Tax Law Commons^™

Nullifying The Debt Ceiling Threat Once And For All: Why The President Should Embrace The Least Unconstitutional Option, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In August 2011, Congress and the President narrowly averted economic and political catastrophe, agreeing at the last possible moment to authorize a series of increases in the national debt ceiling. This respite, unfortunately, was merely temporary. The amounts of the increases in the debt ceiling that Congress authorized in 2011 were only sufficient to accommodate the additional borrowing that would be necessary through the end of 2012. In an economy that continued to show chronic weakness -- weakness that continues to this day -- the federal government would predictably continue to collect lower-than-normal tax revenues and to make higher-than-normal expenditures, …

Vat Triangulation With A Us Middleman Vstr, C-587/10, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

It is not every day that an American firm finds itself in the middle of an EU VAT controversy that significantly develops the law. However, the September 27, 2012 decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) does just that. The case is Vogtländische Straβen-,Tief- und Rohrleitungsbau GmbH Rodewisch (VSTR) v. Finanzamt Plauen.

In November 1998 Atlantic International Trading Company (AIT), an American company established in New York, NY, purchased two stone-crushers from VSTR, a firm established in Germany. AIT quickly re-sold the stone-crushers to an end user established in Finland. The VSTR/AIT contract was “ex works,” that is AIT …

Vat Fraud & Triangulation, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud has received a lot of domestic enforcement attention. True cross border enforcement (joint or coordinated multi-Member State audit) has been limited. There are signs that this is changing as the Member States become more aggressive in their search for revenue.

Along with this shift in enforcement focus, triangulation analysis has moved from being an interesting aspect of the MTIC fraud structure to the central element in a larger understanding of how a fraudster thinks and how he carries out his fraud. We are coming to understand that triangulations are not only the mechanism of how …

Neither Rules Nor Standards, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Taxing And Tuition: A Legislative Solution To Growing Endowments And The Rising Costs Of A College Degree, Matt Willie

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Like-Kind Exchange Equity Conundrum, Bradley T. Borden

Florida Law Review

The tax-free treatment of like-kind exchanges presents one of tax law’s most compelling equity conundrums. Tax law generally does not tax property holders on the property’s appreciation but does tax gain or loss recognized by property sellers and exchangers of non-like-kind property. In the basic Aristotelian system, equity requires that likes be treated alike, but the system does not provide criteria to determine what is alike. Depending upon the criteria, exchangers of like-kind property can be similar either to holders or to sellers and exchangers of non-like-kind property. The equity conundrum asks whether tax law should treat exchangers of like-kind …

School Of Risk Control Excellence: Responsibilities In Tax Practice And Malpractice Risks, Diane S. Wainwright

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Introduction To M&A Tax: Due Diligence Traps In S Corp Acquisitions (Slides), Robert G. Mcelroy, William M. Richardson

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Partnership Tax Planning Without Falling Into The Canal (Slides), Andrea M. Whiteway

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Partnership Tax Planning Without Falling Into The Canal (Outline), Andrea M. Whiteway

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

The Case For The Retention Of The State Death Tax Credit In The Federal Transfer Tax Scheme: "Just Say No" To A Deduction, John M. Janiga, Louis S. Harrison

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Long Can This Go On? The Controversy Over The Application Of The Statute Of Limitations To S Corporations And Their Shareholders, J. Marcus Sommers

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Objections To Taxing Resale Of Residential Property Under A Vat, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The “pre-collection” of tax on imputed consumption generated by owner-occupied housing plays a crucial role in both consumption tax theory and real-world tax regimes. However, even under current VAT systems with the widest tax bases, the taxation of imputed housing consumption is incomplete because pre-existing housing stock is typically not taxed when the VAT is introduced, and because housing value may appreciate after initial sale. In response, some have recommended taxing residential re-sale to capture previously untaxed consumption value. This paper argues that because the incidence of any properly-designed tax on resale will fall only on economic rent and existing …

Financial Disability For All, T. Keith Fogg

Working Paper Series

The Internal Revenue Code has four discreet sections that allow late filing of claims and other documents under the circumstances described in those sections. The IRS has promulgated a procedural regulation that allows it to permit late elections under prescribed circumstances. Neither the Code sections nor the Regulation cover all of the circumstances in which taxpayers have a good excuse for missing a time frame. The current provisions have developed in an ad hoc manner. More ad hoc development of this area is possible as equitable tolling litigation seeks to open up time frames under the Code despite the efforts …

Double Or Nothing: A Tax Treaty For The 21st Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Oz Halabi

Law & Economics Working Papers

The current tax treaty network was developed in the 1920s and 1930s in order to prevent double residence/source taxation. This kind of double taxation rarely exists any more because most countries have adopted either an exemption system or a foreign tax credit regime in their domestic (non‐treaty) law, which effectively prevents residence/source double taxation even in the absence of a treaty. Instead, as Tsilly Dagan has pointed out, the current treaties serve mostly to transfer revenue from the source country to the residence country. This suggests that treaties may be unnecessary because exemption from withholding taxes by source countries can …

The Tax Expenditure Budget Is A Zombie Accountant, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Taxation, Craig D. Bell

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Tax Expenditure Budget Is A Zombie Accountant, Steven A. Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Like a student blocking his access to the internet to help him study, governments across the globe rely on commitment devices to generate fiscal discipline. From the collapse of the Congressional Supercommittee in the United States to the near-cataclysmic failure of a mechanism designed to prevent the European Union debt crisis, the evidence suggests that faith in such commitment devices is misplaced. This Article focuses on one such device that stubbornly refuses to stay dead: the tax expenditure budget. Created to guard against abuse by publicizing the costs of tax subsidies then resurrected as a bean counter, the tax expenditure …

