Tax Law Commons^™

The Hidden Costs Of The Progressivity Debate, Nancy C. Staudt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Progressive taxation-taxing high income individuals at a proportionally higher level than low income individuals-has sparked more than a century of controversy. Those who support progressive taxation have heralded it as a policy that promotes the greatest good for the greatest number in society protects traditional democratic values, reflects the communitarian world-view of women who see themselves as responsible for the well-being of all individuals, and reveals the "aesthetic judgment" that income inequality is "distinctly evil or unlovely." At the same time, critics have condemned progressive income taxation as social policy that amounts to theft and involuntary servitude, reflects the democratic …

Taxing Electronic Commerce: Preliminary Thoughts On Model Uniform Legislation, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

This report on Taxing Electronic Commerce was presented at the symposium on multi-jurisdictional taxation of electronic commerce at Harvard University on April 5, 1997. This report describes the normative principles shared by most serious analyses of the problems raised by state taxation of electronic commerce. It then attempts to translate these principles into legal rules that could provide a model for uniform legislation in this area. Finally it addresses constitutional questions that will likely be encountered in any effort to implement such legislation.

Government Precommitment To Tax Incentive Subsidies: The Impact Of United States V. Winstar Corp. On Retroactive Tax Legislation, Daniel S. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Green For Some Green In West Virginia: An Overview Of The West Virginia Conservation And Preservation Easements Act, Ryan Christopher Anderson

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Women's, Men's And Children's Equalities: Some Reflections And Uncertainties, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

One of the most striking ideas that Edward J. McCaffery suggests in Taxing Women is that equality, of the right sort, must be thought of in gendered terms. We must relinquish the idea that we can find or declare some neutral principle that will achieve the goal of equality, particularly with respect to the relationship between work and family, because the social context makes it impossible. Rather, we need to devise gender-specific strategies to achieve equality, even if they are couched in gender-neutral language. In my recent work examining single parent families, I have come to much the same conclusion: …

Plain Meaning, The Tax Code, And Doctrinal Incoherence, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the Supreme Court's interpretive approach in recent tax cases. Part I of the Article sets the stage by describing the Court's interpretive approach, its focus on the relative determinacy of statutory language, and the backdrop of Chevron. Part II examines the effect of these issues on tax law, focusing on three cases that construe the same Code provision, section 104(a)(2), but apply quite different interpretive approaches. In United States v. Burke, the Court appeared to find the provision ambiguous and relied in part upon an interpretation of the statute contained in a Treasury regulation. Subsequently, in Commissioner …

State Taxation Of Electronic Commerce, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

The coming of the information age has profound implications for state taxation as it does for just about everything else. The exponential growth and increasing commercialization of the Internet, along with the sweeping technological and regulatory changes that have reconfigured the telecommunications industry, pose a daunting challenge to the states’ traditional approaches to taxing business activity and the telecommunications system that facilitates it. State tax administrators and policymakers, alarmed at the prospect that their tax bases will disappear into cyberspace, are seeking means to accommodate their taxing regimes to the new technological environment. The business community, on the other hand, …

Taxation Of Telecommunications And Electronic Commerce, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Hazards Of Tinkering With The Common Law Of Future Interests: The California Experience, Laura E. Cunningham

Articles

No abstract provided.

U.S. International Treatment Of Financial Derivatives, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Linda Swartz

Articles

The current proposals to substitute consumption for income as the principal U.S. tax base have already been the topic of considerable commentary in these pages. However, one issue has received relatively little attention in the discussion of the various reform proposals: What potential complications are likely to arise if a single major player in the world's economy unilaterally adopts radical tax reform? The global economy is becoming more and more unified, with multinational corporations dominating world trade and trillions of dollars in portfolio investment flowing across national boundaries. In this economy, what would be the consequences if a single country, …

Charitable Endowments And The Democratization Of Dynasty, Evelyn Brody

All Faculty Scholarship

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

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Taxation Of Gifts And Bequests In Australia: A Prototype For Transfer Tax Reform In The United States?, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Washington International Law Journal

Australian tax law presents a possible prototype for the reform of gift taxation in the United States. Unlike the United States, Australia does not impose a separate transfer tax on gifts and bequests. Rather, gratuitous transfers of appreciated property are treated as capital gains under Australian tax law, exposing donors to income taxation. In an effort to interject the Australian model of taxation into the already robust debate over how best to reform the U.S. transfer tax system, this article examines the advantages and disadvantages of the Australian system and the Australian Income Tax Assessment Act ("ITAA").

