Law Commons^™

Stategraft, Bernadette Atuahene, Timothy Hodge

All Faculty Scholarship

Although sometimes difficult to detect, governmental power abuses can have detrimental impacts. Property tax assessments provide an effective lens to examine this phenomenon because, given the complexity of calculating property tax assessments, it is difficult for citizens to know when local government has exceeded its legitimate taxing authority and crossed into the realm of illegal extraction. Michigan is an ideal case study because it protects property owners by making assessment-related power abuses more visible through a unique state constitutional provision: property tax assessments cannot exceed 50 percent of a property’s market value. Abuses have persisted nevertheless. Between 2011 and 2015, …

An Empirical Study Of Modification And Termination Of Conservation Easements: What The Data Suggest About Appropriate Legal Rules, Gerald Korngold, Semida Munteanu, Lauren Smith

Articles & Chapters

The acquisition of conservation easements by nonprofit organizations (“NPOs”) over the past twenty-five years has revolutionized the preservation of American land. Recently, however, legislatures, courts, practitioners, and commentators have debated whether and how conservation easements should be modified and even terminated. The discussion has almost always been on a theoretical level without empirical grounding and has sometimes generated much heat but little light. The discussion has lacked the necessary empirical context to allow legislatures and courts to thoughtfully develop resolutions to these issues free from sloganeering and posturing.

This article provides and analyzes a previously uncollected dataset that offers guidance …

Death, Taxes, And Property (Rights): Nozick, Libertarianism, And The Estate Tax, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The primary purpose of this Article is to dispute the moral claims to post-death property rights made by libertarians when they argue against the estate tax. As I will show later in this Article, my argument does not necessarily entail enacting an estate tax, nor does it require a particular level of tax. I am merely trying to demonstrate that those who argue that the estate tax is an immoral violation of the private property rights of the deceased are mistaken. This is not to say that the estate of the deceased should necessarily pass to the government. It is …

Contribution Of A Built-In Loss To A Partnership, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Before 2004, it was possible to use the partnership tax provisions of the code to shift the benefit ofa loss deduction for a decline in property valuefrom the person who incurred it to another person.One method of accomplishing that goal involvedthe contribution of depreciated property to a partnership.

Gain From The Sale Of An Income Interest In A Trust, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

A tax doctrine that is related to the anticipatory assignment of income doctrine, but yet different from that doctrine is variously referred to as the "substitute for ordinary income doctrine" or the "anticipation of income doctrine." This latter doctrine arises on the sale of an item. The test often utilized to determine whether that latter doctrine applies is whether the sale of an item substantively represents the receipt of a substitute for future income - i.e., are the proceeds of the sale given "in lieu of" ordinary income that the seller would have otherwise received at a later date. The …

Immortal Fame: Publicity Rights, Taxation, And The Power Of Testation, Joshua C. Tate

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Publicity rights, or the rights to the use of one’s image and likeness, are a relatively recent form of property. Several states now recognize rights of publicity as survivable, meaning that the heirs of deceased celebrities can inherit those rights. Because U.S. law has traditionally granted each individual the power of testation, a celebrity can also freely devise the rights to persons of her choosing. Nevertheless, some scholars have recently envisioned the adoption of hypothetical state statutes under which publicity rights would pass automatically to specified statutory heirs regardless of the celebrity’s wishes. Destroying the power of testation, these scholars …

Determining The Character Of Section 357(C) Gain, Fred B. Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

Under section 351, a person transferring property to a controlled corporation generally recognizes no gain or loss on the transaction. An exception to tax-free treatment is contained in section 357(c), which generally provides that a transferor in a section 351 transaction recognizes gain to the extent that any liabilities assumed by the corporation on the transfer exceed the transferor's aggregate adjusted basis in the assets transferred. An issue under section 357(c) is whether the recognized gain should be capital gain or ordinary income. The statute suggests that the character of section 357(c) gain should be based on the character of …

Respect For Statutory Text Versus ‘Blithe Unconcern’: A Reply To Professor Coverdale, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

In Tufts v. Commissioner, the Supreme Court in 1983 had concluded that relief from a nonrecourse liability on disposition of property should be reflected in the seller's amount realized, even if the value of the property had dropped below the principal amount of the obligation. Professor Coverdale quite reasonably complained that the statutory definition of amount realized makes no mention of liabilities and that, not quite so reasonably, commentators had shown blithe unconcern about statutory language. A great fan of adhering to statutory language, the author nevertheless argues that interpreters must take into account judicial developments, in this case beginning …

Abandonments In Bankruptcy: Unifying Competing Tax And Bankruptcy Policies, Michelle A. Cecil

Faculty Publications

This Article attempts to resolve one such issue: the tax consequences of property abandonments by the bankruptcy trustee.

The Once And Future Property Tax: A Dialogue With My Younger Self, Edward A. Zelinsky

Faculty Articles

As I look back on my youth (expansively defined as the first 40 years of my life), everywhere I went, the local real property tax was perceived as both bad and doomed. If I could speak with the brash young law student/graduate student/alderman I once was, he would undoubtedly tell me, with great confidence, that by the beginning of the next century (which then seemed very far away) the property tax would no longer play a role in the system of local public finance.

Alas, he was wrong.

This essay explains why the young man I once was, confident of …

The Tax Court Revisits The Golsen Rule: Lardas V. Commissioner, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Section 752(C): The Other Issue In Tufts V. Commissioner, L. Scott Stafford

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

While the estate and gift tax area has by no means been ignored in the legal literature, it has not been one of the more popular subjects. For that reason, a symposium on transfer taxation would be welcome at any time, but this is an especially propitious moment for one to appear.

Remedies Of Illegal Taxation, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

Taxation is to a nation what the circulation of the blood is to he individual; absolutely essential to life. In ordinary times it is the chief burden which government imposes upon the people, and is likely, therefore, to be the greatest source of discontent. This renders it of the utmost importance that taxation should as nearly as possible be just, and also that it should appear to those who pay it to be just. Absolute justice, however, is unattainable.