Law Commons^™

The Income Tax, The Constitution, And The Unrealized Importance Of Helvering V. Griffiths, Lawrence Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in Moore v. United States, for the purpose of deciding whether the realization doctrine remains a constitutional limitation on Congress's ability to impose an unapportioned income tax, as the Court held in its famous 1920 decision in Eisner v. Macomber. Although it is natural to look to 1920 and Macomber as the cause of today's uncertain scope of the congressional power to tax income, what did not happen in the Court's 1943 decision in Helvering v. Griffiths is as significant as what did happen in 1920. the presence of Moore on the Court's docket …

Taxing Buybacks, Gregg Polsky, Daniel J. Hemel

Scholarly Works

A recent rise in the volume of corporate share repurchases has prompted calls for changes to the rules governing stock buybacks. These calls for reform are animated by concerns that buybacks enrich corporate executives at the expense of productive investment. This emerging antibuyback movement includes prominent politicians as well as academics and Republicans as well as Democrats. The primary focus of buyback critics has been on securities-law changes to deter repurchases, with only passing mention of potential tax-law solutions. This Article critically examines the policy arguments against buybacks and arrives at a mixed verdict. On the one hand, claims that …

The Standards The Court Uses To Determine The Priority Of A Party’S Entitlement To Dividends In A Bankruptcy Proceeding, Nally Ann Scaturro

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

Although the entitlement to receive dividends is not explicitly addressed in the United States Bankruptcy Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”), it is likely this right will be categorized as a security interest and thus be subordinated to creditors’ interests in a bankruptcy proceeding.

Creditors are entitled to be paid ahead of shareholders in the distribution of corporate assets. Furthermore, securities are subordinated to claims by creditors of the debtors. Presently, all interests not captured by the Bankruptcy Code are analyzed under the residual clause. This clause provides that unless the interest in dispute is explicitly excluded from the definition of …

The Spurious Allure Of Pass-Through Parity, Karen C. Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2017, Congress reduced tax rates on both corporate and noncorporate income. The drafters invoked the concept of pass-through parity to justify lower rates on noncorporate business income, resulting in a new and highly controversial deduction for pass-through owners under § 199A. The concept of pass-through parity conflates equitable treatment of different entity forms with equitable distribution of the ultimate tax burden among labor and capital. The flawed rationale for § 199A may be viewed as an attempt to preserve the pre-2017 preference for pass-through income; conceptually, the advantage of lower corporate rates is limited to the availability of a …

Long-Term Bias, Eric L. Talley, Michal Barzuza

Faculty Scholarship

An emerging consensus in certain legal, business, and scholarly communities maintains that corporate managers are pressured unduly into chasing short-term gains at the expense of superior long-term prospects. The forces inducing managerial myopia are easy to spot, typically embodied by activist hedge funds and Wall Street gadflies with outsized appetites for next quarter’s earnings. Warnings about the dangers of “short termism” have become so well established, in fact, that they are now driving changes to mainstream practice, as courts, regulators and practitioners fashion legal and transactional constraints designed to insulate firms and managers from the influence of investor short-termism. This …

U.S. Tax Reform: Considerations For Service Members [Notes], Kan Samuel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

There's A Problem With Buybacks, But It's Not What Senators Think, Daniel J. Hemel, Gregg D. Polsky

Scholarly Works

In a deeply divided Washington, one of the few issues on which leading lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear to agree is that corporations should be discouraged from buying back their stock from shareholders. This short article argues that, while this anti-buyback sentiment is misguided, there nevertheless are good tax policy arguments for reforming the tax treatment of buybacks. The article recommends adoption of a 1969 proposal made by Professor Marvin Chirelstein that would recharacterize (for tax purposes) buybacks as a pro rata cash dividend, followed by sales of shares from the shareholders who participate in the buyback …

Taxing Utopia, Samuel Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Nineteenth-century American religious movements challenged many aspects of American society. Although their challenges to mainstream America's vision of sex and marriage remain the best-known aspects of many of these groups, their challenges to traditional American economics are just as important. Eschewing individual ownership of property, many of these new Christian movements followed the New Testament model of a body of believers that held all property in common.

In the early twentieth century, these religious communal groups had to contend with something new: an income tax. Communalism did not fit into the individualistic economic system envisioned b-y the drafters of the …

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 …

The Responsible Corporation: Its Historical Roots And Continuing Promise, Larry D. Thompson

Scholarly Works

The article focuses on the on the history of American corporations from the colonization period and its impact on private corporations such as venture capitalism. Topics discussed include legal and sustainable approach to corporate responsibility, role of laws in shaping corporate duties and behavior and devastating effect of excessive dividend payments. It also discusses the cases in which courts refuse to interfere with management's long-term decision making.