Everything Old Is New Again: Reaching The Limits Of Indopco's Future Benefits With The Just-In-Time Management Philosophy, Glenn Walberg

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Treasury Regulations And Judicial Deference In The Post-Chevron Era, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Analysis of several post-Chevron cases indicates that every major Supreme Court case since 1984 involving the validity of a Treasury regulation is consistent with Chevron. Indeed, since 1984 every challenged Treasury regulation interpreting a statute in which Congress failed to address a specific tax issue has been upheld by the Court. In fact, no Supreme Court case since 1984 could be discovered in which the Court invalidated a Treasury regulation on the grounds that it was an unreasonable interpretation of a statute. Several post-Chevron Supreme

Court decisions, however, rejected the Treasury's application of a tax regulation to …

The Municipal Bond Interst Exemption: Comments On A Running Battle, Leon Gabinet

Faculty Publications

Ever since the enactment of the Revenue Act of 1913 there has been continued debate surrounding the exemption given to municipal bond interest. More recently a variety of alternatives to the interest exemption have been suggested in an effort to correct t

To End Deferral As We Know It: Simplification Potential Of Check-The-Box, Reuven Avi-Yonah

Articles

On December 17, 1996, the Treasury Department issued final regulations under section 7701 of the Internal Revenue Code implementing the regime dubbed "check-the-box," under which taxpayers can elect to be treated as corporations or as passthrough entities for U.S. tax purposes. The purpose of this article is to argue that the adoption of these regulations affords a momentous opportunity for Congress to achieve significant simplification of the notoriously complex U.S. international tax rules. Fundamentally, the adoption of check-the- box means that U.S. taxpayers will be able to elect whether or not their foreign-source active income will enjoy deferral from current …

Economic Performance And Progressive Jackpots: A Better Analysis, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Skunk Works Bill Contains Some Stinky Provisions, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sports And Entertainment Figures (And Others) May Be Able To Deduct Legal Expenses For Criminal Prosecutions (And Wrongful Death Suits), John R. Dorocak

Akron Tax Journal

This article, first, explains the Gilmore origin of claim test. Secondly, the extension of the origin of claim to situations where the legal claim is less clearly connected to the taxpayer's business or income-seeking activities will be discussed. Thirdly, this article will analyze the issue of how a criminal prosecution, particularly for a murder in a situation such as Mr. Simpson's, can be connected to business or income-seeking. Fourthly, the issue of whether any government policy would prevent the deduction, especially for an unsuccessful criminal defendant, will be reviewed Fifthly, prior murder cases in which the defendant was not allowed …

The Origin Of The Claim Test: A Search For Objectivity, Edward J. Schnee, Nancy J. Stara

Akron Tax Journal

Recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in United States v. Kroy (Europe) Ltd., used the origin of the claim test to determine the deductibility of financing expenses. At approximately the same time, the Tax Court, in Fort Howard Corp. v. Commissioner, concluded the use of the origin of the claim test to characterize similar expenditures was inappropriate. Given this conflict and the extensive use of this test to evaluate the deductibility of expenditures, this article reviews the development of this test and provides an analysis of the potential conflicts and uncertainties in its application.

Practitioners - Beware The Trojan Horse: The Government Unsheathes An Old Weapon To Target Practitioners For Criminal Tax Offenses, Dante Marrazzo

Akron Tax Journal

Nestled within the many criminal sanctions of the Internal Revenue Code is a little known, less understood, and, until recently, seldom used statute proscribing attempts to interfere with administration of the Internal Revenue laws. This article will discuss the exponential increase in use of that provision, section 7212(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, in the last decade to seek prosecution of tax scofflaws, particularly practitioners, who might have otherwise escaped criminal sanctions. This article will call attention to some perils for the practitioner relating to representing a client on tax matters. Those perils include possible criminal prosecution of an attorney …

