Law Commons^™

The Taxation Of Cause-Related Marketing, Terri Lynn Helge

Terri L. Helge

With the economy in turmoil, charitable organizations are looking to nontraditional sources of financing to supplement contributions and fee-based revenues. One potentially lucrative source of revenue stems from cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing is the public association of a for-profit company with a charitable organization to promote the company's product or service in order to raise money for the charitable organization. Introduced almost twenty-five years ago, cause-related marketing has now become a $1 billion a year industry. Cause-related marketing has evolved beyond mere use of a charitable organization's name to an apparent union for the purpose of promoting products that carry …

Demystifying Irs Transcripts, Robert D. Probasco, Nikki Mccain, Ann Garza

Robert Probasco

No abstract provided.

Tax Court Find Stars Transaction Lacks Economic Substance, Robert D. Probasco, Lee S. Meyercord

Robert Probasco

In Bank of New York Mellon Corp. v. Commissioner, the Tax Court found that a structured trust advantaged repackaged securities (“STARS”) transaction entered into by BNY Mellon lacked economic substance, and disallowed foreign tax credits of $199 million as well as transactional expenses of $8 million. BNY Mellon is the first test case to emerge from the IRS’s attempts to disallow tax benefits to several financial institutions that participated in the STARS transaction.

The STARS transaction is one of a number of different transactions that the IRS refers to as “foreign tax credit generators.” These transactions generally rely on inconsistent …

Computing Interest On Overpayments And Underpayments: How Difficult Can It Be? Very!, Mary A. Mcnulty, David H. Boucher, Joseph M. Incorvaia, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

Taxpayers often assume that the difficult part of a tax dispute is resolving the tax liability and penalties, while interest computation is fairly straightforward. In the authors' experience, however, interest determinations are as subject to controversy and prone to error as tax liability determinations. The Article explores some of the areas that taxpayers should review carefully in the process of finalizing interest computations.

- Frequent Errors. The Article reviews twelve areas in which, even though the law is settled and the facts are usually clear, the Service's interest computations frequently include mistakes. Taxpayers need to be aware of these provisions, …

Much Uncertainty About Uncertain Tax Positions, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced in January 2010 a new initiative to require certain businesses to report “uncertain tax positions” on a new schedule filed with their annual tax returns. Draft schedules and instructions issued in April 2010 clarified some of the mechanical aspects of the new requirement but left many open issues and questions. The IRS proposal built on requirements by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes (“FIN 48”). The standard requires companies, in their financial statements, to reserve some of the benefits from any position taken …

Tefra-Partnership Refunds: Five Steps To Protect A Partner’S Rights, Mary A. Mcnulty, Robert D. Probasco, Carla C. Crapster

Robert Probasco

The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) established a unified procedure for determining the tax treatment of partnership items at the partnership level rather than the partner level. The TEFRA-partnership refund procedures differ from the refund claim procedures that apply to other taxpayers. For a TEFRA partnership, a refund claim is an administrative adjustment request (AAF) and a notice of deficiency is a notice of final partnership administrative adjustment (FPAA). Procedures for the assessment of additional tax attributable to partnership items have received much attention in recent years, but the procedures concerning refunds are complex and full …

Navigating Tefra Partnership Audits In Multi-Tiered Entity Structures, Mary A. Mcnulty, Robert D. Probasco, Lee S. Meyercord

Robert Probasco

The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) established a unified procedure for determining the tax treatment of partnership items at the partnership level rather than the partner level. Although these rules addressed a serious and real administrative problem in the assessment of partnership level deficiencies, they also created a complex process with many new problems and potential traps. One particularly unique set of challenges arises in the context of multi-tiered entities.

Multi-tiered entities are partnerships that have a partnership or other pass-through entity as a partner. The pass-through partner is commonly referred to as a “tier,” and …

Rejecting Charity: Why The Irs Denies Tax Exemption To 501(C)(3) Applicants, Terri Lynn Helge

Terri L. Helge

New charitable organizations generally must file an application for exemption (Form 1023) and await approval from the Internal Revenue Service. Unfortunately, the criteria the Internal Revenue Service uses to evaluate applications has not always been transparent. If an application is approved, the Internal Revenue Service determination letter and the application for exemption are required to be made publicly available and can be requested from the Internal Revenue Service or the organization itself. Prior to 2004, in the case of denials, neither the application nor the Internal Revenue Service’s correspondence setting forth its rationale for the denial were made publicly available. …

Advocating For Clients Whose Debts Were Assigned By The Irs To A Private Collection Agency, Michael Baillif, Robert D. Probasco, Miranda Rhyne

Robert Probasco

No abstract provided.

