Tax Law Commons^™

Ai Suffrage For Human Flourishing, Simon Goldstein, Guha Krishnamurthi, Peter N. Salib

Fordham Law Review

Should Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have the vote? One approach to this question is to explore AI systems’ moral characteristics, asking whether they possess the qualities that entitle humans to equal political standing and, consequently, suffrage. Those are important questions. But they are very hard ones, resting on highly contestable premises about ethics, AI, and humanity.

We instead take a functionalist approach: On the current trajectory, AIs will soon be highly agentic and capable, while remaining difficult to align with human objectives. If so, law will be an essential tool for shaping such systems’ behavior to favor positive-sum cooperation with …

The U.S. Tax Paradox, Doron Narotzki, Tamir Shanan, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Texas A&M Law Review

The U.S. federal tax system is a paradox. It rejects one of the most effective and widely used federal revenue tools while embracing one of the most inefficient and economically harmful taxes. U.S. policymakers dismiss proven solutions as politically unfeasible yet rely on a system that disproportionately burdens consumers and disrupts trade both domestically and internationally. This contradiction is not just irrational. It undermines the very principles of sound tax policy and economic stability.

This Article traces the historical roots of this paradox, from early American tax revolts to modern trade policies, exposing the irony of a nation that once …

The Lebanese Holding Company, Michel Soumrani

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Fiscal Sustainability And The Courts In Colombia, Eleonora Lozano-Rodríguez

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This text offers a theoretical and conceptual approach to fiscal sustainability and to the mechanism of fiscal impact review. It also examines specific judicial cases where fiscal sustainability and/or fiscal impact review have been applied in areas such as social security, victims of the Colombian internal armed conflict, community mothers, and taxation. The article concludes that the difficult dialogue between law and economics has improved, though legal nuances still need clarification, and economic advantages or disadvantages remain to be measured. At times, the guarantee of rights prevailed (for example, compensation for Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, and Palenquero communities, as well as …

Comments On Reg-119882-25, Application Of The Personal Responsibility And Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act Of 1996 To The Refunded Portion Of Certain Federal Refundable Tax Credits, 91 Fed. Reg. 53,812 (Aug. 20, 2026); Irs Docket No. Irs- 2026-1057, Islame Hosny, Addison H. Brown, Andrew E. Hoppe, Nafisa Jeb, Parker W. Kinney, Shane M. Rice, Audrey Hager, Anna Russell, Cornell Law School Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

On October 5, 2026, the Cornell Law School Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic submitted this comment letter on proposed Treasury and IRS regulations (REG-119882-25, 91 Fed. Reg. 53,812). The regulations would apply the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) to the refunded portions of the adoption tax credit, child tax credit, American opportunity tax credit, and earned income tax credit. The letter argues that Treasury has not adequately reconciled PRWORA's "qualified alien" test with the Code's residency and Social Security number rules. It also argues that Treasury has not justified treating the adoption credit as a federal public …

Tax Exceptionalism After Loper Bright, Conor Clarke, Noah Hertz Marks

Faculty Publications

In this article, the authors consider what Loper Bright means for the relevance of Mayo Foundation and National Muffler as well as its broader implications for agency-specific deference, and they examine older case law that can be helpful post-Loper Bright.

Highway Robbery: The Eleventh Circuit Correctly Finds Fbar Willful-Violation Penalties Subject To The Eighth Amendment In United States V. Schwarzbaum, Claire Borland

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Impacts Of Propositions 41 And 42 On California Public Finance, David Gamage, Brian D. Galle, Darien Shanske

Faculty Publications

This memorandum discusses the possible collateral damage that Propositions 41 and 42 (on the ballot in California on November 3, 2026) might cause.  The two propositions were concocted very quickly by billionaires in order to trick voters that will vote for Proposition 40 (the billionaire tax) also to vote for these propositions that are designed to undermine the billionaire tax.

The basic trick is that these propositions have plausible seeming veneers but hide a poison pill that aims to frustrate the functioning of the billionaire tax.  The veneers are “plausible seeming” because they address problems that are not problems.  For …

Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Money Out Of Politics By Putting Money Into Politics: A Few Modest Proposals To Reform Seattle’S Democracy Voucher Program, Decker O’Donnell

Seattle University Law Review

Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program offers an unconventional response to the growing influence of money in American elections: rather than restricting political spending, it seeks to amplify the participation of ordinary voters by providing publicly funded vouchers that residents may assign to participating candidates. This Article examines the program’s development, operation, and constitutional foundation within the modern campaign-finance framework established by Buckley v. Valeo and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. It argues that democracy vouchers provide a constitutionally viable means of broadening participation in campaign financing while mitigating the influence of wealthy donors. The Article identifies two weaknesses in the current system: …

