Law Commons^™

Living With Transparency, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

No abstract provided.

The Case Against Tax Incentives For Organ Transfers, Lisa Milot

Scholarly Works

Each year some 6,700 Americans die while awaiting an organ transplant. On its face, this fact seems almost inconsequential, representing less than 3% of American deaths annually. However, for the nearly 100,000 patients on the transplant wait list (and their families), nothing could be more consequential. What is more, the demand for transplantable organs is sure to rise as (1) more diseases become subject to prevention or cure, making organ failure the first sign of medical problems; (2) the success rate for transplants increases, leading to wider use; and (3) barriers to inclusion on the wait list are removed.

In …

The Empty Promise Of Estate Tax Repeal, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The terms of the debate over the estate tax have been framed largely by abolitionists who have propounded an antitax message that portrays the estate tax as unambiguously harmful and threatening to ordinary families and small businesses. The attack on the estate tax is linked to a larger agenda of eliminating taxes on capital and capital income and dismantling the progressive elements of the federal tax system. The slogan of estate tax repeal, while effective in mobilizing antitax sentiment, makes no sense as a matter of tax policy because it downplays revenue costs, distributional effects, administrative concerns, and consequences for …

Determining The Character Of Section 357(C) Gain, Fred B. Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

Under section 351, a person transferring property to a controlled corporation generally recognizes no gain or loss on the transaction. An exception to tax-free treatment is contained in section 357(c), which generally provides that a transferor in a section 351 transaction recognizes gain to the extent that any liabilities assumed by the corporation on the transfer exceed the transferor's aggregate adjusted basis in the assets transferred. An issue under section 357(c) is whether the recognized gain should be capital gain or ordinary income. The statute suggests that the character of section 357(c) gain should be based on the character of …

Interview With George Mitchell (1) By Andrea L’Hommedieu And Mike Hastings, George J. Mitchell

George J. Mitchell Oral History Project

Biographical Note
George J. Mitchell was born on August 20, 1933, in Waterville, Maine, to Mary Saad, a factory worker, and George Mitchell, a laborer. Senator Mitchell spent his youth in Waterville. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College in 1954, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps until 1956. In 1960 he earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Mitchell worked for Senator Edmund S. Muskie as executive assistant and as deputy campaign manager during Muskie's 1972 presidential campaign. He later became U.S. senator (D-Maine) 1980-1995, Senate majority leader 1989-1995, and, upon his …

Value In The Eye Of The Beholder: The Valuation Of Intangibles For Transfer Pricing Purposes, Yariv Brauner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article assesses the desirability of our current, arms' length based, transfer pricing regime by analyzing its theoretical and practical effectiveness in application to transfers of intangibles. A detailed analysis of the practice of valuation of intangibles, which is the key component in the application of this regime, exposes its weaknesses that result in undesirable market incentives. These incentives create a strong bias in favor of large multinational enterprises, yet, even if one favored such bias, it is achieved using an uncontrollable, costly and wasteful legal mechanism. The article particularly criticizes the regime's disregard of the unique characteristics of intangibles …

Tax Equity, Anthony C. Infanti

Anthony C. Infanti

Simply put, this article stands the traditional concept of tax equity on its head. Challenging the notion that tax equity is an unequivocal good, this article deconstructs the concept of tax equity to reveal the subtle, yet pernicious ways in which it shapes tax policy debates and impinges upon contributions to those debates. The article describes how tax equity, with its narrow focus on “income” as the sole relevant metric for judging tax fairness, presupposes a population that is homogeneous along all other lines. Through this insidious homogenization, tax equity performs both a sanitizing and a screening function in the …

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

American University Law Review

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation. While many operating companies today know …

The Non-Sense Tax: A Reply To New Corporate Income Tax Advocacy, Yariv Brauner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article challenges recent attempts by influential scholars to rationalize the existence of the corporate income tax. The corporate income tax has long been considered unjustifiable on traditional tax policy grounds. The new justifications recognize this, yet argue that the tax is still desirable because it promotes other goals, such as improvement of corporate governance and restraint of undesirable corporate management power accumulation. This Article demonstrates that the existence and magnitude of these alleged benefits of the corporate income tax are doubtful. Yet, the Article argues, even if taken as correct, the recent rationalization of the corporate income tax cannot …

Serfs At The Mercy Of A Hungry Beast: Aggressive Regressivity, Private Equity, And The Quandary Of The St. Luke Imperative, Bobby L. Dexter

Bobby L. Dexter

Currently, there exists a split in the U.S. Courts of Appeals with respect to whether certain amounts paid to university professors relinquishing tenure and retiring early constitute "wages" with respect to "employment." This Article addresses that split before exploring, more broadly, the troubled concepts of "wages" and "employment." Though some courts have struggled to draw discernable lines of demarcation to separate "wages" from "income" and the income tax conception of "wages" from the payroll tax conception, other courts, apparently yielding to expansive conceptual pressures and the visceral tug of the existence of the employer/employee relationship, have pursued regressive taxes from …

Retention Requirements For Tax Records, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

No abstract provided.

