home.
To help working parents with these (often significant)
costs, Congress might have turned to two other
mechanisms in the tax law—the “child and dependent
care credit” and the “dependent care exclusion.” While
these childcare tax benefits are only available to working
parents …

How Not To Read International Harvester: A Response, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In this article, Hellerstein examines a recent article by Alysse McLoughlin and Kathleen Quinn and seeks to clear up the confusion surrounding International Harvester.

Platforms: The Sequel, Walter Hellerstein, John A. Swain, Jonathan E. Maddison

Scholarly Works

In this article, the authors discuss recent developments on sales and use tax reporting and collection obligations imposed on platforms that facilitate taxable sales of tangible personal property or services.

Explaining Choice-Of-Entity Decisions By Silicon Valley Start-Ups, Gregg Polsky

Scholarly Works

Perhaps the most fundamental role of a business tax advisor is to recommend the optimal entity choice for nascent business enterprises. Nevertheless, even in 2018, the choice-of-entity analysis remains highly muddled. Most tax practitioners across the United States consistently recommend flow-through entities, such as LLCs and S corporations, to their clients. In contrast, a discrete group of highly sophisticated tax professionals, those who advise start-ups in Silicon Valley and other hotbeds of start-up activity, prefer C corporations.

Prior commentary has described and tried to explain this paradox without finding an adequate explanation. These commentators have noted a host of superficially …

Should States Embrace Gilti?: A Cost-Benefit Approach, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

Congress inserted several provisions into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, arguably intended to address corporate arrangements when federal taxable income on which the states rely is disconnected from profitability, perhaps most significantly a tax on global intangible low-taxed income. In this installment of Board Briefs, I asked State Tax Notes board members to weigh in on whether states should embrace GILTI.

Reflections On The Cross-Border Tax Challenges Of The Digital Economy, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In this article, Hellerstein discusses common problems confronting national and subnational jurisdictions in addressing the cross-border tax challenges of the digital economy. This article is based on the author's November 21 inaugural lecture as a visiting professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

The Oecd Unified Approach: Nexus, Scope, And Coexisting With Dsts, Assaf Harpaz

Scholarly Works

This article comments on the OECD Secretariat Proposal for a “Unified Approach” under Pillar One, released October 9, 2019. The article focuses on the proposal’s scope, nexus, administration and compliance, proposed “Amount C” and compatibility with unilateral digital service taxes. The article suggests a nexus that does not consider size-limiting worldwide revenue thresholds and offers an alternative de minimis country-specific sale-based proposal. Comments on the OECD proposal were submitted by the author as part of the OECD’s public consultation process in November 2019.

The Transformation Of The State Corporate Income Tax Into A Market-Based Levy, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

This article traces the developments which have transformed the state corporate income tax into a market-based levy and provides an overview of the current “state of play” regarding the apportionment of income for state corporate income tax purposes.

Taxes Falling Disproportionately On Nonresidents: Reflections On Saban, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

In this article, Hellerstein discusses the constitutionality of taxes that fall disproportionately on nonresidents.

There's A Problem With Buybacks, But It's Not What Senators Think, Daniel J. Hemel, Gregg D. Polsky

Scholarly Works

In a deeply divided Washington, one of the few issues on which leading lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear to agree is that corporations should be discouraged from buying back their stock from shareholders. This short article argues that, while this anti-buyback sentiment is misguided, there nevertheless are good tax policy arguments for reforming the tax treatment of buybacks. The article recommends adoption of a 1969 proposal made by Professor Marvin Chirelstein that would recharacterize (for tax purposes) buybacks as a pro rata cash dividend, followed by sales of shares from the shareholders who participate in the buyback …