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Articles 1 - 30 of 57
Full-Text Articles in Law
A Constitutional Wealth Tax, Ari Glogower
A Constitutional Wealth Tax, Ari Glogower
Michigan Law Review
Policymakers and scholars are giving serious consideration to a federal wealth tax. Wealth taxation could address the harms from rising economic inequality, promote equality of social and economic opportunity, and raise the revenue needed to fund critical government programs. These reasons for taxing wealth may not matter, however, if a federal wealth tax is unconstitutional.
Scholars debate whether a tax on a wealth base (a “traditional wealth tax”) would be a “direct tax” subject to apportionment among the states by population. This Article argues, in contrast, that this possible constitutional restriction on a traditional wealth tax may not matter. If …
Tax Havens As Producers Of Corporate Law, William J. Moon
Tax Havens As Producers Of Corporate Law, William J. Moon
Michigan Law Review
A review of Christopher M. Bruner, Re-Imagining Offshore Finance: Market-Dominant Small Jurisdictions in a Globalizing Financial World.
Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra
Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra
Michigan Law Review
April 15 is a day that most Americans dread. That date is, of course, when federal and nearly all state-level individual income tax returns are due. Agonizing over the filing of income tax returns has long been a perennial part of modern American legal culture. Since the mid-1940s, when the United States first adopted a return-based mass income tax, the vast majority of Americans have been legally required to file an annual Form 1040. Over the years, taxpayers have been complaining about, procrastinating over, and generally loathing the filing of their annual tax returns. Indeed, in recent times, April 15 …
The Great American Tax Novel, Lawrence Zelenak
The Great American Tax Novel, Lawrence Zelenak
Michigan Law Review
David Foster Wallace-author of the celebrated novel Infinite Jest and among the most acclaimed American fiction writers of his generation-killed himself in 2008 at the age of forty-six. He left in his office hundreds of pages of The Pale King, an unfinished novel set in the fictional Peoria, Illinois regional examination center ("REC") of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS" or "the Service") in 1985. Although many chapters of the novel were seemingly complete, Wallace left no indication (other than what could be gleaned from the chapters themselves) of the order of the chapters (pp. vi-vii). Michael Pietsch, who had served …
The Theory And Practice Of Tax Reform, Lawrence Zelenak
The Theory And Practice Of Tax Reform, Lawrence Zelenak
Michigan Law Review
On January 7, 2005, President Bush-flush with recent electoral victory- issued an Executive Order creating the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The Order instructed the bipartisan Panel to recommend one or more plans for major reform of the federal income tax. The president did not, however, permit the Panel to begin its work on a blank slate. Instead, the Order required (among other things) that the Panel's proposals be revenue-neutral, simpler than current law, "appropriately progressive," and supportive of homeownership and charity. Although the Order contemplated that the Panel might offer more than one tax reform plan, it …
A New Understanding Of Tax, Edward J. Mccaffery
A New Understanding Of Tax, Edward J. Mccaffery
Michigan Law Review
Perhaps we should blame it all on Mill. A great deal and possibly all of the mind-numbing complexity of America's largest and least popular tax follows from the decision to have a progressive personal income tax. Proponents wanted an individual income tax notwithstanding - indeed, in large part because of - such a tax's "double taxation" of savings. This double-tax argument is an analytic point generally attributed to Mill's classic 1848 treatise, Principles of Political Economy. Historically, much of the support for the Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, came from Southern and Midwestern, progressive, agricultural interests, who wanted, in …
The Politics Of The Income Tax, Joseph Bankman
The Politics Of The Income Tax, Joseph Bankman
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Dimensions of Law in the Service of Order: Origins of the Federal Income Tax by Robert Stanley
Tax Avoidance And Income Measurement, Joshua D. Rosenberg
Tax Avoidance And Income Measurement, Joshua D. Rosenberg
Michigan Law Review
This article first will explain our system of "transaction taxation" and will further explore the problems caused by the transactional focus of our tax system. It then will consider the current judicial responses to these problems and examine their inadequacies. Finally, it will set forth and explore the alternative responses suggested above in more detail.
