Law Commons^™

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 …

Speak Up: Issue Advocacy In Increasingly Politicized Times, Sally Wagenmaker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article first provides a brief primer on current constraints affecting Section 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations' communications within the context of what has become known as “issue advocacy.” It then sets forth the problem of increasing politicization of nonprofits' issue advocacy activities. The article next evaluates related constitutional tensions for politically tinged issue advocacy, through the lens of the Supreme Court's free speech decisions. It concludes by addressing how the IRS's different content-based standards for issue advocacy are susceptible to abuse, are otherwise constitutionally suspect, and therefore warrant reform.

Is It Really All About Race?: Section 1985(3) Political Conspiracies In The Second Circuit And Beyond, Lee Pinzow

Fordham Law Review

The recent scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative Tea Party groups highlights the need for a judicial remedy to politically motivated deprivations of legally recognized rights. Section 2 of the Ku Klux Klan Act, codified as 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), presents such a remedy.

However, it is unclear whether the statute applies to conspiracies motivated solely by political animus. The U.S. Supreme Court in Griffin v. Breckenridge and United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 610 v. Scott delved into the question but chose not to resolve the issue. Based on the Court’s discussion of the statute’s legislative history …

Officers Under The Appointments Clause, John Plecnik

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Much ink has been spilled, and many keyboards worn, debating the definition of "Officers of the United States" under the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution. The distinction between Officers and employees is constitutionally and practically significant, because the former must be appointed by the President, with or without the advice and consent of the Senate, Courts of Law, or Heads of Departments. In contrast, employees may be hired by anyone in any manner.

Appointments Clause controversies are triggered when a government official who was hired as an employee is accused of unconstitutionally wielding …

Even Adr Must Pay Its Dues: An Analysis Of The Evolution Of The Internal Revenue Service's Adr Programs And Where They Still Need To Grow, Stephen Folan

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article offers information on the evolution, development and effectiveness of the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) appeals system. It analyzes the history of the IRS's post-appeal mediation and arbitration systems and advocates adoption of its contemporary commercial arbitration principles to increase the ADR program's desirability for both the taxpayers and the IRS. It proposes cost-effective measures for dispute resolution processes.

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.”

Why Congress Adopted The Church Audit Procedures Act And What Must Be Done Now To Restore The Law For Churches And The Irs, J. Michael Martin

Akron Tax Journal

This Article explores the significant policy purposes achieved by CAPA through the lens of the law's history and present challenges. Part II reviews the historical context and events leading to the adoption of CAPA in 1984. Part III then describes the present challenges associated with the law due to the failure of Congress and the Treasury Department to rectify the issue of who is an appropriate high-level Treasury official under CAPA. Finally, Part IV concludes with recommended solutions for restoring the law consistent with congressional intent in adopting CAPA-solutions that could easily be achieved through a simple amendment to the …

Helvering V. Gregory: All The Perspectives From Which Learned Hand Was Wrong, Anthony P. Polito

Akron Tax Journal

At a fundamental level, this Article is about interpretation. The best way for a court to remain faithful to a complicated statute reflecting a delicate legislative compromise is to enforce its language literally without introducing extraneous tests or elements that cannot be found in the statutory language. Yet, it is important to be clear that it approaches the question from an ex ante perspective, from where things stood before Learned Hand's famous opinion.

This Article is not a call for the judicial reversal of Hand's opinion. Given the value of the predictability of established expectations as to statutory meaning, stare …

Pfics Gone Wild!, Monica Gianni

Akron Tax Journal

This Article begins in Part II with a discussion of what constitutes a passive foreign investment company ("PFIC") and follows in Part III with the tax rules applicable to PFICs. Part IV begins with a general explanation of the goal of tax deferral, with discussion of several anti-deferral tax regimes enacted prior to the PFIC provisions, i.e., Personal Holding Companies ("PHCs"), Foreign Personal Holding Companies ("FPHCs"), Subpart F income of CFCs, Foreign Investment Companies ("FICs"), and Regulated Investment Companies ("RICs"). An understanding of these regimes is necessary to appreciate the genesis of the PFIC rules. Part V analyzes the policy …

What's Mine Is Mine: Taxing Pre-Contribution Gains, Rodney P. Mock, Jeffrey Tolin

Akron Tax Journal

This article conducts an analysis of the Internal Revenue Code's varied income tax treatment between depreciated property and appreciated property transferred into C corporations by shareholders in nonrecognition transactions.7 It is at the entry point of the non-recognition transaction where the lobster pot unfairly doubles up on unrecognized gains at both the corporate and shareholder level notwithstanding that unrecognized losses generally remain singular at either level. The authors call into question this long-standing practice of artificial gain duplication upon corporate entry under Subchapter C. From a tax policy perspective, such disparate treatment makes little sense - particularly when the duplicated …

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 …

The Individual Mandate Tax Penalty, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Scholarly Publications

In 2010, President Obama signed legislation that significantly altered the healthcare and health insurance markets in the United States. An integral part of that reform is the individual mandate, a provision that requires individuals to purchase and maintain healthcare insurance. Failure to maintain such coverage subjects an individual to a tax penalty. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that provision under Congress’s taxing power.

Despite the Supreme Court upholding the individual mandate, fundamental questions remain. This Article addresses the question of whether the use of a tax penalty to encourage taxpayers to do something that the government desires is …

Loving And Legitimacy: Irs Regulation Of Tax Return Preparation, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Concentrated Enforcement, Leigh Osofsky

Articles

When enforcement resources are limited, how should the scarce enforcement resources be allocated to increase compliance with the law? The answer to this question can determine to what extent the law on the books translates to the law in practice. A dominant school of thought in the tax literature suggests that they should be allocated based on a "worst-first" method, whereby the individuals likely to be most noncompliant are targeted. However, while "worst-first" methods can encourage all individuals to increase compliance so as not to be deemed the "worst, " they can also provide cover to engage in noncompliance that …

Financial Disability For All, T. Keith Fogg, Rachel E. Zuraw

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

I Got 99 Problems And They’Re All Fatca, Nirav (Jonathan) Dhanawade

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Offshore personal income tax evasion accounts for approximately $50 billion in annual lost revenue for the United States. These large sums of money are squirrelled away in tax havens—jurisdictions, such as Aruba, the Cayman Islands, and Dubai, whose laws allow some U.S. citizens to evade paying their U.S. income taxes. Before the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was enacted, U.S. citizens could avoid taxes on passive income by not reporting this income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). To detect tax evasion, the IRS pursued U.S. citizens with undeclared assets in foreign banks. But the IRS’s quest was largely …

Electing Fairness: A Check-The-Box-Style Regime For Same-Sex Couples' Tax Filing Status, Jennifer Bird-Pollan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's decision regarding the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor, tax lawyers and those interested in tax policy immediately wondered what consequences this change would have to the United States' federal tax laws. The Internal Revenue Service issued a Revenue Ruling explaining the position it took regarding the case, which answered many questions for taxpayers whose lives were affected by the decision. Because the IRS announced that it would recognize same-sex marriages based on the state of celebration of the marriage rather than the state of residence of …