Tax Law Commons^™

Eu Tax Probe, State Aid & The Case Of Amazon, Tomislav Krmek

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

Multinational entities are shifting their profits from jurisdictions with high tax rates to low tax jurisdictions that result in sovereign governments losing millions of dollars and euros. Profits are moved away from the jurisdictions in which the economic activity occurs and sovereign governments face difficulties in exercising their right to taxation. The most common method employed for artificially (but legally) shifting profits is the transfer of intangibles (intellectual property). This article will discuss this legal tax avoidance in the European Union by multinational entities using that common technique: shifting of goods and services between affiliates (transfer pricing). Companies are getting …

Revisiting Erisa’S Church Plan Exemption After Advocate Health Care Network V. Stapleton, Emily Morrison

Northwestern University Law Review

For much of the last forty years, ERISA’s church plan exemption has existed quietly without much fanfare. But increased litigation over the last five years has dragged the exemption into the spotlight. The litigation focuses on religiously affiliated hospital systems and whether their pension plans have been correctly classified as church plans exempt from ERISA.

This Note examines the history behind the church plan exemption, including statutory modifications made in 1980 and the IRS’s longstanding interpretation of these changes, which precipitated the dispute at issue in the current wave of litigation. While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Advocate …

Business Tax Burdens And Tax Reform, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

Tax reforms affect economic performance by changing incentives for business formation, expansion, and operation. The United States has the highest corporate tax rate among OECD countries in 2017, and despite offering significant additional deductions, exclusions, and tax credits, imposes the heaviest tax burdens. This paper offers a new measure of corporate tax burdens based on information in tax expenditure budgets; this measure implies that the burden of U.S. corporate taxation in 2017 is equivalent to that produced by a corporate tax rate between 31.2-34.6% without additional deductions, exclusions, or tax credits. Efficient design of a business tax system encourages activities …

Southern Cal. Edison V. State Dep’T Of Taxation, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 49 (Jul. 27, 2017), Karson Bright

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered whether an electrical utility company was entitled to a tax refund after it had paid taxes under an alleged discriminatory taxation scheme. The Court held that the company was not entitled to a tax refund because the company’s statutory construction argument regarding NRS 372.270 in conjunction with NRS 372.185 would create absurd results. Moreover, the company did not provide sufficient evidence demonstrating substantially situated competitors who benefited from the unconstitutional taxation scheme. Finally, the Court found that the company was not entitled to a tax credit for the money it paid to an out-of-state tax because the …

Financing Central Cities: The Economics Underlying Fiscal Strategy Options, Michael Wasylenko

Center for Policy Research

A consortium of Syracuse City and Onondaga County governments along with a number of local area non-profit organizations have recently organized a commission on Local Government Modernization for the Syracuse area. The Report makes three major recommendation to strengthen the local public sector in the Syracuse region: seek opportunities to share public services across local jurisdictions to reduce costs, adopt the Minneapolis region model for sharing revenues from new commercial and industrial development across localities, and work toward merging Syracuse City government with Onondaga County government. At the same time, current non-city residents would not have responsibility for the city …

A Diachronic Approach To Bob Jones: Religious Tax Exemptions After Obergefell, Samuel D. Brunson, David J. Herzig

Indiana Law Journal

In Bob Jones University v. United States, the Supreme Court held that an entity may lose its tax exemption if it violates a fundamental public policy, even where religious beliefs demand that violation. In that case, the Court held that racial discrimination violated fundamental public policy. Could the determination to exclude same-sex in-dividuals from marriage or attending a college also be considered a violation of fundamental public policy? There is uncertainty in the answer. In the re-cent Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage, the Court asserted that LGBT individuals are entitled to “equal dignity in the eyes of …

Tax-Deductible Conservation Easements And The Essential Perpetuity Requirements, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Property owners who make charitable gifts of perpetual conservation easements are eligible to claim federal charitable income tax deductions. Through this tax-incentive program the public is investing billions of dollars in easements encumbering millions of acres nationwide. In response to reports of abuse in the early 2000s, the Internal Revenue Service (Service) began auditing and litigating questionable easement donation transactions, and the resulting case law reveals significant failures to comply with the deduction’s requirements. Recently, the Service has come under fire for enforcing the deduction’s “perpetuity” requirements, which are intended to ensure that the easements will protect the subject properties’ …

A Progressive Federal Tax Credit For State Tax Payments, Eric Kades

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Territoriality And The Original Intent Of Subpart F, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On April 26 President Trump issued a one page tax reform outline that included territoriality - that is, making dividends from the non-subpart F income of controlled foreign corporations tax exempt. Territoriality is also included in the House Republican "Better Way" blueprint, and was supported by the Obama administration and in bipartisan legislation introduced in 2016 by Senate Finance Committee members Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