Is "Internal Consistency" Foolish?: Reflections On An Emerging Commerce Clause Restraint On State Taxation, Walter Hellerstein
Is "Internal Consistency" Foolish?: Reflections On An Emerging Commerce Clause Restraint On State Taxation, Walter Hellerstein
Michigan Law Review
Whatever role "internal consistency" may come to play in the Court's commerce clause jurisprudence, it has already emerged as a doctrine that warrants our attention. This article traces the development of the doctrine, explores its implications, and considers its defensibility as a limitation on state taxing power. The article suggests that the results the Court reaches under the "internal consistency" doctrine could be reached by rigorous application of a more familiar commerce clause principle - one to which the Court has been less than faithful.
What Has Happened To The Tax Legislative Process?, Pamela Brooks Gann
What Has Happened To The Tax Legislative Process?, Pamela Brooks Gann
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Showdown at Gucci Gulch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Alan S. Murray
The Rhetoric Of The Anti-Progressive Income Tax Movement: A Typical Male Reaction, Marjorie E. Kornhauser
The Rhetoric Of The Anti-Progressive Income Tax Movement: A Typical Male Reaction, Marjorie E. Kornhauser
Michigan Law Review
This article examines the arguments against progressivity and the supporting philosophic premises behind the mask of rhetoric. It neither treats exhaustively nor demolishes the legitimacy of the arguments or the underlying philosophy. Part I briefly summarizes the major arguments against progressivity. Part II examines the economic argument, its underlying assumptions, and its limitations. Part III examines the neoconservative philosophy which underlies the justification for a flat tax and contrasts it with an alternative feminist vision of people and society, which provides strong justification for progressive taxation.
Part IV concludes that there is a strong case for progressive taxation based not …
Dissenting Opinions By Supreme Court Justices In Federal Income Tax Controversies, Walter J. Blum
Dissenting Opinions By Supreme Court Justices In Federal Income Tax Controversies, Walter J. Blum
Michigan Law Review
What is to be learned from this review of the various analyses offered in dissenting tax opinions over the past five terms of the Supreme Court? When the Court has decisively interpreted narrow or technical language in the statute, dissenters all too often indulge in lengthy analyses that can only serve to create further confusion. Only when the Court focuses on a judicially made rule or an issue with constitutional implications is a broader dissent appropriate. If dissenters generally adhered to the guidelines set forth at the outset of this Article the tax world would, I believe, be at least …
The Supreme Court's Misconstruction Of A Procedural Statute--A Critique Of The Court's Decision In Badaracco, Douglas A. Kahn
The Supreme Court's Misconstruction Of A Procedural Statute--A Critique Of The Court's Decision In Badaracco, Douglas A. Kahn
Michigan Law Review
Before addressing the lessons to be derived from Badaracco, it is necessary to make good on the author's claim that it can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of a reasonably skeptical reader that the Court's decision was patently wrong and resulted from a poor technique of statutory construction. This is a heavy burden, especially since the decision was reached by an overwhelming majority of the Court and since two courts of appeals and at least one student law review note reached the same result. The reader must judge whether the author succeeds in satisfying it. This Article will first …
Purchaser's Depreciation Rights In Property Subject To A Lease, Michigan Law Review
Purchaser's Depreciation Rights In Property Subject To A Lease, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the purchase of property subject to a lease may produce several types of depreciable interests. Part I of the Note examines the requirements for depreciability and the role that depreciation plays in tax law. It concludes that even where the method set out by Congress also accommodates other goals, depreciation primarily provides a way to recover costs during a depreciable asset's income-producing life. Part II applies these principles to the task of determining whether improvements - for example, buildings on the property subject to the lease - are depreciable in the purchaser's hands. It concludes that …
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein
Michigan Law Review
The first part of this Article, State Income Taxation of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections on Mobil, Exxon, and H.R. 5076, did not contemplate a sequel. The Supreme Court's decisions last term in two state corporate income tax cases, however, created an irresistible opportunity to write one. The Court's opinions in ASARCO and Woolworth picked up where its opinions in Mobil and Exxon left off. Yet the direction taken by these more recent decisions veers sharply from the course ostensibly set by their predecessors. This Article will consider the Court's latest pronouncements in this area in a continuing if quixotic effort to …
Deducting The Cost Of Smoking Cessation Programs Under Internal Revenue Code Section 213, Michigan Law Review
