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W(H)Ither Economic Substance?, Leandra Lederman
W(H)Ither Economic Substance?, Leandra Lederman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Transactions that claim inappropriate tax benefits are a perennial problem. When the IRS claims a transaction is abusive, courts generally examine whether the taxpayer had a business purpose and whether the transaction had economic substance (essentially a prospect of profit before taxes). This two-pronged "economic substance doctrine" developed from a series of Supreme Court cases.
Unfortunately, the economic substance doctrine provides a poor proxy for the real question, which was the focus of the early cases-whether the claimed tax results are consistent with Congress's intent. One important drawback of the shift from a focus on congressional intent to a focus …