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Articles 1 - 30 of 80
Full-Text Articles in Law
Transaction-Specific Tax Reform In Three Steps: The Case Of Constructive Ownership, Thomas J. Brennan, David M. Schizer
Transaction-Specific Tax Reform In Three Steps: The Case Of Constructive Ownership, Thomas J. Brennan, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
Similar investments are often taxed differently, rendering our system less efficient and fair. In principle, fundamental reforms could solve this problem, but they face familiar obstacles. So instead of major surgery, Congress usually responds with a Band-Aid, denying favorable treatment to some transactions, while preserving it for others. These loophole-plugging rules have become a staple of tax reform in recent years. But unfortunately, they often are ineffective or even counterproductive. How can Congress do better? As a case study, we analyze Section 1260, which targets a tax-advantaged way to invest in hedge funds. This analysis is especially timely because a …
Moore V. United States, Brief For The American Tax Policy Institute As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Lawrence M. Hill, Stephen B. Land, David M. Schizer, Philip Wagman
Moore V. United States, Brief For The American Tax Policy Institute As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Lawrence M. Hill, Stephen B. Land, David M. Schizer, Philip Wagman
Faculty Scholarship
Petitioners’ case is not about realization, notwithstanding their claim that it “squarely and cleanly” raises that issue. The income taxed by the mandatory repatriation tax (MRT) was, in fact, realized by an Indian limited liability company (KisanKraft) while petitioners owned a stake in it. So the question here is not whether there was realized income, but who can be taxed on it. The Court has long recognized the constitutional power of Congress to tax the owners of an entity on income realized by that entity. Just as Congress has the power to tax a partner on the income earned by …
A Major Simplification Of The Oecd’S Pillar 1 Proposal, Michael J. Graetz
A Major Simplification Of The Oecd’S Pillar 1 Proposal, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
In this report, Graetz suggests major modifications to the OECD’s pillar 1 blueprint proposal to create a new taxing right for multinational digital income and some product sales that would greatly simplify the proposal. The modifications rely on readily available existing financial information and would achieve certainty in the application of pillar 1, while adhering to its fundamental structure and policies.
Enhancing Efficiency At Nonprofits With Analysis And Disclosure, David M. Schizer
Enhancing Efficiency At Nonprofits With Analysis And Disclosure, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. nonprofit sector spends $2.54 trillion each year. If the sector were a country, it would have the eighth largest economy in the world, ahead of Brazil, Italy, Canada, and Russia. The government provides nonprofits with billions in tax subsidies, but instead of evaluating the quality of their work, it leaves this responsibility to nonprofit managers, boards, and donors. The best nonprofits are laboratories of innovation, but unfortunately some are stagnant backwaters, which waste money on out-of-date missions and inefficient programs. To promote more innovation and less stagnation, this Article makes two contributions to the literature.
First, this Article …
Symposium: The Future Of The New International Tax Regime, Rosanne Altshuler, Fadi Shaheen, Jeffrey Colon, Michael Graetz, Rebecca Kysar, Susan Morse, Daniel Shaviro, Richard Phillips, Daniel Rolfes, Daniel Rosenbloom, Stephen Shay, Steven Dean
Symposium: The Future Of The New International Tax Regime, Rosanne Altshuler, Fadi Shaheen, Jeffrey Colon, Michael Graetz, Rebecca Kysar, Susan Morse, Daniel Shaviro, Richard Phillips, Daniel Rolfes, Daniel Rosenbloom, Stephen Shay, Steven Dean
Faculty Scholarship
The symposium was held at Fordham University School of Law on October 26, 2018. It has been edited to remove minor cadences of speech that appear awkward in writing and to provide sources and references to other explanatory materials in respect to certain statements made by the speakers.
Charitable Subsidies And Nonprofit Governance: Comparing The Charitable Deduction With The Exemption For Endowment Income, David M. Schizer
Charitable Subsidies And Nonprofit Governance: Comparing The Charitable Deduction With The Exemption For Endowment Income, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
Charitable subsidies are supposed to encourage positive externalities from charity. In principle, the government can pursue this goal by evaluating specific charitable initiatives and deciding how much each should receive. Although the government sometimes makes this sort of fine-grained judgment, this Article focuses on two income tax rules that leave the government essentially no discretion about which charities to fund: the deduction for donations to charity ("the deduction") and the exemption of a charity's investment income ("the exemption"). With each subsidy, federal dollars flow automatically as long as charities satisfy very general criteria.
