Law Commons^™

Inheriting Inequality: Wealth, Race, And The Laws Of Succession, Palma Joy Strand

palma joy strand

The article begins by documenting deep inequality in the form of Black-White wealth disparities: While the overall wealth distribution in the United States is highly unequal from both historical and international perspectives, racial wealth disparities are particularly acute, with median Black net worth approximately a tenth of median White net worth (as compared to median Black income that is approximately two-thirds of median White income). Next, the article ties the perpetuation of this inequality to current inheritance law. It then confronts this inequality as a civil rights issue in terms of its social effects, its historical causes, and legal avenues …

Carden V. Aetna Life Insurance Co, Clark H. C. Lacy

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Helping Nonprofits Police Themselves: What Trust Law Can Teach Us About Conflicts Of Interest, Melanie B. Leslie

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Fiduciary duty law seeks to minimize agency costs that occur when the interests of the agent and principal diverge. That law is context specific: the substance depends upon the objectives of the fiduciary relationship and the degree to which other forces, such as markets and social norms, help align the incentives of principal and fiduciary.

Trust law has no business judgment rule, and prohibits even "fair" conflict of interest transactions unless they are approved by fully informed beneficiaries. Strict rules bolster norms against self-dealing and compensate for trust beneficiaries' poor monitoring abilities and inability to exit or diversify. Corporate fiduciary …

Are Gift Demand Loans Of Tangible Property Subject To Gift Tax ?, Joseph M. Dodge

Joseph M Dodge

The publicity surrounding a prominent political figure’s rent-free use of a portion of a friend’s house in Washington, D.C., has raised the issue of whether the rent-free use of tangible property is a gift for federal gift tax purposes. The 1984 case of Dickman v. Commissioner, 465 U.S. 330 (1984), involving an interest-free demand loan of money, intimated that such might be the case, but there has apparently been no effort by the IRS to enforce such a position. The federal gift tax will be the only federal transfer tax left standing if the estate tax and generation-skipping tax are …

Anna Nicole Smith Goes Shopping: The New Forum Shopping Problem In Bankruptcy, Gilbert Marcus Cole, Todd J. Zywicki

Gilbert Marcus Cole

The American bankruptcy system is a hybrid of state law and federal bankruptcy law. Under the Butner principle, federal bankruptcy courts preserve substantive non-bankruptcy law entitlements in bankruptcy unless bankruptcy policies compel a contrary result. This hybrid system, however, gives rise to the threat of forum-shopping if parties attempt to invoke bankruptcy jurisdiction for improper purposes, namely to rearrange non-bankruptcy entitlements to advance no coherent bankruptcy policy. Modern developments in bankruptcy law, as exemplified in the case of Marshall v. Marshall raise a novel threat of bankruptcy forum-shopping. Marshall involved the bankruptcy of tabloid starlet Anna Nicole Smith and her …

Charitable Waste: Consideration Of A "Waste Not, Want Not" Tax, Evelyn Lewis

Evelyn A Lewis

CHARITABLE WASTE: CONSIDERATION OF A “WASTE NOT, WANT NOT” TAX EVELYN A. LEWIS Abstract Lavish expenditures by charities occur regularly, even in today’s depressed economy. Many are unwarranted and foolish while some prove to be extremely beneficial and valuable over time. But even the best of charitable splurges involve government waste since all charities are substantially supported by significant government subsidies. Unfortunately, most taxpayers don’t respond to charitable luxury-type waste with the same degree of outrage they do to other forms of government waste. This article first reveals the probable reasons for this different taxpayer reaction and posits that it’ll …

It Is Logic Rather Than Whom You Trust: A Rejoinder To Prof. Cohen, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

This article is the continuation of an exchange that has taken place between Prof. Stephen B. Cohen and me concerning the validity of criticisms leveled by Chief Justice John Roberts on an opinion by then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor writing for the Second Circuit in the case of William L. Rudkin Testamentary Trust v. Commissioner. While affirming the Second Circuit’s decision, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, criticized and rejected Justice Sotomayor’s construction of the relevant statutory provision. In an article in the August 3, 2009, issue of Tax Notes, Cohen defended Justice Sotomayor’s construction of the statute and …

The Multiple Common Law Roots Of Charitable Immunity: An Essay In Honor Of Richard Epstein's Contributions To Tort Law, Jill R. Horwitz

Articles

Professor Epstein has long promoted replacing tort-based malpractice law with a new regime based on contracts. In Mortal Peril, he grounded his normative arguments in favor of such a shift in the positive, doctrinal history of charitable immunity law. In this essay, in three parts, I critique Professor Epstein’s suggestion that a faulty set of interpretations in charitable immunity law led to our current reliance on tort for malpractice claims. First, I offer an alternative interpretation to Professor Epstein’s claim that one group of 19th and early 20th century cases demonstrates a misguided effort to protect donor wishes. Rather, I …

Wills, Trusts And Estates (Annual Survey Of Virginia Law, 2009-2010), J. Rodney Johnson

Law Faculty Publications

The 2010 Session of the General Assembly enacted wills, trusts, and estates legislation (i) adopting the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, (ii) passing emergency legislation for the construction of tax-oriented wills and trusts of persons who die during 2010 with documents drafted prior thereto, (iii) revising the small-estate statutes, and (iv) clarifying the burial power of attorney. In addition, there were six other enactments, and seven opinions from the Supreme Court of Virginia during the one-year period ending June 1, 2010 that present issues of interest in this area. This article reports on all of these legislative and judicial developments, …

How Important Are Perpetual Tax Savings?, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

State and local expenditure and tax revenue respond less to the business cycle than do federal spending and revenue, thereby reducing the countercyclicality of total government expenditure and revenue. This paper considers forces responsible for the cyclical pattern of state expenditure and revenue. Annual fluctuations in state personal income are associated with small changes in state spending and significant changes in tax receipts; receipt of federal grants is associated with greater state spending. Tax collections, and to a lesser degree expenditure, of larger states are more closely associated with annual income fluctuations than are the tax collections and expenditure of …

Message To Congress: Halt The Tax Exemption For Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

The federal estate tax is in abeyance this year. The popular press has picked up on the possibility that the estates of billionaires such as the late George Steinbrenner, who owned the New York Yankees, will escape the tax. The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, and the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, are now considering two questions: what the maximum rate and exemption will be when the estate tax returns and whether the tax will be reinstated for this year. Lurking behind the headlines but equally important is …

Child Trust Fund, Christopher L. Griffin Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Property, Michael Schill, Gregory Alexander, Jesse Dukeminier, James Krier

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.