Passthrough Entities: The Missing Element In Business Tax Reform, Karen C. Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

Reform of the U.S. corporate tax system is again on the agenda. Despite important differences, many current proposals share two common goals: (1) reducing the statutory corporate tax rate to improve U.S. “international competitiveness” and (2) broadening the corporate tax base by reducing or eliminating business expenditures to offset revenue losses. Given the significance of the passthrough sector and the relationship between individual and corporate taxes, however, such reforms need to be considered within a broader context. Part I of this article discusses the growing significance of the passthrough sector, which now accounts for roughly half of net business income. …

Retirees Beware: Don't Worry About The British, 'Taxmageddon' Is Coming, Douglas A. Kahn, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

"Taxmageddon" is coming. Unless Congress extends the current rates or reaches an agreement on tax reform, dividends will then be taxed as ordinary income at a marginal rate as high as 39.6 % and net capital gains will then be taxed at 20%. For high-income taxpayers, a 3.8% Medicare surtax will be added to the taxation of net capital gains, dividend income, interest, and other investment income, bringing the highest marginal rate to 43.4%.

Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On March 21, 2011, AT&T announced that it will buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. This transaction will be tax free to Deutsche Telekom (DT) not because it qualifies as a reorganization, but because DT is a foreign corporation and capital gains of nonresidents are generally not subject to U.S. taxation because they are deemed to be foreign source. Also, DT is protected from taxation by article 13(5) of the Germany-U.S. tax treaty, which provides that capital gains are generally taxable only by the country of residence.

The Case For Dividend Deduction, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Amir C. Chenchinski

Articles

The December 2010 compromise between President Barack Obama and the Republicans extended the 15% tax rate on dividends through the end of 2012. At that point, however, the rate may revert to the Clinton administration rate-39.6%-or be raised to 20%-as proposed by the Obama Administration. Thus, the United States may either abandon corporate-shareholder integration, maintain partial integration, or perhaps even adopt the George W Bush administration's 2003 proposal to exempt dividends altogether-as advocated by some Republicans in Congress. Given this uncertainty and the likelihood of additional Congressional action, now may be a good time to revisit the integration issue. Another …

The Redemption Puzzle, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

After the adoption of partial integration in 2003, there has been only a modest rise in dividends, but a sixfold increase in redemptions. This article argues that the explanation for that lies in the different treatment of dividends and capital gains to foreign shareholders and that Congress should respond by making sections 302 and 304 inapplicable to foreign shareholders.

Closing The International Tax Gap Via Cooperations, Not Competition, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Book Chapters

All three major goals of the Volcker task force — reducing tax evasion and loopholes, simplifying the code, and reducing corporate welfare — can be advanced by focusing on the international aspects of the tax gap. These aspects include both enforcement of existing U.S. law on U.S. residents earning income overseas (the evasion issue) and reforming deferral for U.S.-based multinational enterprises (the avoidance issue). To best advance the task force’s three goals, I would propose a change in each of these two major international areas.

Enforcing Dividend Withholding On Derivatives, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The United States imposes a 30 percent withholding tax on dividends paid to nonresident aliens. However, this tax is rarely paid by portfolio investors because they can swap into U.S. securities, receiving payments to match both capital gain and dividends. Treasury has ruled that swap payments have an origin in the taxpayer’s residence so there is no withholding obligation on payments that match dividends. The proposal would impose withholding tax on dividend equivalents on the ground that there is no policy justification for a distinction between dividends, substitute dividends under securities lending transaction (which are treated as dividends and are …

Is The Corporate Tax System "Broken"?, Karen C. Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

The slated expiration of the Bush Administration's tax cuts in 2010 highlights the instability of the current 15% rate on dividends and capital gains. Meanwhile, pressure has mounted to reduce U.S. corporate tax rates to improve competitiveness in an increasingly global economy. Much of the 1986 Act reform of the corporate tax-base-broadening combined with lower rates - has unraveled, leaving the U.S. with a high statutory corporate tax rate and narrow corporate tax base. Despite renewed interest in base-broadening and loophole-closing, the goal of corporate tax reform remains elusive. Thus far, proponents of corporate tax reform have largely sidestepped the …

Turning Slogans Into Tax Policy, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The article examines the Bush Administration's tax cutting agenda, focusing on recent attempts to repeal the estate tax and to eliminate the shareholder-level income tax on corporate dividends. In each of these two seemingly disparate episodes, the Administration used dubious economic claims and populist rhetoric to promote tax cuts without considering revenue costs or distributional effects. The legislative outcomes, however, were driven largely by budget constraints and interest group politics. In conclusion, the article suggests that the Administration's tax cutting agenda is best understood in terms of politics and ideology rather than conventional tax policy.

