Law Commons^™

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 …

Rudkin Testamentary Trust -- A Response To Prof. Cohen, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

In the August 3 issue of Tax Notes, Prof. Stephen Cohen wrote an article about Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinions in three tax cases. Of those three cases, only the opinion she wrote in William L. Rudkin Testamentary Trust v. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2d Cir. 2006), Doc 2006- 21522, 2006 TNT 203-4, is worthy of comment. Although the Second Circuit’s decision in that case was affirmed by the Supreme Court under the name Knight v. Commissioner, the construction of the critical statutory language that Justice Sotomayor adopted was rejected and criticized by Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous court. …

Federalism And The Commerce Clause: A Comparative Perspective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court has on numerous occasions addressed the constitutionality of state taxes under the U.S. Constitution (most often under the Commerce Clause, but sometimes under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses). In general, the Supreme Court has granted wide leeway to the states to adopt any tax system they wish, only striking down the most egregious cases of discrimination against out-of-state residents. Thus, for example, the Court has generally refused to intervene against state tax competition to attract business into the state. It has twice upheld a method of calculating how much income of a multinational enterprise …

Comparative Fiscal Federalism: What Can The U.S. Supreme Court And The European Court Of Justice Learn From Each Other's Tax Jurisprudence?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In October 2005, a group of distinguished tax experts from the European Union and the United States, who had never met before, convened at the University of Michigan Law School for a conference on "Comparative Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the U.S. Supreme Court and European Court of Justice Tax Jurisprudence." The purpose of the conference was to shed comparative light on the very different approaches taken by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the U.S. Supreme Court to the question of fiscal federalism. The conference was sponsored by the U-M Law School, U-M's European Union Center, and Harvard Law School's …

Comparative Fiscal Federalism: What Can The U.S. Supreme Court And The European Court Of Justice Learn From Each Other's Tax Jurisprudence?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Last October, a group of distinguished tax experts from the European Union and the United States convened at the University of Michigan Law School for a conference on "Comparative Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the U.S. Supreme Court and European Court of Justice Tax Jurisprudence." The conference was sponsored by the Law School, the European Union Center, and Harvard Law School's Fund for Tax and Fiscal Research. Attendees from Europe included Michel Aujean, the principal tax official at the EU Commission, Servaas van Thie1, chief tax advisor to the EU Council, Michael Lang (Vienna) and Kees van Raad (Leiden), who run the …

Gifts, Gafts And Gefts: The Income Tax Definition And Treatment Of Private And Charitable 'Gifts' And A Principled Policy Justification For The Exclusion Of Gifts From Income, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

Gifts have been given special treatment by the income tax laws since the first post-16th Amendment tax statute was adopted in 1913. The determination of how the income tax law should treat gifts raises a number of issues. For example: should gifts be given special treatment? If so, what should qualify as a gift? Should gifts to a private party be taxable to the donee? Should gifts to a private party be deductible by the donor? Should the donee's basis in a gift of property be determined by reference to the basis that the donor had, and should any modifications …

Taxation Of Punitive Damages Obtained In A Personal Injury Claim, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The author explains that in recent court opinions and commentaries concerning whether punitive damages are taxable, considerable weight has been given to a negative inference that appears to lurk in a 1989 amendment to the relevant code provision, section 104(a)(2). To the contrary, he argues, the legislative history of that amendment and the form that the bill had when it was reported out of the Conference Committee establish beyond doubt that no such inference is warranted.

Is "Internal Consistency" Foolish?: Reflections On An Emerging Commerce Clause Restraint On State Taxation, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

Whatever role "internal consistency" may come to play in the Court's commerce clause jurisprudence, it has already emerged as a doctrine that warrants our attention. This article traces the development of the doctrine, explores its implications, and considers its defensibility as a limitation on state taxing power. The article suggests that the results the Court reaches under the "internal consistency" doctrine could be reached by rigorous application of a more familiar commerce clause principle - one to which the Court has been less than faithful.

