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Full-Text Articles in Law
Families For Tax Purposes: What About The Steps?, Wendy C. Gerzog
Families For Tax Purposes: What About The Steps?, Wendy C. Gerzog
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
At least 4.4 million families in the United States are blended ones that include stepchildren and stepparents. For tax purposes, these "steps" receive preferential treatment as a result of their status because, on the one hand, they are treated as family members for many income tax benefit sections, but on the other hand, are excluded from the definition of family member for business entity attribution purposes and for gift and estate tax anti-abuse provisions. In the interests of fairness and uniformity, steps should be treated as family members for all tax purposes where they act like their biological or adoptive …
Legal Strategies To Address Child Support Obligations For Nonresident Fathers In The Child Welfare System, Daniel L. Hatcher
Legal Strategies To Address Child Support Obligations For Nonresident Fathers In The Child Welfare System, Daniel L. Hatcher
All Faculty Scholarship
The legal and practical issues surrounding child support obligations have enormous impact on families in the child welfare system. Unfortunately, these issues are often ignored, overlooked, or misunderstood. A much-needed effort to engage nonresident fathers in the child welfare system is underway, but those efforts will often be derailed if child support is not properly addressed. This article sheds light on the legal and policy concerns regarding child support enforcement in child protection cases and provides legal strategies for advocates to address those concerns. While primarily aimed at advocates for nonresident fathers, this article should also benefit advocates for custodial …
Challenging Monohumanism: An Argument For Changing The Way We Think About Intercountry Adoption, Shani King
Challenging Monohumanism: An Argument For Changing The Way We Think About Intercountry Adoption, Shani King
Michigan Journal of International Law
In Part I, this Article provides a brief history of ICA. In Part II, using a post-colonialist theoretical framework, the work of legal scholars from the past twenty years on the subject of ICA is explored. This analysis exposes the centrality of MonoHumanism to our discourse on ICA. In Part III, this Article illustrates how our discourse regarding intercountry adoption contributes to our violating the rights of children (and families) as they are defined in the CRC. Lastly, in Part IV, this Article explores how this argument fits into the current and somewhat polarized debate on ICA and how the …
The Family Law Doctrine Of Equivalence, Amy L. Wax
The Family Law Doctrine Of Equivalence, Amy L. Wax
Michigan Law Review
Students of patent law learn the doctrine of equivalents. According to the doctrine, a patent protects an invention that does "the same work in substantially the same way, and accomplish[ es] substantially the same result," as the device described in the patent, even if it differs "'in name, form, or shape." In her new book, Nancy Polikoff has fashioned something like a parallel doctrine for families. Let's call it (with a slight play on words) the family law Doctrine of Equivalence. In today's world, according to Polikoff, a broad set of relationships now plays the same role as marriage and …