As a result, these subsidies are especially …
Foreword – The 2017 Tax Cuts: How Polarized Politics Produced Precarious Policy, Michael J. Graetz
Foreword – The 2017 Tax Cuts: How Polarized Politics Produced Precarious Policy, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
By lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, the 2017 tax legislation brought the U.S. statutory rate into closer alignment with the rates applicable in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, thereby decreasing the incentive for businesses to locate their deductions in the United States and their income abroad. Its overhaul of the U.S. international income tax rules simultaneously reduced preexisting incentives for U.S. multinationals to reinvest their foreign earnings abroad and put a floor on the benefits of shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. The 2017 legislation also added an unprecedented, troublesome lower rate for …
Border Adjustments And The Conservation Of Tax Planning, David M. Schizer
Border Adjustments And The Conservation Of Tax Planning, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
This article is based on Schizer’s keynote address at the 17th annual NYU-KPMG Tax Symposium on March 10.
In this article, Schizer argues that U.S. corporate and shareholder taxes need to be reformed, and the corporate rate should be much lower. In reforming this dysfunctional regime, according to Schizer, Congress should keep both of these taxes as a form of built-in redundancy; if one tax is avoided, the other can still be collected. More generally, Congress should be wary of Utopian solutions. Tax reform is more likely to change tax planning than to eliminate it entirely, Schizer concludes. For instance, …
The Known Unknowns Of The Business Tax Reforms Proposed In The House Republican Blueprint, Michael J. Graetz
The Known Unknowns Of The Business Tax Reforms Proposed In The House Republican Blueprint, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
In 2002, referring to Iraq and its relationship to terrorism, Donald Rumsfeld declared "that there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. We also know that there are known-unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things that we do not know, but there are also unknown-unknowns – the ones that we don't know we don't know."
A Guide To The Guide To The Republican Better Way Plan, Alex Raskolnikov
A Guide To The Guide To The Republican Better Way Plan, Alex Raskolnikov
Faculty Scholarship
This special Issue of the Columbia Journal of Tax Law is bound to have both an immediate impact and a lasting significance. The immediate impact is assured because the sole focus of this Issue is the tax plan proposed by the Congressional Republicans as part of their broad reform agenda called A Better Way: Our Vision For A Confident America. As this Issue goes to print, the Better Way Plan (or the Plan for short) is being debated in the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the press, in academic circles, think tanks, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and …
Heading Off A Cliff? The Tax Reform Man Cometh, And Goeth, Michael J. Graetz
Heading Off A Cliff? The Tax Reform Man Cometh, And Goeth, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
The major tax policy challenge of the 21st century is the need to address the nation’s fiscal condition fairly and in a manner conducive to economic growth. But since California adopted Proposition 13 nearly forty years ago, antipathy to taxes has served as the glue that has held the Republican coalition together. Even though our taxes as a percentage of our economy are low by OECD standards and low by our own historical experience, anti-tax attitudes have become even more important for Republicans politically, since they now find it hard to agree on almost anything else. So revenue-positive, or even …
Energy Subsidies: Worthy Goals, Competing Priorities, And Flawed Institutional Design, David M. Schizer
Energy Subsidies: Worthy Goals, Competing Priorities, And Flawed Institutional Design, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
The United States uses on targeted subsidies for both "green" energy and hydrocarbons. These subsidies pursue worthwhile goals. But unfortunately, many have design flaws that make them less effective or even counterproductive. The goal of this Article is to show how to do better.
Specifically, this Article focuses on three sets of issues. First, there often is tension between our environmental and national security goals. Unfortunately, the economics literature on energy largely ignores these trade-offs by omitting national security from the analysis. This Article takes issue with this approach and suggests ways to manage these trade-offs. Second, this Article argues …
Follow The Money: Essays On International Taxation – Introduction, Michael J. Graetz
Follow The Money: Essays On International Taxation – Introduction, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
Publicity about tax avoidance techniques of multinational corporations and wealthy individuals has moved discussion of international income taxation from the backrooms of law and accounting firms to the front pages of news organizations around the world. In the words of a top Australian tax official, international tax law has now become a topic of barbeque conversations. Public anger has, in turn, brought previously arcane issues of international taxation onto the agenda of heads of government around the world.
Despite all the attention, however, issues of international income taxation are often not well understood. This Introduction outlines a collection of essays, …
Six Degrees Of Graduation: Law And Economics Of Variable Sanctions, Alex Raskolnikov
Six Degrees Of Graduation: Law And Economics Of Variable Sanctions, Alex Raskolnikov
Faculty Scholarship
From parking tickets to tax fines and punitive damages, legal sanctions matter in people's lives. Yet neither the legal nor the economics literature offers a comprehensive treatment of sanctions. Their practical complexity is not well understood, and their theoretical analysis is fragmented. This Essay addresses both limitations using tax law as a primary example. Sanctions are complex because they vary along at least six different dimensions: aggressiveness, magnitude, culpability, effort to comply, likelihood of detection, and offense history. These six degrees of sanction graduation are distinct, and potentially independent, but often intertwined in obscure and perplexing ways. After clarifying the …
"Death Tax" Politics, Michael J. Graetz
"Death Tax" Politics, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
In his Keynote Address "Death Tax" Politics at the October 2, 2015 Boston College Law School and American College of Trust and Estate Counsel Symposium, The Centennial of the Estate and Gift Tax: Perspectives and Recommendations, Michael Graetz describes the fight over the repeal of the estate tax and its current diminished state. Graetz argues that the political battle over the repeal of the estate tax reflects a fundamental challenge to our nation's progressive tax system. This Address concludes that a revitalized estate tax is important for managing the national debt and reducing massive inequalities in wealth.
