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The Supreme Court's Casual Use Of The Assignment Of Income Doctrine, Brant J. Hellwig

Scholarly Articles

In early 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court answered a question that had been plaguing courts for years: whether plaintiffs should be taxed on the portion of contingent fee awards paid to their attorneys. The Court determined that they should. In this article, Professor Brant J. Hellwig focuses on the analysis employed by the Court to reach its conclusion in Commissioner v. Banks and the implications of that analysis for future cases. Although Professor Hellwig believes that the Court correctly ascertained the plaintiff's tax burden, he suggests that the Court's use of the assignment of income doctrine was both unnecessary to …