Comment On Yin, Reforming The Taxation Of Foreign Direct Investment By Us Taxpayers, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this excellent article, George Yin addresses an important proposal by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The Advisory Panel proposed that the United States should permanently switch from taxing the parent corporation of U.S. multinationals on worldwide income to a modified territorial regime under which dividends paid out of active business income would be exempt from U.S. tax.' The Joint Committee on Taxation made a similar recommendation.2

Dividend Policy Inside The Multinational Firm, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

This paper examines the determinants of profit repatriation policies for US multinational firms. Dividend repatriations are surprisingly persistent and resemble dividend payments to external shareholders. Tax considerations influence dividend repatriations, but not decisively, as differentially-taxed entities feature similar policies and some firms incur avoidable tax penalties. Parent companies requiring cash to fund domestic investments, or to pay dividends to common shareholders, draw on the resources of their foreign affiliates through repatriations. Incompletely controlled affiliates are more likely than others to make regular dividend payments and to trigger avoidable tax costs through repatriations. The results indicate that traditional corporate finance concerns …

The Internal Markets Of Multinational Firms, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

The rising economic importance of multinational firms has been accompanied by significant changes in their structure and functioning. Multinational firms, historically characterized as webs of autonomous subsidiaries spread across countries, now represent globally integrated production systems serving worldwide customers. These changes are manifest in the rising significance of intrafirm trade and financial flows for these firms. While there is extensive analysis of aggregate patterns in intrafirm flows of goods and capital, few firm-based studies examine the workings of the internal markets of multinational firms, largely because of the difficulty in accessing the necessary data. A number of our recent projects …

Dividend Taxation In Europe: When The Ecj Makes Tax Policy, Alvin C. Warren, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes a complex line of recent decisions in which the European Court of Justice has set forth its vision of a nondiscriminatory system for taxing corporate income distributed as dividends within the European Union. We begin by identifying the principal tax policy issues that arise in constructing a system for taxing cross-border dividends and then review the standard solutions found in national legislation and international tax treaties. Against that background, we examine in detail a dozen of the Court's decisions, half of which have been handed down since 2006. Our conclusion is that the ECJ is applying a …

The Pitfalls Of International Integration: A Comment On The Bush Proposal And Its Aftermath, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In January 2003, the Bush Administration proposed a new system for taxing corporate dividends, under which domestic shareholders in U.S. corporations would not be taxed on dividends they received, provided the corporation distributed these dividends out of after-tax earnings (the “Bush Proposal”). The Bush Proposal was introduced in Congress on February 27, 2003. Ultimately, however, Congress balked at enacting full-?edged dividend exemption. Instead, in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (“JGTRRA”) as enacted on May 28, 2003, a lower rate of 15% was adopted for dividends paid by domestic and certain foreign corporations,1 and the capital …

Ifa Branch Report: United States (Trends In Company / Shareholder Taxation: Single Or Double Taxation?), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Other Publications

United States IFA Branch Report on Trends in Company / Shareholder Taxation: Single or Double Taxation?

Back To The 1930s? The Shaky Case For Exempting Dividends, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This article is based in part on the author’s U.S. Branch Report for Subject I of the 2003 Annual Congress of the International Fiscal Association, to be held next year in Sydney, Australia (forthcoming in Cahiers de droit fiscal international, 2003). He would like to thank Emil Sunley for his helpful comments on that earlier version, and Steve Bank, Michael Barr, David Bradford, Michael Graetz, and David Hasen for comments on this version. Special thanks are due to Yoram Keinan for his meticulous work on the EU regimes (see Appendix). All errors are the author’s. In this report, Prof. Avi-Yonah …

Corporate Distributions To Shareholders In Delaware And In Israel, Anat Urman

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis considers the corporate legal systems of Israel and Delaware as they address the subject of corporate distributions to shareholders. The thesis reviews the significance of cash dividends and the acquisition by corporations of their own stock, in the management and survival of corporations, the effect they have on the disposition of creditors, and the extent to which they are restricted by operation of law. The thesis demonstrates how dividends and share repurchases may translate into a transfer of value from creditors to shareholders. It considers the effectiveness of the legal capital in securing creditors’ interest, and concludes that …

Section 902 Is Too Generous, George Mundstock

Articles

No abstract provided.

Should General Utilities Be Reinstated To Provide Partial Integration Of Corporate And Personal Income—Is Half A Loaf Better Than None?, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The General Utilities doctrine is the name given to the now largely defunct tax rule that a corporation does not recognize a gain or a loss on making a liquidating or nonliquidating distribution of an appreciated or depreciated asset to its shareholders. The roots of the doctrine, can be traced to a regulation promulgated in 1919 that denied realization of gain or loss to a corporation when making a liquidating distribution of an asset in kind. No regulatory provision existed which specified the extent to which realization would or would not be triggered by a nonliquidating distribution such as a …

Corporate Tax Changes In The 1986 Tax Reform Act, Richard E. May

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.