W(H)Ither The Tax Gap?, James Alm, Jay A. Soled

Washington Law Review

For decades, policy makers and politicians have railed against the “tax gap,” or the difference between what taxpayers are legally obligated to pay in taxes and what they actually pay in taxes. To close the gap, Congress has instituted numerous reforms with varying degrees of success. Notwithstanding these efforts, the tax gap has largely remained intact, and, if anything, it has gradually grown over the last several decades. However, the tax gap may well begin to diminish in size (or “wither” away), if not immediately then over time. Three developments will help narrow the tax gap’s size. First, the ubiquity …

Malulani And The Entrenchment Of Mechanical Analysis Of Related-Party Exchange Rules, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Front Matter (Letter From The Editor, Masthead, Etc.)

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Bringing The U.S. Tax Court Exam Out Of Obscurity, Lucia Nasuti Smeal J.D., Tad D. Ransopher J.D.

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 6, No. 2 – Spring 2017

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Country By Country Reporting Under Beps, Fenny Lei

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Proposition 64 Legalizes Marijuana In California But The War On Drugs Continues, Jessica Wong

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Summaries For The 32nd Annual Tei-Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute, Saqib Amin, Silin Chen, Ophelia Ding, Veena Hemachandran, Elle San Pedro De Kornsand, Padmini Yalamarthi, Yu Zheng

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

U.S. Tax Forms For American Expatriates, Saqib Amin Cpa

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Taxing Marijuana: Earmarking Tax Revenue From Legalized Marijuana, Armikka R. Bryant

Georgia State University Law Review

This Article provides an overview of the legal, political, and societal landscapes in states that have legalized marijuana and imposed taxes on its sale. The article begins by summarizing the War on Drugs’ origins, its fiscal expenditures, and the social policies that ultimately led to its failure.

Part I briefly details the history of marijuana regulation starting from the early twentieth century up to the Obama administration’s decision to permit recreational marijuana laws to stand in Washington state and Colorado. Part II dives deeper into the social costs of the War on Drugs and outlines the hardships faced by those …

Statutory Interpretation Lessons Courtesy Of Pilgrim’S Pride, Philip G. Cohen

University of Miami Business Law Review

In Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. v. Commissioner, the Fifth Circuit reversed the Tax Court and held that the taxpayer was entitled to an ordinary loss deduction from its abandonment of securities. While the conclusion reached by the Fifth Circuit has been overshadowed by the promulgation of Treasury Regulation section 1.165-5(i) that effectively treats an abandoned security as worthless and thus characterizes the loss as capital, the case remains noteworthy because it provides an opportunity to examine the statutory interpretation of two distinct Internal Revenue Code sections, section 165(g)(1) and section 1234A. The article focuses on what methods of statutory construction …

Partnership Tax Allocations: The Basics, Walter D. Schwidetzky

All Faculty Scholarship

This article endeavors to help practitioners who are not partnership tax allocation experts identify when they should consult with those with that expertise. The partnership-allocation Treasury Regulations have been called "a creation of prodigious complexity ... essentially impenetrable to all but those with the time, talent, and determination to become thoroughly prepared experts on the subject." This article is written for those, to date at least, without that time and determination. At the same time, the article provides an introduction to the partnership tax allocation rules for those contemplating making the requisite investment of time and determination.

The term "partnership," …

Tax Impact On Charitable Organizations, Honorable Barber Conable

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Difficult Definitional Problems In Tax Administration: Religion And Race, Jerome Kurtz

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Why The Charitable Deduction For Gifts To Educational Endowments Should Be Repealed, Herwig Schlunk

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should Foreign Pension Funds With U.S. Investments Pay U.S. Tax?, Cynthia Blum

William & Mary Business Law Review

U.S. and foreign pension funds are investing heavily outside of their home countries. With the aging of the world’s population, this trend will likely intensify. Most countries, including the U.S., accord a tax exemption to certain qualified pension funds organized within their own country; however, when a foreign pension fund invests in the U.S., the U.S. tax code does not recognize its tax exemption. Responding to the need to attract greater investment in U.S. infrastructure, Congress in 2015 enacted a new provision ameliorating the tax treatment of foreign pension plans investing in U.S. real estate. This Article examines whether the …

A Return On Investment: How The Breastfeeding Promotion Act Can Change The Make-Up Of The Private Workforce, Krishna Jani

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion On Unrelated Business Income Tax, Robert M. Spevack, Charles M. Whelan, S.J., George E. Reed

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Exemptions From Unrelated Business Tax - Rental Income, George E. Reed

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Taxation Of Advertising Income Of Exempt Organizations' Publications, Robert M. Spevack

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Application Of Unrelated Business Income Tax To Churches, John S. Nolan

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.