Law Commons^™

Protective Claims For Refund: Protecting The Interests Of Taxpayers And The Irs, Kristy M. Bowden

Maine Law Review

The Internal Revenue Code provides taxpayers wishing to claim a refund of an overpayment of taxes with a simple, straightforward provision setting forth a taxpayer's right to make such a claim. Additionally, regulations exist that provide for the procedure to be followed in order to claim a refund, further clarifying what is expected of the taxpayer. Unfortunately, not all situations that give rise to the right to claim a refund are so straightforward and simple. Taxpayers may find themselves in a situation that seems to have very little direct connection with tax, but may nonetheless result in significant tax consequences. …

26 Usc Section 280e: Will The Dragon Now Be Slayed?, Bill Greenberg, Rebecca Greenberg

Journal of Law and Policy

26 USC § 280E of the Internal Revenue Code (“§ 280E”) prohibits the deduction of ordinary business expenses for businesses deemed by the federal government to be drug traffickers as defined by the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). The tax enactment is specifically designed to serve as a disincentive to socalled drug traffickers who might otherwise deduct “ordinary and necessary business expenses” from their taxes. However, this harms legitimate cannabis businesses by promoting unintended consequences, such as under-reported income. For three decades, there has been a patent incongruity between § 280E’s congressional purpose and the expansion of state-legalized cannabis businesses in …

A Progressive Case For A Universal Transaction Tax, Gary Chartier

Maine Law Review

Federal Reserve Board chair Alan Greenspan’s recent call for tax simplification and his acknowledgement of arguments for a consumption tax may help to place the question of such taxes, including a value-added tax (VAT), on the national political agenda. If the possibility of imposing a VAT does receive significant national attention, the debate it occasions will obviously, and appropriately, focus in part on a variety of technical questions. But normative questions will likely be at issue as well. A VAT is like a sales tax, but is applied at each stage in a product’s development and not merely when it …

Trump's "Big-League" Tax Reform: Assessing The Impact Of Corporate Tax Changes, Ryan J. Clements

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Article reviews and assesses corporate tax reforms advocated by President Donald Trump during his presidential campaign and signed into law since taking office (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017), in light of economic theory and the Modigliani-Miller Irrelevance Theorem. The Ar-ticle argues that companies will adapt polcies in light of new taxation mea-sures, thereby impacting the effectiveness of reform. In support of this conclusion, the Article surveys two empirical studies—one in relation to the repatriation efforts of President Bush’s Homeland Investment Act and an-other in relation to unexpected changes to the taxation of Canadian income trusts—to highlight …

Federal Tax Code Restrictions On Church Political Activity, Deirdre Dessingue Halloran, Kevin M. Kearney

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Taxation And Doing Business In Indian Country, Erik M. Jensen

Maine Law Review

Economic development on the lands of the American Indian nations has been spotty at best. Almost everyone knows the great success stories with Indian gaming, which has been furthered by federal legislation, but those economic benefits have not been felt uniformly. Some tribes have prospered because of this peculiarly favored form of enterprise; others have not and, in many cases, probably cannot. Substantial economic development in Indian country will not occur without significant infusions of outside capital, but investment by non-Indian and nongovernmental sources is risky, or is perceived to be so, which leads to the same practical result. This …

Is Anybody Home? The Relaxation Of The Residency Requirement For Claiming A Qualifying Child Under The Earned Income Tax Credit After Rowe V. Commissioner, Jennifer S. Hamel

Maine Law Review

Cynthia Rowe is currently serving a life sentence in prison for the shooting death of her brother-in-law. While she may have lost her criminal case, at least Rowe came away victorious in the recent Tax Court decision, Rowe v. Commissioner, in which she was awarded the earned income tax credit (EITC) over the objection of the Internal Revenue Service (Service or IRS). Unfortunately, her victory comes at the expense of sound legal analysis and public policy. Despite the efforts of Congress to ensure that the benefit of the EITC is given only to those who need it most by imposing …

