Law Commons^™

Codification Of The Economic Substance Doctrine: Agency Response And Certain Other Unforeseen Consequences, Rebecca Rosenberg

William & Mary Business Law Review

Section 7701(o) of the Internal Revenue Code incorporates the controversial judicial doctrine of economic substance into statutory language. In other words, it “codifies” the doctrine. (The economic substance doctrine generally provides that a tax benefit that goes beyond Congressional intent can be disallowed by the courts, even if the taxpayer meets all of the literal Code and regulatory requirements for claiming the benefit.)

This codification appears to have accidentally dissuaded the relevant agency (the Internal evenue Service, or IRS) from raising economic substance issues—an effect that is contrary to Congress’s intent in enacting the doctrine into legislation. Essentially, Congress imported …

A Historical Examination Of The Constitutionality Of The Federal Estate Tax, Henry Lowenstein, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

A Human Capital Theory Of Alimony And Tax, Tessa R. Davis

Faculty Publications

The current taxation of alimony is a broken scheme. Severed from any strong theoretical mooring, it draws lines in the sand between property settlement, child support, and alimony. The lack of coherence between the substance of alimony in family law and the tax concept of alimony (“tax alimony”) could be justified on other policy grounds, however. Yet current law, which allows the payor a deduction under §215 and requires inclusion by the recipient per §71, is difficult to interpret, resulting in frequent litigation and costly noncompliance. In short, the current concept of tax alimony fails to satisfy any of the …

The Misconstruction Of The Deductions For Business And Personal Casualty Losses, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Scholarly Publications

Losses suffered on an individual's personally used property generally are not deductible. Even after the changes made by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in two circumstances an exception to this rule applies when "such losses arise from.fire, storm, shipwreck, or other casualty, or from theft." The principal issue that arises is determining the meaning of the term "other casualty." Taking what they deemed to be the common elements in the three explicitly identified casualties, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service determined that an event will qualify as an "other casualty" only if it is "sudden," "unusual," and …