Tax Law Commons^™

Options To Acquire Partnership Interests: Can The Tax Law Keep Pace?, Walter D. Schwidetzky

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It has become increasingly common for partnerships to issue options that give the holder the right to acquire an interest in the partnership for a set price. The holder of the option will exercise it if he feels that the partnership interest to be acquired is worth more than the exercise price. There is a dearth of authority on the federal tax treatment of option transactions, and the Service has recently asked for guidance from the tax bar as to what approach it should take. This article focuses on one piece of the partnership option puzzle, options to acquire partnership …

Proposal To Reform The Like Kind And Involuntary Conversion Rules In Light Of Fundamental Tax Policies: A Simpler, More Rational, And More Unified Approach, Fred B. Brown

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Almost from the beginning of the federal income tax, the law has contained two nonrecognition provisions that have undergone relatively little change: the like kind rule and the involuntary conversion rule. Commentators have questioned the policy grounds for the like kind rule in general, and for some of its particular features, such as the exchange requirement. Congress and its staffers have also noted the complexity caused by certain aspects of the rule and have enacted or proposed remedial changes in this regard. The involuntary conversion rule also contributes to the complexity of the tax system given the fact-intensive analysis that …

Last Gasp Estate Planning: The Formation Of Family Limited Liability Entities Shortly Before Death, Walter D. Schwidetzky

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Family limited partnerships have been popular gift and estate tax planning vehicles for many years. In recent years, family limited liability companies (LLCs) have also become common, particularly in those states that have updated their statutes to take the check-the-box regulations into account. LLCs with more than one member are usually classified as partnerships for federal income tax purposes. In a typical structure, when there is adequate planning, the donors form a limited partnership or an LLC (jointly, 'family limited liability entity' or FLLE), to which they contribute assets expected to appreciate in value. This article will focus on such …

A Taxing Time For The Bishop Estate: What Is The I.R.S. Role In Charity Governance?, Evelyn Brody

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This piece, included in the University of Hawaii Law Review's symposium issue on the Bishop Estate, explores the relationship between the new intermediate sanctions law and the IRS's power to revoke tax exemption under § 501(c)(3). Inspired by the storied setting, I indulge in a fantasy: This article pretends that the IRS revoked the Estate's exemption, and takes the form of the Tax Court declaratory judgment opinion. I reluctantly 'rule' that exemption was not appropriate, because State enforcement action against the trustees was proceeding. (However, this forum allows me to hedge my argument by producing two concurring and one dissenting …

My First Grade Teacher, Jeffrey G. Sherman

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No abstract provided.

Living Trusts In The Unauthorized Practice Of Law: A Good Thing Gone Bad, Angela M. Vallario

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An elderly man recently lost his wife and visits the lawyer's office for assistance in the administration of her estate. After the attorney expresses her condolences, she asks if his wife had a will. The client reaches into a brown shopping bag and retrieves a two-and-a-half inch black binder containing several trusts. The elderly gentleman and his deceased wife were told this would eliminate the expensive legal nightmare of probate. Unfortunately, like many others, this couple was victimized by a trust mill.

A Taxing Time For The Bishop Estate: What Is The I.R.S. Role In Charity Governance? (Symposium), Evelyn Brody

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No abstract provided.

Charities In Tax Reform: Threats To Subsidies Overt And Covert, Evelyn Brody

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Fundamental tax reform would do far more damage to charities than the obvious repeal of the deduction for charitable contributions. Over the decades, charities have quietly garnered billions of dollars worth of indirect benefits. For example, the largest tax expenditure - the exclusion from workers' income of employer-provided health insurance - has fattened nonprofit hospitals, and the new tuition tax credits promise to spur tuition inflation. Tax reform presents an opportunity to eliminate tax subsidies and enact any desired direct expenditures for specific public goods and activities. However, converting tax expenditures to direct outlays would likely take the form of …

Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Rule Against Perpetuities, Angela M. Vallario

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This article suggests the policy and social justifications against dead hand control far outweigh transfer tax advantages provided to wealthy settlors and the potential revenue expected to be generated by the abolishment legislation. The abolishment legislation may be readily adopted by other jurisdictions in light of the legislatures' failure to recognize the consequences of unlimited dead hand control.