Deducting The Cost Of Smoking Cessation Programs Under Internal Revenue Code Section 213, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that enrollment fees for a smoking cessation program should be classified as deductible medical expenses. Part I defends this conclusion without questioning the accepted interpretation of section 213(e). Recent medical evidence indicates that the nicotine addiction that cessation program patients seek to break is itself a disease. And even prior to the onset of more serious health consequences, sustained cigarette smoking significantly impairs the functioning of the lungs and heart. Under this analysis, enrollment fees should be deductible as expenses for the treatment of an existing disease or defect, and as "amounts paid . . . for …
Accrual Of Gambling Debts Under Internal Revenue Code Section 451, Michigan Law Review
Accrual Of Gambling Debts Under Internal Revenue Code Section 451, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines whether an accrual-basis taxpayer must include a legally unenforceable claim in taxable income when it is executed or satisfied. Section I of the Note interprets the "all events test" to require measurement of the likelihood of payment of a debt at the time it is executed: If payment is sufficiently certain, the debt must be accrued. The section concludes that the casinos must include the outstanding markers as income in the year of their execution, and cannot postpone their inclusion until the debts are repaid. Section II argues that accrual-method taxpayers are entitled to use a "bad …
Home Office Deductions: May A Taxpayer Have More Than One Principal Place Of Business?, Michigan Law Review
Home Office Deductions: May A Taxpayer Have More Than One Principal Place Of Business?, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that the Tax Court's more liberal interpretation is correct because it more nearly reflects Congress's intent. Part I seeks a basis for preferring one of the competing interpretations in the text of section 280A and in the section's legislative history, but finds none. Looking, of necessity, to the purposes that Congress sought to advance with section 280A, Part II argues that those purposes do not demand a restrictive reading of "principal place of business." Such a reading, moreover, would undermine fundamental and longstanding congressional tax policies. In the absence of a more explicit statement of congressional intent, …
The Decline And Fall Of Taxable Income, Glenn E. Coven
The Decline And Fall Of Taxable Income, Glenn E. Coven
Michigan Law Review
After first exploring the intellectual climate that has facilitated the congressional disregard of taxable income, this Article will examine three areas in which taxable income is no longer the exclusive mechanism for allocating the burden of taxation. That examination will outline the undesirable consequences of the decline of taxable income, and demonstrate that Congress need not have disregarded taxable income to secure the desired pattern of taxation. Because the use of multiple rate schedules constitutes the most significant deviation from the concept of taxable income in terms of the number of taxpayers that it affects and the popular resentment against …
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections On Mobil, Exxon, And H.R. 5076, Walter Hellerstein
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections On Mobil, Exxon, And H.R. 5076, Walter Hellerstein
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this Article is twofold: first, to analyze the Mobil and Exxon decisions; second, to consider the congressional reaction they may engender. Because the terrain that this Article covers may be unfamiliar to some readers, a few further words of introduction may be appropriate.
Taken together, the Mobil and Exxon decisions dealt with the three methods of dividing a multijurisdictional corporation's income among the states - specific allocation, separate accounting and apportionment by formula. Each method provides a different solution to the problem of determining the portion of the income of multistate businesses that should be taxable by …
Accelerated Depreciation: A Proper Allowance For Measuring Net Income?!!, Walter J. Blum
Accelerated Depreciation: A Proper Allowance For Measuring Net Income?!!, Walter J. Blum
Michigan Law Review
In a recent article in the Michigan Law Review, Douglas A. Kahn strives to demonstrate that, given the general postulates of the federal income tax, accelerated depreciation is a proper allowance for measuring net income and should not be classed as a tax expenditure. 1 His defense of accelerated depreciation is unusual if not novel, and his presentation is engaging. For anyone who shares my view that most tax expenditure stuff is mainly political rhetoric and who is sympathetic to my position that our tax system is far too harsh in taxing income from capital investments, a new plug for …
Tax Avoidance, Alan Gunn
Tax Avoidance, Alan Gunn
Michigan Law Review
This Article attempts an almost purely negative criticism. I contend that efforts to explain the results of tax cases not involving penalties by reference to "tax avoidance" are never satisfactory, whether the reference is meant to describe a taxpayer's state of mind or to justify a tax rule by invoking some "need to prevent tax avoidance." Because many tax problems are commonly discussed in terms of "tax avoidance" in one of these senses, and in order to avoid the impression that my arguments would leave the tax law in shambles, I shall suggest some alternative ways of dealing with these …