Back From The Abyss: Real Estate Tax Planning From The Bottom Up (Slides), Steven M. Friedman

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Real-Time Collection Of The Value-Added Tax: Some Business And Legal Implications, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Boryana Madzharova

Faculty Scholarship

Recent estimates of the level of VAT fraud in the EU are commensurate with the EU budget. With the Green paper on the future of VAT, the European Commission stressed the urgency and necessity of comprehensive VAT reforms. This paper analyses the business and legal implications of the recently proposed split-payment mechanism, which, if implemented, would move VAT’s method of collection to real-time. The discussion is positioned in the context of two increasingly visible trends in the EU – the general shift towards greater reliance on indirect taxation and the growing popularity of electronic payment instruments. The potential implementation of …

Charitable Organizations And Commercial Activity: A New Era - Will The Social Entrepreneurship Movement Force Change?, Jaclyn Cherry

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

It is no longer a new trend for charitable organizations to become involved in commercial activities. Thousands of nonprofit organizations have embraced the social entrepreneurial concept and have either created “commercial” type ventures as part of their nonprofits, have created spin-off organizations or subsidiary organizations, or have moved into the new area of hybrid organizations. Because there are no clear rules or guidelines for dealing with this issue, the third sector finds itself with rogue components and a spin-off group of hybrid organizations being loosely termed “social entrepreneurs.” Though these groups have grown in numbers in recent years, they have …

Agents Without Principals: Regulating The Duty Of Loyalty For Nonprofit Corporations Through The Intermediate Sanctions Tax Regulations, Carly B. Eisenberg, Kevin Outterson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Delaware corporate law imposes a duty of loyalty on officers and directors as a mechanism to regulate and deter self-dealing transactions. In nonprofit corporations, however, there are generally no shareholders with direct financial incentives to monitor against self-dealing. In the absence of shareholders and other principals, Congress and the IRS have articulated duty of loyalty rules for nonprofits that reach far beyond those applied to the for-profit world--most prominently the § 4958 intermediate sanctions. This article identifies the persons who owe a duty of loyalty to a nonprofit corporation, the applicable fiduciary standards for violating the duty of loyalty, and …

Brief Of Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law Tax Clinic As Amicus Curiae In Support Of The Respondents, Carlton M. Smith

Amicus Briefs

The Cardozo Tax Clinic represents, for free, low-income taxpayers with respect to their federal income tax matters – both before the Internal Revenue Service and in the federal courts. Occasionally, the Clinic’s assistance has been sought after those individuals, on their own, filed a document late – either with the IRS or the courts -- under a time deadline set out in the Internal Revenue Code or in a regulation promulgated thereunder. Usually, no extraordinary equitable reasons occurred that might excuse such late filing. See, e.g., Iljazi v. Commissioner, T.C. Summary Op. 2010-59 (client simply filed administrative claim for …

Preserving Fairness In Tax Administration In The Mayo Era, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

One of the dominant themes in contemporary federal taxation is bringing tax administration within the fold of general administrative law. In 2011, the United States Supreme Court unambiguously embraced this movement in the landmark case Mayo Foundation for Medical Education & Research v. United States, in which the Court held that challenges to the validity of Treasury regulations generally are governed by the Chevron standard to the same extent as are regulations issued by other administrative agencies.

There was an immediate and strong hostile reaction to Mayo in tax circles. Many fear that Mayo dramatically tips the balance in favor …

It's Not A Tax (Statutorily), But It Is A Tax (Constitutionally), Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Perspectives - Benjamin Webb Of The Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

Benjamin Webb discusses the rewards and challenges of being responsible for facilities management and energy for the largest mixed-program cultural center in the Southeastern U.S.

Profile - Legal Aid Center Of Southern Nevada, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

Responding to an ever-increasing need for pro bono legal services, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada recently broke ground in downtown Las Vegas on what will become its new headquarters. Professor James Hagy, Director of The Rooftops Project, talks with Eexecutive Director Barbara Buckley about the project and the role that the new facility will play in advancing the Center’s mission and its services to clients.

Not All Defined Value Clauses Are Equal, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

Defined value clauses used to value nonmarketable family limited partnership (FLP) interests create valuation distortions and other public policy issues. This paper describes these abuses and proposes the employment of restrictions similar to those applied to pecuniary formula marital deduction clauses.

The article explains how pecuniary formula marital deduction provisions created valuation distortions by allowing for undervaluation of the marital share that were remedied by the IRS’s Rev. Proc. 64-19 and the enactment of section 2056(b)(10). The article analyzes recent case law expanding the use of defined value clauses into the FLP area and criticizes the courts for not applying …

Perspectives - Alyssa Bellew Of The Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church Of Pasadena, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

At manyplaces of worship, responsibility for oversight of the physical facilities falls to administrative staff as one more adjunct to an already busy schedule. At others, property tasks may be left to volunteers. The “on-the-job training” may often be self-taught. Professor James Hagy explores these challenges with Alyssa Bellew, Administrative Director of Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church.

Panorama - International Perspectives: Kathleen Curran, Director Of Casa Nuevo Horizonte, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

In this first of our series of international perspectives, Kathleen Curran relfects on the important role that physical space has played in her charitable mission in Bolivia supporting promising students seeking an advanced education in a setting of poverty.