The Supreme Court's Misconstruction Of A Procedural Statute-A Critique Of The Court's Decision In Badaracco, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

When a taxpayer files an honest' federal income tax return for a taxable year, section 6501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code2 limits the period of time during which the Government can assess a tax for that year to a three-year period commencing with the date that the return was filed. The three-year limitations period is extended for an additional three years by section 6501(e)(1)(A) if the taxpayer's return omits properly includible gross income in an amount in excess of twenty-five percent of the gross income that was reported. If a taxpayer fails to file a return for a taxable year …

Dissenting Opinions By Supreme Court Justices In Federal Income Tax Controversies, Walter J. Blum

Michigan Law Review

What is to be learned from this review of the various analyses offered in dissenting tax opinions over the past five terms of the Supreme Court? When the Court has decisively interpreted narrow or technical language in the statute, dissenters all too often indulge in lengthy analyses that can only serve to create further confusion. Only when the Court focuses on a judicially made rule or an issue with constitutional implications is a broader dissent appropriate. If dissenters generally adhered to the guidelines set forth at the outset of this Article the tax world would, I believe, be at least …

The Supreme Court's Misconstruction Of A Procedural Statute--A Critique Of The Court's Decision In Badaracco, Douglas A. Kahn

Michigan Law Review

Before addressing the lessons to be derived from Badaracco, it is necessary to make good on the author's claim that it can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of a reasonably skeptical reader that the Court's decision was patently wrong and resulted from a poor technique of statutory construction. This is a heavy burden, especially since the decision was reached by an overwhelming majority of the Court and since two courts of appeals and at least one student law review note reached the same result. The reader must judge whether the author succeeds in satisfying it. This Article will first …

State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

The first part of this Article, State Income Taxation of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections on Mobil, Exxon, and H.R. 5076, did not contemplate a sequel. The Supreme Court's decisions last term in two state corporate income tax cases, however, created an irresistible opportunity to write one. The Court's opinions in ASARCO and Woolworth picked up where its opinions in Mobil and Exxon left off. Yet the direction taken by these more recent decisions veers sharply from the course ostensibly set by their predecessors. This Article will consider the Court's latest pronouncements in this area in a continuing if quixotic effort to …

State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations: Reflections On Mobil, Exxon, And H.R. 5076, Walter Hellerstein

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Article is twofold: first, to analyze the Mobil and Exxon decisions; second, to consider the congressional reaction they may engender. Because the terrain that this Article covers may be unfamiliar to some readers, a few further words of introduction may be appropriate.

Taken together, the Mobil and Exxon decisions dealt with the three methods of dividing a multijurisdictional corporation's income among the states - specific allocation, separate accounting and apportionment by formula. Each method provides a different solution to the problem of determining the portion of the income of multistate businesses that should be taxable by …

Capitalism, The United States Constitution And The Supreme Court, Part 2, Hugh Evander Willis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Stock Dividends As Income, Robert E. More

Michigan Law Review

In the case of Towne v. Eisner, the United States Supreme Court has recently held that under the Income Tax Law of 1913, the stock dividends received by a shareholder during the year 1914 could not be taxed upon their full par value, where the corporate surplus thus distributed all accrued prior to January I, 1913. The Treasury Department subsequently announced that the decision is not applicable to the Income Tax Law of 1916.1 It is the purpose of this article to review the case of Towvne v. Eisner,2 and then to discuss the soundness of the position taken by …

Supreme Court's Theory Of A Direct Tax, J H. Riddle

Michigan Law Review

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case of 1895 was the beginning of an attempt on the part of the court to formulate a new definition of a direct tax, and since that time in every case which has called for a decision as to whether a particular tax was a direct tax the court has reverted to and tried to harmonize its decision with the reasoning set forth in the Pollock case. This decision overturned a fairly definite and universally accepted definition of a direct tax which had existed for nearly a century. In …

The Corporation Tax Decision, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Seldom, if ever, in the history of the country has the Supreme Court been called upon within a comparatively short period of time to decide so many questions of widespread interest and vital importance as has been the case during the last year or two. Attempts on the part of the state and national governments to regulate and control corporations, which in recent years have come to exercise such a large and not always wholesome influence upon affairs generally, have been the occasion for the consideration by the court of many of the important cases recently presented. Among these are …

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Corporation Tax, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

During the special session of Congress held the past summer there was enacted as an amendment to the new Tariff Law what is generally known as the Federal Corporation Tax.1 At the time of its consideration in Congress and since its enactment there has been considerable discussion regarding the constitutionality of the measure, and no little doubt has been expressed as to its validity.