Tax Law Commons^™

Choosing Between Tax And Nontax Delivery Mechanisms For Health Insurance Subsidies, Lawrence Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

“Early-Bird Special” Indeed!: Why The Tax Anti-Injunction Act Permits The Present Challenges To The Minimum Coverage Provision, Neil S. Siegel, Michael C. Dorf

Faculty Scholarship

In view of the billions of dollars and enormous effort that might otherwise be wasted, the public interest will be best served if the Supreme Court of the United States decides the present challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) during its October 2011 Term. Potentially standing in the way, however, is the federal Tax Anti-Injunction Act (TAIA), which bars any “suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax.” The dispute to date has turned on the fraught and complex question of whether the ACA's exaction for being uninsured qualifies as a …

Reforming Derivative Taxation, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

This brief essay outlines three benchmarks for evaluating alternative ways of taxing capital income, summarizes anticipatory, retroactive, and accrual-based proposals for reforming the taxation of derivatives, and offers guidelines for evaluating more limited reforms. It is intended as an introduction to key concepts, tensions, and ideas for reforming the taxation of financial instruments.

A Buffett Rule For Social Security And Medicare: Phasing Out Benefits For High Income Retirees, Samuel C. Thompson Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fiscal Policy In An Era Of Austerity, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

We face a time of stagnant economic growth, severe unemployment, massive budget deficits, and an increasingly competitive global economy. These daunting challenges are the legacy of a number of unwise policy decisions in both the public and private sectors. Although the good news is that unsound policies can be changed, the bad news is that no single step will do the trick. It is a challenge to rely on monetary policy when interest rates are near zero. There also is uncertainty – and a heated debate among economists – about the effectiveness of a Keynesian stimulus. One thing we know …

Getting More By Asking Less: Justifying And Reforming Tax Law’S Offer In Compromise Procedure, Shu-Yi Oei

Faculty Scholarship

The Offer in Compromise (OIC) is a procedure by which the IRS may agree to forgive a portion of the tax liabilities of certain taxpayers. This Article suggests a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of any proposed reforms to this procedure. It presents three arguments that support forgiving tax debts through devices such as the OIC. These arguments are rooted in revenue-raising, fairness, rehabilitative, and socioeconomic considerations. Unfortunately, an analysis of the OIC’s recent history shows that its current structure tends to undermine its effectiveness. The power to effectuate the procedure is dispersed among four stakeholders with divergent interests: Congress, …

Who Wins When Uncle Sam Loses? Social Insurance And The Forgiveness Of Tax Debts, Shu-Yi Oei

Faculty Scholarship

Small-scale tax collections decisions have large-scale distributive consequences. The central question addressed in this Article is whether a deliberate government decision to forgive or to not collect a tax owed can be justified, given the distributive consequences that may result. In brief, the government’s decision not to pursue full collection of a delinquent tax debt may give rise to two types of distributive outcomes: First, the benefits of non-collection may be captured by the forgiven taxpayer’s other creditors. Second, the costs of non-collection may be imposed upon compliant taxpayers and the public through higher taxes, decreased government provision of goods, …

Not The Power To Destroy: An Effects Theory Of The Tax Power, Neil S. Siegel, Robert D. Cooter

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s “new federalism” decisions impose modest limits on the regulatory authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause. According to those decisions, the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to use penalties to regulate interstate commerce, but not to regulate noncommercial conduct. What prevents Congress from penalizing non-commercial conduct by calling a penalty a tax and invoking the Taxing Clause? The only obstacle is the distinction between a penalty and a tax for purposes of Article I, Section 8. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (NFIB), the Court considered whether the minimum coverage provision in the Patient …

Neither Rules Nor Standards, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Specifying the content of a requirement or a prohibition up front-e.g. replacing a "reasonable speed" requirement with a fifty-five miles per hour speed limit-can make life easier for enforcers and citizens alike. Recent efforts to substitute international tax rules for decades-old standards may do just the opposite, jeopardizing the "miracle" that is today's international tax regime. Enhanced information exchange and formulary apportionment will undermine the legitimacy that is essential to the success of any international legal regime. A better solution would overhaul the century-old benefits principle to weave enforcement deep into the fabric of the international tax regime. Only then …

German Vat Compliance: One Step Closer To Automated Third-Party Solutions, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Recent developments in German VAT compliance, notably (a) the imposition of criminal penalties for failing to immediately amend a preliminary return that is known to be in error [Bundesgerichtshof decision of March 17, 2009, No. BGH 1 StR 342/08], when considered in tandem with (b) amendments to the voluntary disclosure rules, Gesetz zur Vebesserung der Bekämpfung von Geldwäsche und Steuerhinterziehung, it is clear that the German VAT compliance landscape has changed dramatically in the past year.