Entrenching Interests: State Supermajority Requirements To Raise Taxes, Max Minzner

Max Minzner

No abstract provided.

Beyond Polemics: Poverty, Taxes, And Noncompliance, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Michelle L. Drumbl

The earned income tax credit (EITC) is perhaps the most significant refundable credit in the U.S. tax system. Designed as an anti-poverty program, it is a social benefit administered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Studies show it has a positive impact upon the children whose families receive it. Despite its many positives, however, the EITC is a program that for years has been plagued by taxpayer noncompliance. Though it is believed that the majority of EITC noncompliance may be unintentional, public reports of misconduct and fraud hurt the program’s image and fuel political rhetoric.

This article unpacks the rhetoric. …

Charities And Lobbying: Institutional Rights In The Wake Of Citizens United, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

One of the many aftershocks of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC is that the decision may raise constitutional questions for the long-standing limits on speech by charities. There has been much scholarly attention both before and after that decision on the limit for election-related speech by charities, but much less attention has been paid to the relating lobbying speech limit. This article seeks to close that gap by exploring that latter limit and its continued viability in the wake of Citizens United. I conclude that while Citizens United by itself does not undermine the limit …

Politics At The Pulpit: Tax Benefits, Substantial Burdens, And Institutional Free Exercise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

More than fifty years ago, Congress enacted a prohibition against political campaign intervention for all charities, including churches and other houses of worship, as a condition for receiving tax deductible contributions. Yet the IRS has never taken a house of worship to court for alleged violation of the prohibition through political comments from the pulpit, presumably at least in part because of concerns about the constitutionality of doing so. This decision is surprising, because a careful review of Free Exercise Clause case law - both before and after the landmark Employment Division v. Smith decision - reveals that the prohibition …

The Much Maligned 527 And Institutional Choice, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

The continuing controversy over 527 organizations has led Congress to impose extensive disclosure requirements on these political organizations and to consider imposing extensive restrictions on their funding as well. The debate about what laws should govern these entities has, however, so far almost completely ignored the fact that such laws raise a complicated institutional choice question. This Article seeks to resolve that question by developing a new institutional choice framework to guide this and similar choices. The Article first explores the context for making this determination by describing the current laws governing 527s, including both federal election laws administered by …

Regulating Charities In The Twenty-First Century: An Institutional Choice Analysis, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Brendan M. Wilson

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

For more than fifty years scholars, practitioners, and government officials have debated whether the federal government, the state governments, or the charitable sector itself can best ensure that charity leaders fulfill their fiduciary duties. The dramatic growth of this sector, recent highly publicized governance scandals, and a push in Congress and the IRS for more federal involvement in this area have now brought this issue to a head. This article lays a foundation for resolving the dispute by developing an institutional choice framework for considering and comparing the various available options. Applying that framework, the article concludes that the best …

Charities And Lobbying: Institutional Rights In The Wake Of Citizens United, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

One of the many aftershocks of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC is that the decision may raise constitutional questions for the long-standing limits on speech by charities. There has been much scholarly attention both before and after that decision on the limit for election-related speech by charities, but much less attention has been paid to the relating lobbying speech limit. This article seeks to close that gap by exploring that latter limit and its continued viability in the wake of Citizens United. I conclude that while Citizens United by itself does not undermine the limit …

Grasping Smoke: Enforcing The Ban On Political Activity By Charities, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

The rule that charities are not allowed to intervene in political campaigns has now been in place for over fifty years. Despite uncertainty about the exact reasons for Congress' enactment of it, skepticism by some about its validity for both constitutional and public policy reasons, and continued confusion about its exact parameters, this rule has survived virtually unchanged for all of those years. Yet while overall noncompliance with the income tax laws has drawn significant scholarly attention, few scholars have focused on violations of this prohibition and the IRS' attempts to enforce it. This Article focuses on the elusive issue …

The Psychological Autopsy In Judicial Opinions Under Section 2035, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

Northwestern, O'Bannon And The Future: Cultivating A New Era For Taxing Qualified Scholarships, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze, Adam Epstein

Adam Epstein

Give Taxpayers A Break: Putting The Reliance Element Back Into The Reasonable Reliance And Good Faith Defense, Ronald Z. Domsky

Ronald Z. Domsky

No abstract provided.

Fogg Book Problems At The Irs In Attempting To Provide Service To Taxpayers Tax Notes March 14 2016 1335.Pdf, T. Keith Fogg, Leslie M. Book

T. Keith Fogg

Random Thoughts On Applying Judicial Doctrines To Interpret The Internal Revenue Code, Martin J. Mcmahon Jr.