Dispute Resolution With The Irs And Taxpayer Bill Of Rights 2, Lee G. Knight, Ray A. Knight

Akron Tax Journal

This article expands on the meaning of reasonable time and place and examines numerous other rules governing audit examinations: (1) the significance of the taxpayer's last known address; (2) the rules governing representation before the IRS; (3) established channels for resolving difficult tax problems; (4) guidelines for disputing IRS findings; (5) IRS tools for collecting assessments of additional tax; and (6) the appropriateness of litigation in resolving assessment disputes. In addition, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and the IRS initiatives to expand taxpayer rights are analyzed and explained. Tax practitioners with a working knowledge of these provisions will be better …

Personal Injury Exclusion: Is The Slashing Of Wrists Necessary?, Donald J. Zahn

Akron Tax Journal

This paper will examine the history of damage award taxation beginning with the earliest income tax statute through the present law. Part II traces the 1918 and 1939 income Tax Code provisions and the court cases interpreting those provisions. Part I addresses the 1954 income Tax Code provisions and the case law which further defines tax aspects of damage awards, and Part IV outlines the 1986 tax reform legislation, the 1989 damage award changes, and recent United States Supreme Court rulings on the taxation of damage awards. Finally, Part V suggests that the courts have turned their backs on traditional …

Use Tax Collection On Internet Purchases: Should The Mail Order Industry Serve As A Model, 15 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 203 (1997), Steven J. Forte

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Federal intervention is necessary to grant states the authority to collect state sales and use tax from Internet vendors who sell goods within their boundaries but reside elsewhere. With such federal intervention, local retailers, who must charge state use and sales tax to their customers, can compete more fairly with Internet vendors. In addition, state governments can access a large and growing revenue source. Under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, a vendor must have a physical presence on a state before a state can require the vendor to collect and remit sales and use tax. In addition, …

A Comparatve Analysis Of Southeastern States' Income Tax Treatment Of Exporters, Ernest P. Larkins, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, John J. Masselli

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court’S Misleading Footnote In General Dynamics, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This article examines footnote 3 in the Supreme Court's 1987 opinion in United States v. General Dynamics. In that case, governed by the law in place before the Tax Reform Act of 1984, the Court held that General Dynamics had to defer deductions attributable to claims for employee medical expenses until the claims were approved. In the footnote, the Court suggested that the 1984 amendment to section 461(h) of the Internal Revenue Code postponing the time for deducting accrued expenses until economic performance would, in a similar case governed by the statutory change, have further deferred General Dynamics' deduction until …

Congress's Amendment To Section 104 Of The Tax Code Will Not Clarify The Tax Treatment Of Damages And Will Lead To Arbitrary Distinctions, Sharon E. Stedman

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the recent amendment of I.R.C. § 104 and argues that the amendment will not clarify the tax treatment of damages but will instead lead to inequitable results and arbitrary distinctions. Part I explores the policy justifications for the exclusion of damage awards from gross income and provides a brief overview of section 104. Next, in Part II, the article reflects upon the tax treatment of damages prior to the recent amendment. In doing so, Part II focuses on the relevant case law and revenue rulings. Turning toward the tax treatment of damages under the new amendment, Part …

Double Taxation - Treatment Of Corporate Earnings Under American And German Law, Roland Schmidt

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis is going to describe the different ways the United States and Germany deal with the problem of double taxation in the legal context of corporate distributions to its shareholders in the form of dividends. Tax law is particularly one of the areas of laws that are subject to frequent and often substantial changes. This is true for the German as well as for the U.S. tax laws. Since some of the issues being discussed in the United States today in connection with the corporate tax law are similar if not identical to the issues discussed in Germany before …

The "Original Intent" Of U.S. International Taxation, Michael J. Graetz, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Scholarship

The Sixteenth Amendment took effect on February 25, 1913, permitting Congress to tax income "from whatever source derived," and on October 3rd of that year, Congress approved a tax on the net income of individuals and corporations. The United States regime for taxing international income took shape soon thereafter, during the decade 1919-1928. In the Revenue Act of 1918, the United States enacted, for the first time anywhere in the world, a credit against U.S. income for taxes paid by a U.S. citizen or resident to any foreign government on income earned outside the United States. The Revenue Act of …