Carter's Projected "Zero-Based" Review Of The Internal Revenue Code: Is Our Tax Code To Be "Born Again"?, L. Hart Wright
Carter's Projected "Zero-Based" Review Of The Internal Revenue Code: Is Our Tax Code To Be "Born Again"?, L. Hart Wright
Michigan Law Review
The evolution of today's Internal Revenue Code, which began with the mere embryo that Congress created in 1913, has absorbed over the ensuing sixty-four years more creative energy on the part of more co-authors than any other law in history. Despite this unstinted expenditure of "blood, sweat, and tears," the resulting document--were it possessed of human senses--would recognize that, for a foreseeable period, its life will be anything but serene. The plight in which it would find itself could even be compared to that early morning scene observed one hundred years ago by General Custer, when hostile forces were massed …
The Judicial Public Policy Doctrine In Tax Litigation, Michigan Law Review
The Judicial Public Policy Doctrine In Tax Litigation, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note evaluates the merits of Revenue Ruling 74-323. First, it asserts that, while not arbitrary, the Service's resolution of the preemption issue was not mandated by the language of amended section 162 or by the relevant legislative history. Second, it maintains that it is both appropriate and procedurally feasible to apply the judicial public policy doctrine to violations of federal civil rights laws that impose no fine, imprisonment, loss of license, or other criminal penalty. The denial of a deduction in this situation would extend the public policy doctrine beyond both section 162(c)(2) and the judicial doctrine as it …
Some Reflections On The State Taxation Of A Nonresident's Personal Income, Walter Hellerstein
Some Reflections On The State Taxation Of A Nonresident's Personal Income, Walter Hellerstein
Michigan Law Review
My purpose here is fourfold: first, to inquire into the theoretical and constitutional underpinning of Vermont's taxing scheme against the background of the case that challenged the validity of the levy; second, to analyze the impact of related legislation on the principles upon which the basic Vermont formula was constructed; third, to determine whether there are reasons of law or policy why other states should not adopt schemes similar to Vermont's; and, fourth, to consider in light of the foregoing some of the recurring problems concerning the treatment of nonresidents under state income tax statutes.
Basic Corporate Taxation, Stefan F. Tucker
Basic Corporate Taxation, Stefan F. Tucker
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Basic Corporate Taxation, 2d Ed. by Douglas A. Kahn
Treatment Of Income Tax Refunds In Bankruptcy After Lines V. Frederick, Michigan Law Review
Treatment Of Income Tax Refunds In Bankruptcy After Lines V. Frederick, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Under section 70a(5) of the Bankruptcy Act, the bankruptcy trustee is entitled to take the debtor's interest in "property" that "prior to the filing of the petition [the debtor] could by any means have transferred or which might have been levied upon and sold under judicial process against him." The Act does not, however, specifically define the term "property," and, as a result, the Supreme Court has developed its own definition. No problem has been presented by money or assets held by the bankrupt at the time of filing; such items are uniformly considered to be property. Nor has a …
The Employee's Home Office Deduction: The Problem Of Duplicate Facilities, Michigan Law Review
The Employee's Home Office Deduction: The Problem Of Duplicate Facilities, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The Internal Revenue Code expressly and impliedly allows taxpayers to deduct many business-related expenses that also fill personal needs. However, the deductibility of home office expenses under the general provision for business expenses, section 162 of the Code, has been a frequent subject of litigation. Section 162 requires that the employee establish that the expenses were "ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business." Since it is well established that working for an employer is carrying on a trade or business within the statute, in order to secure a deduction …
Income Tax "Loopholes" And Political Rhetoric, Boris I. Bittker
Income Tax "Loopholes" And Political Rhetoric, Boris I. Bittker
Michigan Law Review
When used by newspaper reporters and politicians, the term "tax loophole" is always a pejorative, though the tone of disapproval may be mingled with a dash of admiration for the astute lawyer or accountant who discovered the device. Since condemnation is the predominant tone, it is always assumed that loopholes can be quickly and reliably distinguished from tax provisions that are reasonable and fair. Sometimes, to be sure, it is suggested that the only criterion is self-interest: one man's loophole is another man's relief provision. More frequently, loopholes are said to inure primarily, if not solely, to the benefit of …
Rhoades: Income Taxation Of Foreign Related Transactions, Alan G. Choate
Rhoades: Income Taxation Of Foreign Related Transactions, Alan G. Choate
Michigan Law Review
A Book Review of Income Taxation of Foreign Related Transactions by Rufus von Thülen Rhoades