Martin J. McMahon

From the symposium "Business Purpose, Economic Substance, and Corporate Tax Shelters" .

Should The Irs Never "Target" Taxpayers? An Examination Of The Irs Tea Party Affair, Philip Hackney

Philip T. Hackney

This article is part of a symposium held at Valparaiso University Law School entitled "Money in Politics: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

In 2013, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration faulted the Internal Revenue Service for the appearance of impartiality because it used names and policy positions such as “Tea Party” and conservative ideology to pick applications for tax-exempt status for greater scrutiny. The Inspector General's review came after members of Congress accused the Service of "targeting" conservative organizations. This Article finds the Inspector General's claim lacks a firm foundation. The use of names to select organizations …

Lloyd Mayer Was Quoted In The Facing South Article New Irs Rules On Dark Money Likely Won’T Be Ready Before 2016 Election On Jan. 5, 2015, Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the Facing South article New IRS rules on dark money likely won’t be ready before 2016 election on Jan. 5, 2015 If the IRS issues a proposal in late spring, it's possible new rules could be finalized before the 2016 election, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame who is an expert in nonprofit tax law.

Lloyd Mayer Was Quoted In The Huffington Post Article New Irs Rules On Dark Money Likely Won’T Be Ready Before 2016 Election On January 5, 2015, Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the Huffington Post article New IRS Rules On Dark Money Likely Won’t Be Ready Before 2016 Election on January 5. If the IRS issues a proposal in late spring, it's possible new rules could be finalized before the 2016 election, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame who is an expert in nonprofit tax law.

Charitable Deductions For Rail-Trail Conversions: Reconciling The Partial Interest Rule And The National Trails System Act, Scott Bowman, Danaya Wright

Danaya C. Wright

This Article examines an undeveloped legal topic at the intersection of tax law and real property law: charitable deductions from income tax liability for donations of railroad corridors that are to be converted into recreational trails. The very popular rails-to-trails program assists in the conversion of abandoned railroad corridors into hiking and biking trails. However, the legal questions surrounding the property rights of these corridors have been complex and highly litigated. In 1983, Congress amended the National Trails System Act to provide a mechanism for facilitating these conversions, a process called railbanking. In essence, a railroad transfers its real property …

Lloyd Mayer Quoted In Catholic News Agency Article "Catholic Answers’ Lawsuit Against Irs Unlikely To Succeed.", Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the article by Kevin J. Jones on October 25, 2011. However, the lawsuit’s success is “highly unlikely,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor. “Except under relatively rare circumstances, none of which exist here, successfully obtaining Supreme Court review is unlikely because the Court denies most requests for review,” Mayer told CNA on Oct. 24. “It is even more unlikely in this case because both the trial court and the appellate court - without dissent - found that the case was moot.”

Set Up For Abduction And Extortion By The Irs: Does The Reporting Of Interest Paid On U.S. Bank Deposits Undermine The Government’S Obligation To Avoid Instigating Terrorism By Foreign Criminal Gangs And Drug Cartels?, Darren Prum, Chad Marzen

Darren A. Prum

The Internal Revenue Service recently overturned 90 years of United States foreign and tax policy by finalizing and codifying its efforts to report interest income earned at domestic banks for accounts held by nonresident aliens. While the IRS felt its need to collect the data and revenue outweighs concerns raised against the proposal, the rule change has broad ramifications in the areas of tax, commerce, international policy and law, and the war against transnational criminal organizations and terrorism.

This article argues that the rule change has the potential to wreak havoc on a fragile economic recovery by leading to a …

Lloyd Mayer Was Quoted In Mother Jones Article "4 Reasons Obama's New Dark-Money Rules Won’T Stop Dark Money.", Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the Mother Jones article 4 Reasons Obama's New Dark-Money Rules Won’t Stop Dark Money by Andy Kroll on Dec. 4.

"Up to this point, the IRS enforcement has been relatively minimal," says Lloyd Mayer, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer Quoted In Propublica "The Irs Moves To Limit Dark Money – But Enforcement Still A Question", Lloyd Mayer

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Lloyd Mayer was quoted in the ProPublica article "The IRS Moves to Limit Dark Money – But Enforcement Still a Question" by Kim Barker. The proposed regulations “are only as good as the extent of compliance with them, which history would indicate requires a realistic threat of enforcement and significant sanctions on the groups involved and probably the individuals running those groups,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in nonprofits and campaign finance.