Law Commons^™

Efficiency And Income Taxes: The Rehabilitation Of Tax Incentives, Edward A. Zelinsky

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This Article explores two prominent issues in current legal literature: the propriety of tax incentives in the federal income tax and the use of economic analysis to examine questions of concern to academic lawyers. One premise of this Article is that there is a connection between these two topics.

The Federal Circuit's 1985 Tax Cases: The Exercise Of Equity, William S. Blatt

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No abstract provided.

Over The Back Fence: Tax Shelters And Other Sales Of Federal Income Tax Reductions, Thomas A. Robinson

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No abstract provided.

Disparate Tax Treatment Of Different Types Of Business Organizations: Where Should We Go From Here?, Douglas A. Kahn

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If several persons wish to join together in a common enterprise in order to pool their capital or labor or some of each, they may choose among a variety of available organizational structures that will serve that purpose. The most common entity forms are partnerships (including joint ventures), corporations, and trusts. While, in its typical structure, each of those entity forms has its own distinct characteristics, the structure of such organizations often is modified by agreement so as to adopt attributes of another type of entity. Because of this, the substantive distinction between entity types is blurred.

The Supreme Court's Misconstruction Of A Procedural Statute-A Critique Of The Court's Decision In Badaracco, Douglas A. Kahn

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When a taxpayer files an honest' federal income tax return for a taxable year, section 6501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code2 limits the period of time during which the Government can assess a tax for that year to a three-year period commencing with the date that the return was filed. The three-year limitations period is extended for an additional three years by section 6501(e)(1)(A) if the taxpayer's return omits properly includible gross income in an amount in excess of twenty-five percent of the gross income that was reported. If a taxpayer fails to file a return for a taxable year …

Tax Accrual Workpapers: Protected By A Limited Privilege?, Patricia D. White

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United States of America

v.

Arthur Young & Company and Amerada Hess Corporation

(Docket No. 82-687)

To be argued January 16, 1984

The Issuer's Paper: Property Or What? Zero Basis And Other Income Tax Mysteries, Elliott Manning

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No abstract provided.

Stock Redemptions: The Standards For Qualifying As A Purchase Under Section 302(B)., Douglas A. Kahn

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This Article discusses the requirements of section 302(b) for characterizing a stock redemption as a purchase rather than as a dividend equivalent. The focus is primarily on two issues: (1) whether the election authorized by section 302(c)(2) to waive family attribution rules should be available to an entity such as a trust or estate; and (2) the determination of the standards to be applied in resolving whether a redemption is "not essentially equivalent to a dividend" so that section 302(b)(1) is applicable.

Accelerated Depreciation Revisited—A Reply To Professor Blum, Douglas A. Kahn

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Professor Blum's comment addresses the proper or neutral tax treatment to be accorded three of the items discussed in my recent article on accelerated depreciation - namely, annuities, prepaid expenses, and exhaustible assets. Blum disputes my analysis in all three cases. While Blum's article is eminently readable, I do not believe that it refutes my earlier work to any extent. In this reply to Professor Blum, I will deal separately with each of the three items he examines. First, however, it is useful to consider the meaning of the term "tax neutrality" and to set forth my views as to …

Accelerated Depreciation—Tax Expenditure Or Proper Allowance For Measuring Net Income?, Douglas A. Kahn

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Since the 1950s, it has become fashionable to attack various provisions of the Internal Revenue Code by calling them "subsidies" rather than "proper" means of measuring taxable income. These "subsidies" through Code provisions have come to be referred to as "tax expenditures," a term coined by Professor Stanley Surrey in a speech he made as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy on November 15, 1967. In that speech, Professor Surrey stated that our tax system often deliberately departs "from accepted concepts of net income," so that by granting exemptions, deductions, and credits that are not appropriate to an …

Federal Taxation Of The Assignment Of Life Insurance, Douglas A. Kahn, Lawrence W. Waggoner

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The most litigated estate tax issue concerning life insurance is whether the proceeds should be included in the insured's gross estate. This question usually is governed by section 2042 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the estate tax provision directed specifically at life insurance. While the Tax Reform Act of 1976 wrought enormous changes in many areas of estate taxation, Congress did not change section 2042. Thus the several unresolved questions concerning the interpretation of that section remain unsettled. But the question of the includability of life insurance proceeds in the gross estate of the insured is not always …

Distributions In Kind And The Dividends Paid Deduction--Conflict In The Circuits, Dwight Drake

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The dividends paid deduction provided for in section 561 of the Internal Revenue Code is of vital importance to any corporation that is subject to the accumulated earnings tax or the personal holding company tax. Either of these taxes, if applicable, is imposed in addition to the federal income taxes otherwise payable by the corporation.

Since the accumulated earnings tax is substantial and the personal holding company tax is downright confiscatory, a corporation must do whatever is necessary legally to avoid paying these additional taxes. A corporation subject to either of the taxes generally can avoid them only by taking …

A Definition Of "Liabilities" In Code Sections 357 And 358(D), Douglas A. Kahn, Dale A. Oesterle

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Internal Revenue Code section 351(a) provides that no gain or loss shall be recognized if property is transferred to a corporation solely in exchange for its stock or securities and the transferors control the corporation immediately after the exchange. If, in addition to receiving stock or securities in an exchange that would otherwise qualify for section 351 treatment, a transferor receives other property or money -- "boot" -- any realized gain is recognized up to the amount of the money and the fair market value of the other property received. The transferee corporation's assumption of the transferor's liabilities or its …

Mandatory Buy-Out Agreements For Stock Of Closely Held Corporations, Douglas A. Kahn

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A buy-out of a shareholder's stock is a sale of his stock holdings in a specific corporation pursuatnt to a pre-existing contract. In recent years such arrangements have, deservedly, become an increasingly popular planning device for shareholders in closely held corporations; they make it possible to limit the class of potential shareholders, provide liquidity for the estate of a deceased shareholder, and establish a value for stock which has no active market. There are two popular categories of buy-out plans. If the prospective purchaser of a decedent's shares is the corporation that issued them, the plan is called an "entity …

The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler

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Seldom, if ever, in the history of the country has the Supreme Court been called upon within a comparatively short period of time to decide so many questions of widespread interest and vital importance as has been the case during the last year or two. Attempts on the part of the state and national governments to regulate and control corporations, which in recent years have come to exercise such a large and not always wholesome influence upon affairs generally, have been the occasion for the consideration by the court of many of the important cases recently presented. Among these are …

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Corporation Tax, Ralph W. Aigler

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During the special session of Congress held the past summer there was enacted as an amendment to the new Tariff Law what is generally known as the Federal Corporation Tax.1 At the time of its consideration in Congress and since its enactment there has been considerable discussion regarding the constitutionality of the measure, and no little doubt has been expressed as to its validity.

Principles That Should Govern In The Framing Of Tax Laws, Thomas M. Cooley

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The problem of suitable and justtaxation is one which is forever demanding solution, butnever solved. Adam Smith gave to the world certain rules which should governin taxation, the first of which was that "The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities - that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state." While most writers on political economy have been disposed to accept this as a sound and just rule, some have objected to it that it …