Fdic/Cash Management, David F. Menz, Joseph E. Kane, Thomas Drought

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Creating Access To Tax Benefits: How Pro Bono Tax Professionals Can Help Low-Income Taxpayers Claim The Earned Income Tax Credit, Kate Leifeld

Maine Law Review

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is meant to help low-income, working taxpayers and their families by providing a refundable tax credit. In healthy economic times, the EITC is relied upon to pull low-income taxpayers and their children out of poverty. However, we are facing the toughest economic climate in decades. In September 2009, unemployment was reported to be at 9.7 percent. While the economic outlook has begun to show signs of improvement, the unemployment rate for February 2010 remained at 9.7 percent. Even when improvement starts, the turnaround will not be overnight. In this economic climate, the EITC becomes …

Pre-Enforcement Litigation Needed For Taxing Procedures, Stephanie Hunter Mcmahon

Washington Law Review

Courts have opened tax guidance to procedural attack. Consequently, taxpayers who are found to owe tax may challenge the validity of the guidance implementing the tax if the procedure used by the Treasury Department in adopting the guidance failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, in particular, with notice-and-comment. This increased willingness to consider tax guidance’s procedural defects offers little to most taxpayers unless they are also given a better means to raise procedural challenges. Under current law and in most circumstances, generally, taxpayers can bring a challenge only after they have been found to owe taxes in an …

Federal Tuition Tax Credits And The Establishment Clause: A Constitutional Analysis, David J. Young, Steven W. Tigges

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Tax Exemptions Of Private Schools - The Impact Of Internal Revenue Service Proposals On The Catholic School System, John S. Nolan, Miller And Chevalier, Washington, D.C.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Update On Unemployment Compensation, Thomas A. Rayer, Denechaud & Denechaud, New Orleans, Louisiana

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A Practical Solution To The Marriage Penalty, Margaret Ryznar

Pepperdine Law Review

In the federal income tax code, there is a marriage penalty resulting from tax brackets that do not double upon marriage. This marriage penalty persists despite universal condemnation of it, penalizing a significant portion of married women who work and many same-sex couples. This Article proposes a novel way to deal with this marriage penalty by creating a filing status for dual income couples that earn an amount within a particular percentage of each other. This filing status would be the same as the current married filing status, except it would double the rates of single filers by accommodating two …

A Diachronic Approach To Bob Jones: Religious Tax Exemptions After Obergefell, Samuel D. Brunson, David J. Herzig

Indiana Law Journal

In Bob Jones University v. United States, the Supreme Court held that an entity may lose its tax exemption if it violates a fundamental public policy, even where religious beliefs demand that violation. In that case, the Court held that racial discrimination violated fundamental public policy. Could the determination to exclude same-sex in-dividuals from marriage or attending a college also be considered a violation of fundamental public policy? There is uncertainty in the answer. In the re-cent Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage, the Court asserted that LGBT individuals are entitled to “equal dignity in the eyes of …

Federal Income Taxation, Robert Beard, Gregory S. Lucas

Mercer Law Review

In 2016, federal courts in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit handed down several notable opinions on federal tax issues. This Article surveys four of those opinions involving the collection of foreign taxes pursuant to a tax treaty, the characterization of income from the sale of real estate as capital gains, and self-employment taxes on deferred compensation.

U.S. Tax Forms For American Expatriates, Saqib Amin Cpa

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Cpa Exam Review

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Summaries For The 32nd Annual Tei-Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute, Saqib Amin, Silin Chen, Ophelia Ding, Veena Hemachandran, Elle San Pedro De Kornsand, Padmini Yalamarthi, Yu Zheng

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 6, No. 2 – Spring 2017

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter (Letter From The Editor, Masthead, Etc.)

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Country By Country Reporting Under Beps, Fenny Lei

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Bringing The U.S. Tax Court Exam Out Of Obscurity, Lucia Nasuti Smeal J.D., Tad D. Ransopher J.D.