Bringing International Tax Policy Into The 21st Century, Michael J. Graetz
Bringing International Tax Policy Into The 21st Century, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
Michael J. Graetz delivered the following remarks at the Tax Policy Center's "A Corporate Tax for the 21st Century" conference on July 14 in Washington. These remarks are substantially taken from his April 2015 Ross Parsons Lecture at the University of Sydney Law School.
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Taxing Corporations Or Shareholders (Or Both), David M. Schizer
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Taxing Corporations Or Shareholders (Or Both), David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
The United States taxes both corporations and shareholders on corporate profits. In principle, the United States could rely on only one of these taxes, as many commentators have suggested. Although choosing to tax the corporation or its owners may seem like taking money from one pocket or the other, this Essay emphasizes a key difference: These taxes prompt different planning. Relying on one or the other mitigates some distortions and leaks, while exacerbating others. As a result, choosing which to impose is like navigating between Scylla and Charybdis.
In response, this Essay recommends using both taxes for three reasons. First, …
Integration Of Corporate And Shareholder Taxes, Michael J. Graetz, Alvin C. Warren
Integration Of Corporate And Shareholder Taxes, Michael J. Graetz, Alvin C. Warren
Faculty Scholarship
Integration of the corporate and individual income taxes can be achieved by providing shareholders a credit for corporate taxes paid with respect to corporate earnings distributed as dividends. When such integration was previously considered in the U.S., proponents emphasized that it could reduce or eliminate many of the familiar distortions of a classical corporate income tax. Integration would also provide a framework for addressing current concerns for tax incentives for U.S. companies to shift income to foreign affiliates in lower-taxed countries or to expatriate in "inversion" transactions. A recent Congressional proposal for a corporate dividend deduction coupled with withholding on …
Corporate Inversions And The Unbundling Of Regulatory Competition, Eric L. Talley
Corporate Inversions And The Unbundling Of Regulatory Competition, Eric L. Talley
Faculty Scholarship
Several prominent public corporations have recently embraced a noteworthy (and newsworthy) type of transaction known as a "tax inversion." In a typical inversion, a U.S. multinational corporation ("MNC") merges with a foreign company. The entity that ultimately emerges from this transactional cocoon is invariably incorporated abroad, yet typically remains listed in U.S. securities markets under the erstwhile domestic issuer's name. When structured to satisfy applicable tax requirements, corporate inversions permit domestic MNCs eventually to replace U.S. with foreign tax treatment of their extraterritorial earnings – ostensibly at far lower effective rates.
Most regulators and politicians have reacted to the inversion …
Limiting Tax Expenditures, David M. Schizer
Limiting Tax Expenditures, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
The federal government devotes over a trillion dollars each year to tax provisions that pursue "nontax" goals, such as the deduction for mortgage interest and the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance. Scaling back these "tax expenditures" should be a high priority, as many have urged. Yet too often, the same limit is suggested for a broad range of tax expenditures. In the 2013 budget deal, for instance, Congress revived a single limit on all itemized deductions called the "Pease rule." In 2012, both presidential candidates proposed their own one-size-fits-all limit. In the same year, the United Kingdom imposed a single …
The Tax Reform Road Not Taken – Yet, Michael J. Graetz
The Tax Reform Road Not Taken – Yet, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
The United States has traveled a unique tax policy path, avoiding value added taxes (VATs), which have now been adopted by every OECD country and 160 countries worldwide. Moreover, many U.S. consumption tax advocates have insisted on direct personalized taxes that are unlike taxes used anywhere in the world. This article details a tax reform plan that uses revenues from a VAT to substantially reduce and reform our nation’s tax system. The plan would (1) enact a destination-based VAT; (2) use the revenue produced by this VAT to finance an income tax exemption of $100,000 of family income and to …
I Like To Pay Taxes: Taxpayer Support For Government Spending And The Efficiency Of The Tax System, Yair Listokin, David M. Schizer
I Like To Pay Taxes: Taxpayer Support For Government Spending And The Efficiency Of The Tax System, Yair Listokin, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
Why do people pay taxes? The simplest answer is that they have a legal obligation to do so. But it has long been recognized that this legal obligation alone provides an inadequate explanation for taxpaying behavior, just as legal obligations generally offer an inadequate explanation for most law-abiding activity.Another answer, then, is that some people pay taxes because – like Oliver Wendell Holmes – they like to do so. In other words, they appreciate that the government provides a vast array of public goods, such as rule of law, roads, schools, and aid to the poor, and find satisfaction in …
Technological Innovation, International Competition, And The Challenges Of International Income Taxation, Michael J. Graetz, Rachael Doud
Technological Innovation, International Competition, And The Challenges Of International Income Taxation, Michael J. Graetz, Rachael Doud
Faculty Scholarship
Because of the importance of technological innovation to economic growth, nations strive to stimulate and attract the research and development ("R&D") that leads to that innovation and to make themselves hospitable environments for the holding of intellectual property ("IP"). Tax policies have taken center stage in their efforts to accomplish these goals and to capture a share of the income from technological innovations.