Taken as a whole, the German rules strongly encourage internal audits, self-reviews, and immediate self-disclosures of errors in previously filed returns and taxes paid. …

An Industry-Specific Vat In Michigan - Objective Valuation In The Retail Gasoline Trade, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

New York adopted an industry-specific value added tax (VAT) to solve problems with virtual intermediaries (room remarketers) under its hotel accommodations tax. The New York VAT resembles the VAT used in the European Union (EU). It is a credit-invoice VAT that subjectively values supplies.

Michigan has also adopted an industry-specific credit-invoice VAT, however the targeted industry is the retail gasoline trade. The valuation method is objective, rather than subjective. In valuing supplies objectively rather than subjectively, the Michigan VAT resembles the exception provisions that are found in most VATs around the globe. Objective valuations are used in VATs when dealing …

Is Congress Politicizing The Irs And Its Enforcement Process?, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transfer Pricing And Business Restructurings — Intangibles, Synergies, And Shelters, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact

Faculty Scholarship

Transfer pricing in business restructuring is attracting global attention. In the past two years two key policy-making groups have released three substantive documents on this topic. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued two position statements while the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) issued one. While restructurings are a very common commercial practice, until recently it has been uncommon to apply transfer pricing criteria when examining them in detail.

Essentially, the OECD has overlooked that a unique and valuable intangible is created during the restructuring process. By not acknowledging that this intangible in the mix, the OECD fails …

New York Adopts A Vat, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On August 13, 2010 the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Tax Policy Analysis, Taxpayer Guidance Division released Amendments Affecting the Application of Sales Tax to Rent Received for Hotel Occupancy by Room Remarketers. The legislative revision it considers (Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2010) was effective September 1, 2010. The changes brought in by this Chapter effectively converted New York’s Hotel Room Occupancy Tax from a single-stage retail sales tax to multi-stage European-style VAT. This paper considers the New York VAT in hotel accommodations in three sections. The first defines a European-style credit-invoice VAT …

Tax Deregulation, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tax Deregulation, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Deregulation has played both the hero and the villain in recent years. This Article evaluates the impact of deregulation on what may be the single most economically important regulatory regime: the income tax. In order to accomplish this goal, it applies the concepts of fiscal arbitrage and compliance spirals to three deregulatory tax reforms. Compliance spirals describe an enforcement dynamic in which the regulator encourages compliance through a system of rewards for cooperation and punishment for noncooperation. Fiscal arbitrage describes policy measures that exploit cognitive biases and other anomalies to deliver political benefits by using minimal political capital. The combination …

The Allure And Illusion Of Partners' Interests In A Partnership, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Allure And Illusion Of Partners' Interests In A Partnership, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Will Cutting The Payroll Tax Increase Jobs In The U.S.? Empirical Evidence From The Eu Vat, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Red Ink Rising, the Peterson–Pew Commission on Budget Reform’s report presents the country with a fiscal/employment dilemma – Congress must act immediately to stem the federal debt, but it must move carefully lest it harm employment in the fragile economy. In short, we must act fast and slow – we must decrease the debt and increase employment. This is a difficult task.

The Peterson-Pew dilemma (notably its jobs-creation aspect) was taken to heart by both of the reform commissions that issued reports soon thereafter (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, The Moment of Truth and The Debt Reduction Task …

Vat Fraud: The Tradable Services Problem, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Tradable services – VoIP termination services, mobile minutes, software as a service (SaaS), or almost any service bought or sold in the “cloud” – are a distinct class of taxable supplies. These service-based supplies both resemble and differ fundamentally from goods. They also differ from services that are consumed-on-purchase (consumed services).