Legal Malpractice In Washington: Use Of The Rules Of Professional Conduct, Angelo Tadrous

Seattle University Law Review

Legal malpractice claims are difficult to prove. They are difficult to prove because many jurisdictions require that a plaintiff prove that, but for the lawyer’s misconduct, the client would have fared better. Thus, in a malpractice suit, a plaintiff must try a case within a case. Despite this difficulty, many jurisdictions prohibit the use of the Rules of Professional Conduct when litigating a malpractice case. Washington State is one of these jurisdictions. The Washington Supreme Court held in Hizey v. Carpenter that the Rules of Professional Conduct may not be referred to during trial. This Note argues that this prohibition …

Converting Buildings Is Hard: Why Seattle’S Municipal Government Should Streamline Commercial-To-Residential Conversions, Tyler M. King

Seattle University Law Review

The conversion of commercial buildings into housing is a promising solution to the growing housing crisis in many urban areas. However, despite its potential benefits, the process of repurposing commercial spaces is often stymied by complex zoning codes, high conversion costs, and bureaucratic hurdles. This Article argues that the local and state governments in Seattle should adopt more streamlined policies and offer greater incentives to developers to facilitate these conversions. By reforming zoning regulations and providing targeted financial support, municipalities can reduce the barriers to conversion and unlock the potential of underutilized commercial properties. This article examines the legal and …

Who Decides The Dead? Interpreting Washington’S Disposition Of Remains Statute, Wyatt Young

Seattle University Law Review

Washington’s disposition-of-remains statute, RCW 68.50.160, is designed to honor a decedent’s expressed wishes regarding the control and disposition of their body after death. Yet recent litigation reveals a critical gap between the statute’s intent-centered design and its practical enforceability. In Larotonda v. Blackburn, a trial court acknowledged that irreparable harm would occur if a decedent’s burial wishes were ignored but nonetheless denied relief on the grounds that the individual designated to carry out those wishes lacked standing. The result was a legal paradox: a statute that recognizes decedent autonomy in theory but withholds any meaningful mechanism for its enforcement …

Periodic Adjustments — The Dialogue Continues, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Jeffery M. Kadet

Articles

Michael McDonald has continued an important dialogue that requires more attention from both taxpayers and the government. In reply to our recent article, McDonald has expressed his disagreement with a number of issues that each of us has adequately covered. We'll just have to agree to disagree on those matters, some of which will eventually play out in the courts. In this article, we will cover a few issues that McDonald has raised that we believe will be useful to this ongoing dialogue.

The Case For Fixing The Unprincipled Residence Tax Exemption, Samuel Singer, Allison Christians

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

When Canada overhauled its income tax to include capital gains in 1972, lawmakers suddenly had to decide how to deal with personal home sales. After heated debate, they opted to exclude the gains on an individual’s principal residence on the grounds that the core purpose of a home is to provide “basic shelter” for its owner-occupants.

The principal residence tax exemption has since become one of Canada’s biggest tax shelters and now amounts to one of Canada’s largest tax subsidies to individuals. Along the way, it has created economic distortions, administrative challenges, and inequitable distributive outcomes. While lawmakers have occasionally …

Tax Equity In The Era Of Paid College Athletes, Kathryn Kisska-Schulze, Adam Epstein

Brooklyn Law Review

This Article examines the growing use of narrowly tailored state income tax exemptions as a tool to attract elite collegiate athletic talent, focusing on Arkansas’s amended Student-Athlete Publicity Rights Act. Situating this development within the constitutional frameworks of the federal Equal Protection Clause and state uniformity provisions, it analyzes both the economic motivations and legislative intent underlying such policies. As name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights and emerging revenue-sharing models continue to reshape college athlete compensation, states are increasingly pursuing innovative strategies to maintain the competitiveness of their public institutions. Arkansas has emerged as a first mover in this space, …

Can A Corporate Wealth Tax Happen?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. They argued that a wealth tax would be a key policy tool to reduce wealth inequality and effectively tax the rich, could raise significant revenue, and could be enforced effectively. Other academics, like Wojciech Kopczuk, Natasha Sarin, Jeffrey Pennell, and Robin Morgan are more skeptical. In the legal literature, there has been an extensive discussion over whether a wealth tax can be constitutional. In Moore, the majority There have been numerous proposals recently to institute a wealth tax in the United States, either in addition to existing taxes or in lieu of some of …

Coca-Cola Redux: The Problematic Absence Of Comparables, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On June 25 a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Coca-Cola v. Commissioner. It is very hard to predict outcomes from oral arguments, but two of the judges asked questions that suggested they were open to accepting the taxpayer’s “bait and switch” argument. They also seemed receptive to the treaty argument. Interestingly, there was less focus on the taxpayer’s marketing intangibles argument, which I regard as the better one.