Designing cost-effective methods of supporting technological innovations has, however, become substantially more difficult as the world economy has become more interconnected. Where R&D is performed and where income is earned change in response to the nature and …
Accepting The Limits Of Tax Law And Economics, Alex Raskolnikov
Accepting The Limits Of Tax Law And Economics, Alex Raskolnikov
Faculty Scholarship
This Article explores the limits of tax law and economics, attributing them to the unique complexity of the tax optimization problem. Designers of the optimal tax system must account for the impossibility of deterring socially undesirable behavior, provide for redistribution, and minimize social costs on the basis of assumptions that are laden with deeply contested value judgments, pervasive empirical uncertainty, or both. Given these challenges, it is hardly surprising that economic theory has a much weaker connection to the content of our tax laws and their enforcement than it does to the content and enforcement of many other legal regimes. …
Tax Advice For The Second Obama Administration, Michael J. Graetz
Tax Advice For The Second Obama Administration, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
Delivered January 18, 2013 as the keynote address at a conference cosponsored by Pepperdine Law School and Tax Analysts.
Updating The Competitive Tax Plan: A New Epilogue For 100 Million Unnecessary Returns, Michael J. Graetz
Updating The Competitive Tax Plan: A New Epilogue For 100 Million Unnecessary Returns, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
This is the first step of a new epilogue for my book 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States. In January 2012, the Tax Policy Center (TPC), pursuant to a grant from Pew Charitable Trust, published an article analyzing and estimating the parameters of the tax plan set forth in this book. TPC has now updated its estimates to take into account the January 2013 “fiscal cliff” legislation and other economic changes. Certain details of the plan have also been revised somewhat.
The competitive tax reform plan has five pieces: First, enact …
Reforming Derivative Taxation, Alex Raskolnikov
Reforming Derivative Taxation, Alex Raskolnikov
Faculty Scholarship
This brief essay outlines three benchmarks for evaluating alternative ways of taxing capital income, summarizes anticipatory, retroactive, and accrual-based proposals for reforming the taxation of derivatives, and offers guidelines for evaluating more limited reforms. It is intended as an introduction to key concepts, tensions, and ideas for reforming the taxation of financial instruments.
Fiscal Policy In An Era Of Austerity, David M. Schizer
Fiscal Policy In An Era Of Austerity, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
We face a time of stagnant economic growth, severe unemployment, massive budget deficits, and an increasingly competitive global economy. These daunting challenges are the legacy of a number of unwise policy decisions in both the public and private sectors. Although the good news is that unsound policies can be changed, the bad news is that no single step will do the trick. It is a challenge to rely on monetary policy when interest rates are near zero. There also is uncertainty – and a heated debate among economists – about the effectiveness of a Keynesian stimulus. One thing we know …
Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design, Gillian Lester
Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design, Gillian Lester
Faculty Scholarship
How does one win popular support for laws designed specifically to redistribute economic wealth? One can hardly gainsay that this is a – perhaps the – defining issue for domestic policy in the age of President Obama. Even as the recent financial crisis has exposed the need for a reliable social safety net, attempts to respond through the political and legislative arenas have triggered increasingly hostile responses among conservatives, populists, Massachusetts voters, and incipient tea partiers. The puzzle of how to attract and preserve public support for law reform aimed at redistribution – of both income and risk – is …
Taxation Of Financial Products: Options For Fundamental Reform, Alex Raskolnikov
Taxation Of Financial Products: Options For Fundamental Reform, Alex Raskolnikov
Faculty Scholarship
The following is testimony to the joint hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance. The testimony discusses three benchmarks for evaluating the taxation of capital income in general and financial instruments in particular, summarizes three broad-based approaches to reforming the tax treatment of financial products, evaluates the impact of other fundamental reforms on the urgency of reforming the taxation of derivatives, and urges Congress to encourage the IRS to make detailed tax return data available for empirical research of revenue costs and other losses arising from derivatives-based tax planning.