This article recognizes that the Rule is complicated, and Rule violations present harsh consequences for practitioners and their clients. In fact, violations of the Rule, due to its complexity, have been held as an attorney error, not subject to a malpractice claim. …

Hocking The Halo: Implications Of The Charities' Winning Briefs In Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc., Evelyn Brody

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In Camps Newfound/Owatonna, the petitioner charity – with important assistance from friends-of-the-court charities – persuaded the Supreme Court to overturn a Maine statute that granted property tax exemption only to those charities primarily serving state residents. Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 117 S. Ct. 1590 (1997). Given this statute's facial discrimination, why was victory a 5-4 squeaker? The charities naturally reasoned that coming within the Commerce Clause requires proving that charities engage in commerce (particularly interstate commerce). In their focus on the financial impact of the discriminatory statute, however, the charities never offered a positive construct of property-tax …

Of Sovereignty And Subsidy: Conceptualizing The Charity Tax Exemption (Symposium), Evelyn Brody

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No abstract provided.

Of Sovereignty And Subsidy: Conceptualizing The Charity Tax Exemption, Evelyn Brody

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This piece explores the broad financial relationship between the public and the charitable sectors. Tax exemption operates as a peculiar subsidy - offering the greatest benefits to charities carrying on the most profitable activities and owning the most valuable property. Perhaps, then, the property tax and income tax exemption of charities can be explained by a 'sovereign' view of the charitable sector. Resembling the federal tax treatment of state and local governments, exemption for charities respects the independence of the nonprofit sector, and minimizes the involvement of charities in the political process. Unfortunately, the long history of Anglo American philanthropy …

All You Really Need To Know About Subchapter J You Learned From This Article, Jeffrey G. Sherman

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No abstract provided.

Charitable Endowments And The Democratization Of Dynasty, Evelyn Brody

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Charitable endowments and other passive investments exceed $425 billion. Why do many donors require that the principal of their contribution must be held in perpetuity, and that only the income may be used for charitable purposes? Why do most charity managers voluntarily accumulate operating surpluses, and reinvest a portion of real endowment income? This Article suggests that rather than looking at how charities use their endowment income, we should focus on what happens to the endowment principal. It appears that the taste for perpetual charitable endowments persists as the happy co-incidence of donors' desire for immortality for themselves and their …

Hocking The Halo: Implications Of The Charities' Winning Briefs In Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. (Symposium), Evelyn Brody

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No abstract provided.

What Have You Done For Me Lately? Constitutional Limitations On State Taxation Of Trusts, Bradley E.S. Fogel

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Suppose a resident of New Jersey creates an irrevocable inter vivos trust.' The settlor subsequently dies while a resident of New Jersey. Pursuant to the terms of her will, which is probated in New Jersey, her entire estate is paid to the trust. After a few years, one of the two trustees is a New York resident, the other is a resident of Connecticut. The trust's assets, intangibles such as stock in Delaware corporations, are held by the New York trustee in New York. All of the income beneficiaries of the trust reside in New York or Connecticut.2

Question: To …

'Complete' Accrual Taxation, Fred B. Brown

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Under the realization rule, accrued gains and losses generally are not taken into account for income tax purposes until a disposition occurs. Thus, the realization rule is responsible for tax deferral, which in turn likely leads to economic inefficiencies and inequities. The realization rule also contributes greatly to the complexity of the federal income tax system by necessitating numerous Internal Revenue Code provisions that address the many consequences arising from the decision to postpone taxation until a disposition occurs.

An alternative to the realization rule is accrual taxation - the inclusion in the tax base of annual increases and decreases …

Hairsplitting Under I.R.C. Section 2035(D): The Cause And The Cure, Jeffrey G. Sherman

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No abstract provided.

Trusting Our Partners: An Essay On Resetting The Estate Planning Defaults For An Adult World, Henry Ordower

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Demonstrates that there is no tax savings to be achieved by using a trust to restrict a donee's control of property and money transferred gifts during life or at death. Reviews reasons why donors wish to continue to control wealth even after death and suggests that such reasoning is fallacious. Recommends to the estate planning bar that it revise its approach to planning in order to fulfill its obligations to the principal client and other family members. Develops mathematical formulas for analysis of estate planning decisions.