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Taxing Marijuana: Earmarking Tax Revenue From Legalized Marijuana, Armikka R. Bryant

Georgia State University Law Review

This Article provides an overview of the legal, political, and societal landscapes in states that have legalized marijuana and imposed taxes on its sale. The article begins by summarizing the War on Drugs’ origins, its fiscal expenditures, and the social policies that ultimately led to its failure.

Part I briefly details the history of marijuana regulation starting from the early twentieth century up to the Obama administration’s decision to permit recreational marijuana laws to stand in Washington state and Colorado. Part II dives deeper into the social costs of the War on Drugs and outlines the hardships faced by those …

Statutory Interpretation Lessons Courtesy Of Pilgrim’S Pride, Philip G. Cohen

University of Miami Business Law Review

In Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. v. Commissioner, the Fifth Circuit reversed the Tax Court and held that the taxpayer was entitled to an ordinary loss deduction from its abandonment of securities. While the conclusion reached by the Fifth Circuit has been overshadowed by the promulgation of Treasury Regulation section 1.165-5(i) that effectively treats an abandoned security as worthless and thus characterizes the loss as capital, the case remains noteworthy because it provides an opportunity to examine the statutory interpretation of two distinct Internal Revenue Code sections, section 165(g)(1) and section 1234A. The article focuses on what methods of statutory construction …

Through The Lens Of Complex Systems Theory: Why Regulators Must Understand The Economy And Society As A Complex System, James M. Giudice

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nobody’S Stock Compares To Your Own: How Treasury Can Revive Stock Compensation In Cost-Sharing Agreements, Tyler Johnson

Northwestern University Law Review

In Altera Corp. v. Commissioner, the United States Tax Court invalidated a 2003 Treasury Regulation for failing to meet State Farm’s reasoned decisionmaking standard under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Invalidating this specific regulation eliminates one of the federal government’s latest attempts to limit income tax avoidance by some of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations in the murky world of transfer pricing. This Note demonstrates that the Tax Court’s ruling must be limited to its specific APA holding and argues that Treasury may enact a similar regulation under the existing statutory and regulatory framework of the arm’s length …

Utilitarianism And Wealth Transfer Taxation, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Arkansas Law Review

This article is the third in a series examining the continued relevance and philosophical legitimacy of the United States wealth transfer tax system from within a particular philosophical perspective. The article examines the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill and his philosophical progeny and distinguishes the philosophical approach of utilitarianism from contemporary welfare economics, primarily on the basis of the concept of “utility” in each approach. After explicating the utilitarian criteria for ethical action, the article goes on to think through what Mill’s utilitarianism says about the taxation of wealth and wealth transfers, the United States federal wealth transfer tax system …

Tax Cannibalization And Fiscal Federalism In The United States, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Northwestern University Law Review

We began this project pondering a riddle. Most state governments have adopted what we—and many others—view as clearly suboptimal tax policies, especially in regard to the taxation of corporate income and capital gains. Yet, with the notable exception of those who oppose progressivity and the taxation of capital, state-level tax policymakers have had remarkably little appetite for reform. This Article provides one major explanation for this riddle by identifying and demonstrating a phenomenon that we label as “tax cannibalization.” We argue that flawed state-level tax policies derive in part from perverse incentives inadvertently created by the federal government.

Finding The Pearl In The Oyster: Supercharging Ipos Through Tax Receivable Agreements, Christopher B. Grady

Northwestern University Law Review

A new, “supercharged” form of IPO has slowly developed over the last twenty years. This new form of IPO takes advantage of several seemingly unrelated provisions of the tax code to multiply pre-IPO owners’ proceeds from a public offering without reducing the amount public investors are willing to pay for the stock. Supercharged IPOs use a tax receivable agreement to transfer tax assets created by the IPO back to the pre-IPO ownership, “monetizing” the tax assets. As these structures have become more efficient, commentators have expressed concerns that these agreements deceive shareholders who either ignore or do not understand the …