Law Commons^™

Accessible Reliable Tax Advice, Emily Cauble

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Unsophisticated taxpayers who lack financial resources are disadvantaged by a shortage of adequate tax advice. The IRS does not have the resources to answer all questions asked, and the IRS’s informal advice comes with no guarantee as to its accuracy and offers the taxpayer no protection when it is mistaken. Furthermore, non-IRS sources of advice have not sufficiently filled the void left by a lack of satisfactory IRS guidance. These biases against unsophisticated taxpayers have been noted by existing literature. This Article contributes to existing literature by proposing several novel reform measures to assist unsophisticated taxpayers.

First, with respect to …

Federal Fairness To State Taxpayers: Irrationality, Unfunded Mandates, And The "Salt" Deduction, Brian Galle

Michigan Law Review

By sheer dollars alone, the largest impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax is to deny many taxpayers the deduction for the taxes they paid to their state and local governments under § 164 of the Internal Revenue Code. This Article provides a fine-grained analysis of the overall fairness of the state-andlocal- tax deduction--and, by implication, the fairness of its partial repeal through the Alternative Minimum Tax. I offer for the first time a close examination of how newly understood limits on taxpayer mobility and rationality might affect individuals' choices of bundles of local taxes and localgovernment services, which in turn …

Taxation-Federal Income Tax-Limited Deductibility Of Entertainment Expenses, David W. Belin S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In the sophisticated commercial world of today there are many expenses that might be termed of a "mixed complexion," having elements of both a business and non-business character. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the area of entertainment expenses. Though one may assume that it should be the policy of the courts to allow full and fair deduction of business expenses in general, many difficulties arise regarding expenditures for entertainment purposes. In virtually all entertainment there is personal enjoyment of a social nature by the taxpayer as well as potential business value. Furthermore, what business value there is will …

Taxation-Federal Income Tax-Deductibility Of Contributions To Profit-Sharing Trusts, W. H. Bates S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff corporation set up a profit sharing trust for the benefit of its employees as authorized under section 165(a) of the Internal Revenue Code. The plan for the trust, as approved by the Treasury, provided that plaintiff should contribute annually an amount equal to 15 % of net income, as defined, not to exceed 15% of basic salary or wages of all eligible participating employees. For the tax year 1944 plaintiff claimed deductions under section 23(p)(1)(C) for an amount equal to 15% of the total participating payroll, which is actually the allowable maximum, but which in this case exceeded 15% …

Significant Developments In The Law Of Federal Taxation, 1941-1947: Ii, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The 1941 Revenue Act carried forward the rather complex normal tax structure prescribed by the 1940 Revenue Act and in addition introduced a corporate surtax rate schedule. The normal tax rates were increased to absorb the 10% defense tax previously imposed as a separate tax and also a very slight increase in the rates applicable to corporations with a normal-tax net income of less than $38,461.54. As so altered the normal tax amounted to 24% in the case of corporations having normal-tax net income over $38,461.54, and in the case of corporations having no more than this amount of normal-tax …

Federal Taxation Of Insurance Trusts, Allan F. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The life insurance trust may take many forms and serve a variety of purposes, but for present purposes it may be defined as a trust, at least part of the corpus of which is a policy of life insurance, in which the duty of the trustee is to receive the proceeds of such policy and administer such proceeds as a trust. Such a trust, like any other, may be revocable or irrevocable, and may be funded or unfunded. These various types will be considered separately only where the tax results vary with the type. The present objective is to survey …