Paying Back Your Country Through Income-Contingent Student Loans, Evelyn Brody

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This article uses the case of paying for a college education to study broad issues of equity, both between families and between generations. As a normative matter, I argue that we should subsidize the education of those who are disadvantaged, but that is because a college education generally 'pays off,' society as a whole should not subsidize most students. Rather, the government can serve the valuable function of simply ensuring that students have access to sufficient loans to finance their education. Congress recently enacted President Clinton's proposal to convert the federal role from a guarantor of student loans to a …

A Theorem For Compensation Deferral: Doubling Your Blessings By Taking Your Rabbi Abroad, Henry Ordower

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Develops a mathematical methodology for determining whether or not to defer compensation income. Identifies special planning opportunities for United States employees of non-U.S. employers.

Federal Income Taxation Of U.S. Branches Of Foreign Corporations: Separate Entity Or Separate Rules?, Fred B. Brown

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Foreign corporations conduct U.S. business activities either through U.S. subsidiaries or U.S. branches. A U.S. subsidiary of a foreign corporation generally is taxed as any other domestic corporation, that is, as a separate taxable entity apart from its foreign parent. In contrast, a U.S. branch of a foreign corporation is not treated as a separate taxable entity; instead, the Code and regulations employ a set of special rules that allocate and apportion to the U.S. branch a portion of the foreign corporation's income in order to determine the net income subject to U.S. tax.

The rules used for taxing U.S. …

Revisiting Realization: Accretion Taxation, The Constitution, Macomber, And Mark To Market, Henry Ordower

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Reviews the constitutional origin of the United States realization based income taxation system and concludes that modification of that system to an accrual or accretion system would be constitutionally infirm. The article examines certain accretion rules currently in the United States tax laws, identifies the flaws in the reasoning in support of those rules in the legislative history and seeks to explain why the industries affected generally have not complained about the rules.

Taxing Service Partners To Achieve Horizontal Equity, Henry Ordower

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Argues that recent judicial and administrative decisions cause the federal income tax law to tax partners who receive their partnership interests in exchange for services more favorably than partners who acquire their partnership interests in exchange for money or property. Such dissimilar treatment undercuts the desired taxation objective of even-handed treatment of all taxpayers.

Shifting Of Income Within The Family: Will 1986 I.R.C. Changes Bring Significant Reform, John A. Lynch Jr.

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In challenging Congress and the citizenry to embrace tax reform, President Reagan stated:

While most Americans labor under excessively high tax rates that discourage work and cut drastically into savings, many are able to exploit the tangled mass of loopholes that has grown up around our tax code to avoid paying their fair share-sometimes to avoid paying any taxes at all.

Fairness and simplicity were clearly overriding objectives of the tax reform movement that culminated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

From the perspectives of both fairness and simplicity, one of the most egregious features of prior law was …

Below Market Loans: From Abuse To Misuses – A Sports Illustration, Phillip J. Closius, Douglas K. Chapman

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Below market loans have been traditionally used as substitutes for gifts, salaries, and dividends for the primary purpose of tax avoidance in the transfer of wealth. The Supreme Court's opinion in Dickman v. Commissioner subjected both demand and term loans in an intrafamilial setting to the federal gift tax. Congress, while subjecting all below market loans to either income or gift tax, applied different valuation formulas to term and demand loans and, in so doing, favored the use of demand loans as a salary substitute. This Article analyzes the current status of below market loans by examining their use in …

Taxation Of The Disposition Of Partnership Issues: Time To Repeal I.R.C. Section 736, John A. Lynch Jr.

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As part of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 Congress enacted section 736. This section specifies the tax treatment of the various types of payments that a partnership may make to a withdrawing partner. It introduced the concept of a liquidation of a partnership interest by the partnership itself, as opposed to the sale of that interest to an outsider or to the continuing partners. In some instances it provides tax consequences for continuing and withdrawing partners which are different from those attendant to a sale. It was designed to make the law concerning disposition of partnership interests simpler and …

Individual Retirement Accounts: Reflections On Some Unanswered Questions, Jeffrey G. Sherman

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No abstract provided.