Tradable services are designed from the beginning for re-sale. They are hybrid supplies that behave commercially like goods, but have functional attributes that make them hard to distinguish from services generally. When determining the place of supply/ place of taxation for these kinds of supplies, their hybrid character presents …

Campaign Disclosure And Tax-Exempt Entities: A Quick Repair To The Regulatory Plumbing, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that there are some quick regulatory fixes the Treasury can implement to ensure that tax-exempt organizations are operating within the rules and that aggressive tax planning is not being used as a way to obfuscate rules for political organizations requiring disclosure. The article recommends that Treasury promulgate new regulations to require disclosure by tax-exempt entities of expenditures and contributions in excess of $25,000. The article also proposes that Treasury institute procedures to require tax-exempt organizations to file for exempt status, and to provide procedures for ensuring that these organizations meet the requirements in the statute and are …

The Liability-Offset Theory Of Peracchi, Bradley T. Borden, Douglas L. Longhofer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design, Gillian Lester

Faculty Scholarship

How does one win popular support for laws designed specifically to redistribute economic wealth? One can hardly gainsay that this is a – perhaps the – defining issue for domestic policy in the age of President Obama. Even as the recent financial crisis has exposed the need for a reliable social safety net, attempts to respond through the political and legislative arenas have triggered increasingly hostile responses among conservatives, populists, Massachusetts voters, and incipient tea partiers. The puzzle of how to attract and preserve public support for law reform aimed at redistribution – of both income and risk – is …

Taxation Of Financial Products: Options For Fundamental Reform, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

The following is testimony to the joint hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance. The testimony discusses three benchmarks for evaluating the taxation of capital income in general and financial instruments in particular, summarizes three broad-based approaches to reforming the tax treatment of financial products, evaluates the impact of other fundamental reforms on the urgency of reforming the taxation of derivatives, and urges Congress to encourage the IRS to make detailed tax return data available for empirical research of revenue costs and other losses arising from derivatives-based tax planning.

The Politics And Policy Of The Estate Tax – Past, Present, And Future, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

This paper is an edited transcript of the Lloyd Leva Plaine Distinguished Lecture, delivered at the University of Miami’s Heckerling Estate Planning Institute on January 11, 2011. It reviews the history of the estate tax, discusses the politics of its bizarre repeal for the year 2010 only, and outlines the forces that led to reinstatement of the tax for 2011 and 2012 with a $5 million exemption and 35 percent top rate. The paper makes clear that the coalition pushing for repeal of the estate tax will continue to work to eliminate it and also explores potential broader implications of …

Suitable For Framing: Business Deductions In A Net Income Tax System, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

The federal income tax code includes numerous provisions disallowing or curtailing income tax deductions related to such disparate activities as providing non-performance based compensation to senior corporate executives and business lobbying. The primary claim of this article is that a tendency to mentally frame business deductions as subsidies, often reinforced by rhetoric explicitly framing deductions as subsidies, helps explain these provisions. The traditional “public policy” disallowances directed at lobbying, fines and penalties paid by businesses, and antitrust treble damages respond to an appearance of a taxpayer subsidy that would follow from deduction, despite the fact that it is far from …

Tefra-Partnership Refunds: Five Steps To Protect A Partner’S Rights, Mary A. Mcnulty, Robert D. Probasco, Carla C. Crapster

Faculty Scholarship

The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) established a unified procedure for determining the tax treatment of partnership items at the partnership level rather than the partner level. The TEFRA-partnership refund procedures differ from the refund claim procedures that apply to other taxpayers. For a TEFRA partnership, a refund claim is an administrative adjustment request (AAF) and a notice of deficiency is a notice of final partnership administrative adjustment (FPAA). Procedures for the assessment of additional tax attributable to partnership items have received much attention in recent years, but the procedures concerning refunds are complex and full …

The Liability-Offset Theory Of Peracchi, Bradley T. Borden, Douglas Longhofer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Organizational Representation And The Frontiers Of Gatekeeping, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

I spend more than half of my Professional Responsibility (“PR”) survey course discussing issues distinctive to organizational clients. I do so in part to take into account the realities of practice. If we can generalize from John Heinz and Edward Laumann’s Chicago study, about sixty-five percent of lawyering time is devoted to organizational clients. Yet, the PR issues involved in representing organizational clients occupy a comparatively small portion of legal doctrine, casebooks, and scholarship.

Another reason I emphasize organizational clients is that recent developments in this sphere, especially in securities and tax, have great general interest.

Beyond Economic Substance: Interrogating The Full Impacts Of Third-Party Relationships In Tax Shelter Cases, Shu-Yi Oei

Faculty Scholarship

The evaluation of relationships between actors is an important preoccupation across many areas of law. The degree of respect accorded a relationship can give rise to significant legal consequences. No less so in tax law. Relationships between taxpayers and other parties are critical in triggering the realization events necessary to generate favorable tax consequences. And, where tax law refuses to respect such relationships, adverse tax consequences follow. This article analyzes the effects of relationality in tax shelter transactions. First, it discusses the importance of relationship evaluation in traditional assessments of whether a tax transaction has, “substance,” highlighting challenges faced by …