An End To The Deadbeat Dad Dilemma? - Puncturing The Paradigm By Allowing A Deduction For Child Support Payments , Reginald Mombrun

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Amicus Curiae Brief In Support Of Petitioner, Service Vision Plan Inc. V. United States Case No. 08-164, Darryll K. Jones

Amicus Briefs

No abstract provided.

Administrative Law And Judicial Review Of Tax Collection Decisions, Danshera Cords

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of "Havens In A Storm: The Struggle For Global Tax Regulation", Anthony C. Infanti

Anthony C. Infanti

This short essay is a review of J.C. Sharman’s book "Havens in a Storm: The Struggle for Global Tax Regulation." In the essay, I first provide a brief overview of Sharman’s book, which approaches the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s struggle with tax havens over “harmful tax competition” from a political science perspective. I then describe how the book (and, by extension, this review) will be of interest not only to those in the fields of international tax and international relations, but also to those concerned more generally with the dynamics of struggles between the powerful and the weak. …

Dusting Off The Blaine Amendment: Two Challenges To Missouri's Anti-Establishment Tradition, Aaron E. Schwartz

Missouri Law Review

Using broad strokes to paint the rights and protections granted therein, the free exercise and the establishment clauses stand as dual monuments to the great-American experiment in separating the State and the sacred., Their sparse language is contrasted by comparatively specific manifestations of similar interests in the state constitutions. Echoing their federal counterpart, the state constitutions commonly command that the state may not fund religiously affiliated educational institutions. No fewer than thirty-eight states, including Missouri, adopted a so-called "Blaine Amendment," which prevent states from supporting sectarian or religious schools. Employing more detail than its federal counterpart, Missouri's constitution made explicit …

Tax Avatars, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Anyone who has spent time in cyberspace understands the concept of an alter ego. In online games, chat rooms and on the internet generally, users select one or more avatars to represent themselves. Avatars function as the end-user’s alter ego. The avatar may be a three-dimensional character in a multiplayer game or a two-dimensional icon on a bulletin board. This article uses the concept of avatars to explain the tax treatment of real-life alter egos: agents under a power of attorney. Specifically, the article discusses (1) how traditional, standard legal instruments can be used to create legal alter egos; (2) …

Book Review Of 'Havens In A Storm: The Struggle For Global Tax Regulation', Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

This short essay is a review of J.C. Sharman's book Havens in a Storm: The Struggle for Global Tax Regulation. In the essay, I first provide a brief overview of Sharman's book, which approaches the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's struggle with tax havens over harmful tax competition from a political science perspective. I then describe how the book (and, by extension, this review) will be of interest not only to those in the fields of international tax and international relations, but also to those concerned more generally with the dynamics of struggles between the powerful and the weak. …

Tax Equity, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

Simply put, this article stands the traditional concept of tax equity on its head. Challenging the notion that tax equity is an unequivocal good, this article deconstructs the concept of tax equity to reveal the subtle, yet pernicious ways in which it shapes tax policy debates and impinges upon contributions to those debates. The article describes how tax equity, with its narrow focus on income - as the sole relevant metric for judging tax fairness, presupposes a population that is homogeneous along all other lines. Through this insidious homogenization, tax equity performs both a sanitizing and a screening function in …

Access Assured: Restoring Progressivity In The Tax And Spending Programs For Higher Education, Kerry A. Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

Presently, the federal government subsidizes the higher education expenses of individual college students through two distribution channels: the tax system and the transfer system. Under each subsystem, there are a multitude of programs available to assist students in meeting their postsecondary educational expenses. The proliferation of so many forms of federal student aid raises issues of intra- and inter-program effectiveness. In their current form, the tax benefits for higher education do not get the right amount to the right people at the right time. The federal college spending programs, on the other hand, get the right amount to the right …

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation.

While many operating companies today know …

Third-Party Profit-Taking In Tax Exemption Jurisprudence, Darryll K. Jones

Journal Publications

Nothing is free, not even charity. In almost every case, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization must transact with profit-seekers to achieve the charitable goal for which the organization has been granted tax exemption. The organization will have to fund somebody's accession to wealth. It may be, for example, that a particular nonprofit organization need only hire one or two employees to deliver meals to elderly beneficiaries. Even in that circumstance, an organization must normally pay market rates for the labor necessary to achieve its charitable goal. Employees will profit; the law presumes as much, and we would be hard pressed to …