Data Centers As Engines Of Corporate Tax Base Restructuring, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Domenico Imparato, Karen Sam

Articles

Globalization has eroded the corporate income tax by undermining both source-and residence-based taxation. Before the 1980s, large capital-exporting countries could impose relatively high tax rates on multinationals and extend taxation to low-taxed foreign income earned through controlled foreign corporations, as exemplified by the U.S. adoption of subpart F in the Revenue Act of 1962. That regime supported corporate tax revenues that reached roughly 25 percent of total U.S. receipts in the mid-20th century.

Globalization changed that equilibrium. Multinational corporations gained the ability to arbitrage national tax systems by relocating and reporting profits in low-tax jurisdictions. Active income largely escaped source …

Private Equity And The Gridiron: Tax Considerations In Secondary Sales Of Nfl Investments, Harrison Penn Nugent

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal’S Interview With Ms. Julia Ushakova-Stein, Shuang Zhang

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

2026 Uworld Cpa Exam Review Questions

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 15, No. 1 – Summer 2026

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Implicit Support And The Arm’S-Length Standard, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The ongoing U.S. Tax Court litigation Eaton Corp. v. Commissioner raises significant questions regarding the application of the arm’s-length standard to intra group financing. Eaton concerns interest deductions claimed by Eaton US, the U.S. subsidiary of Eaton PLC, on intercompany loans from Eaton Rest of World (Eaton RoW), a foreign affiliate owned by Eaton PLC, and deductions for fees paid to Eaton RoW by Eaton US for guaranteeing Eaton US’s third-party debt. The IRS disallowed approximately $296 million in interest deductions and $237 million of guarantee fee deductions.

The principal issue is whether the arm’s-length standard requires consideration of implicit …

Taxing Ai In The Wake Of The Emergence Of Agentic Ai, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Herbert Snitz

Articles

This article addresses taxation measures to regulate AI agents (i.e., AI that is not fully under the control of humans, including both ANI and AGI). In each case, the focus is on what the agent’s capabilities would be, not on how it becomes capable of successfully performing its tasks (though the latter would likely be relevant to important philosophical questions, e.g., might robots achieve sentience or consciousness, and if so, would they have rights?). Regarding mirroring what we human beings can do, the hallmark of AGI is that it will not be task-specific (like ANI), but will possess broad capabilities, …

Unspent Donations In Donor Advised Funds - Policy Recommendation, Oriel Nolan-Smith

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

Billions of dollars are sitting in Donor Advised Funds, delaying support for charitable organizations seemingly at odds with the intent of U.S. charitable tax policy. With no requirement for annual distribution nor timelines for disbursement, Donor Advised Funds allow individual and institutional donors to postpone directing funds to charitable organizations - despite already claiming tax benefits. As a result, some DAFs distribute less than 5% of assets annually, while many of the institutions managing the DAFs continue collecting fees.

Two complementary policy interventions are recommended: (1) the issuance of a federal regulation requiring annual minimum distributions from all DAFs, and …

Active Limited Partners Flunk Functional Test, Karen Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 1977, Congress enacted section 1402(a)(13), which exempts limited partners "as such" from self-employment tax on their share of partnership income. A half century later, active investment management professionals have claimed limited partner status to avoid self-employment tax on investment management fees, seemingly standing this anti-abuse rule on its head. While the Treasury twice issued proposed regulations to clarify and modernize the definition of a limited partner, these attempts encountered a firestorm of protest. The Tax Court's controversial Soroban decision rejected claims that state-law limited partners are automatically exempt from self-employment tax, holding that a functional analysis is required to …

Equality Before Tax Law, Charles Delmotte

Washington and Lee Law Review

The income tax code is riddled with exceptions—exclusions, rate preferences, and deductions—that reduce tax burdens for dominant majorities and powerful interest groups. These carveouts now amount to an astonishing $1.9 trillion, equivalent to 75 percent of all federal income tax revenue. By granting policymakers discretion to allocate tax exceptions, the tax system not only invites capture but also the weaponization of taxation against disfavored economic and political groups. Yet despite the central role of these exceptions, tax scholars have not articulated a principle requiring taxation according to general rules.

This Article bridges philosophy with insights from political economy to reveal …

Protecting Dependent Children In Bankruptcy, Michael D. Sousa, L. Alexis Whitley Esq.

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.