Tax Law Commons^™

Tax Consequences Of Foreign Currency Fluctuations, Sheldon S. Cohen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This article concerns the United States federal income tax treatment of the gains and losses resulting from transactions involving currencies other than the United States dollar. United States income taxes must be computed and paid in United States dollars. Therefore, when persons subject to United States income taxes engage in transactions involving foreign currencies, they must account for their profits in terms of dollars for United States income tax purposes. This result follows even if the taxpayer does not actually convert the results of these transactions into dollars. Whether the failure to convert is voluntary, or results from legal restrictions …

Book Reviews, Werner Baer, John B. Marshall, Justin P. Wilson, Emmanuel Bello

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

INDIRECT TAXATION IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: THE ROLE AND STRUCTURE OF CUSTOMS DUTIES, EXCISES, AND SALES TAXES

By John F. Due

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. Pp. viii, 201. .$9.00

reviewer: Werner Baer

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THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF CIVIL WAR

Edited by Richard A. Falk

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Pp. xix, 452. $15.00

reviewer: John B. Marshall

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NATIONAL INTERESTS AND THE MULTI-NATIONAL ENTERPRISE

By Jack N. Behrman

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Pp. 194. $4.95

reviewer: Justin P. Wilson

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TRANSNATIONAL BUSINESS COLLABORATION AMONG COMMON MARKET COUNTRIES: ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL INTEGRATION

By Werner J. Feld

New …

The Disc Provisions: Tax Incentive To Increase Exports, William J. Chadwick

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The significant tax incentive afforded by the DISC provisions requires all United States companies selling or leasing goods abroad, or rendering services abroad, to reappraise their present corporate and tax structures. Those companies that have not exported in the past or have done so on a limited basis should reconsider their prior positions and calculate the benefits to be derived from export transactions. Notwithstanding inherent complexities and uncertainties in the new law from a tax standpoint, export transactions are now more profitable to a United States company than comparable sales made within the United States. Additionally, the DISC provisions remove …

Report On The Regional Meeting At The Vanderbilt University School Of Law, Harold G. Maier

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This issue of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law includes two articles that are based on papers presented at the Regional Meeting by Henry Harfield and Sheldon Cohen. Both articles deal with current and timely questions in the international commercial field. As an introduction to those papers it may be useful to comment briefly on several of the more important questions that were raised during the panel discussion of the papers which closed the conference. This may be particularly helpful in view of the fact that Professor Friedmann's untimely death prevented him from completing the revision of his remarks for …

Reflections On The Tax Legislative Process: Prelude To Reform, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

Tax reform is one of those motherhood issues-everybody's for it. Election year 1972 generated many far-reaching tax reform proposals which, if enacted, would have a profound impact on virtually every segment of American society. Senator McGovern recommended taxing capital gains at the same rates as ordinary income, eliminating almost $7 billion granted to businesses by reducing the investment tax credit and depreciation allowances, and offering state and local governments a 50 percent interest subsidy to encourage them to issue taxable, rather than tax-exempt, bonds. In addition, he proposed eliminating the percentage depletion allowance and the deduction for intangible drilling expenses …

War Tax Refusal: Some Code Problems, William Louis Tabac

Cleveland State Law Review

Throughout our history, many individuals and groups have employed tax refusal to make their points. ...a protest based on tax refusal has never won a significant number of adherents in this country. There are several reasons for this, but the most pervasive seem to be the fear most people have of going to jail and the confusion that exists in their minds about the limits of the power of the Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.), that is, what this agency can and cannot do to people who do not pay their taxes. Until some of their doubts are answered, the antiwar …

Comments. Roundtable On Taxation, Association Of American Law Schools, 1968 Conference, William D. Popkin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Books Received, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

G.I. RIGHTS AND ARMY JUSTICE: THE DRAFTEE'S GUIDE TO MILITARY LIFE AND LAW

By Robert S. Rivkin

New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1970. Pp. vii, 383. $1.75.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL ACTION

By Ernst B. Haas

Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1970.Pp. vii, 184.

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INDIRECT TAXATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

By John F. Due

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. Pp. v, 201. $9.00.

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INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE REGULATION OF THE RADIO SPECTRUM

By David M. Leive

Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.: Oceana Publications Inc., 1970. Pp. 11, 386.$16.50.

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THE WINDS OF FREEDOM

By Dean Rusk …

Tax Impact Of A Transfer Of A Bad Debt Reserve To A Controlled Corporation: An Analysis Of Schuster V. Commissioner, Edward J. Pulaski Jr.

San Diego Law Review

Max Schuster operated a wholesale business in semi-precious stones in the form of a sole proprietorship. He employed the accrual method of accounting for items of income and expense, and utilized the reserve method of accounting for bad debts for federal income tax purposes. On October 31, 1961, Schuster transferred the assets of his business, including its accounts receivable, to a corporation in a transaction which qualified as a tax-free exchange under section 351 of the Internal Revenue code of 1954. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed a deduction of $7,432.04 claimed as an addition to the proprietorship's bad debt …

Section 303 Stock Repurchase Vs. Accumulated Earnings Tax, Mel J. Massey Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

This article looks into the situation in which Section 303 is beign planned for use in a corporation that is over-capitalized. "Under its provisions the stockholder of a closely held corporation can look to the corporation to purchase sufficient shares of his stock in order to permit his executor to pay estate and inheritance taxes, executor's and attorney's fees and funeral expenses. The asset, his stock in the closed corporation, which has chiefly caused this stockholder's estate problem, will be used to solve it."

Real Property Depreciation Recapture: An Ineffectual Reform Of The Tax Laws, Charles S. Franklin

Vanderbilt Law Review

This note stems from a belief that an asymmetrical body of tax laws is a challenge to the legal profession which, by training, experience and tradition, is well situated to spur and guide reform. It is my intention to outline the story of but one section of the Internal Revenue Code: why it was proposed, what it sought to do, how it underwent modification by an unsympathetic congressional committee, and how it was finally enacted as a superficial compromise with the underlying asymmetry of our tax laws. In short, what follows is an appended bar in the organ theme entitled …

The Treasury Report On Foundations:Methods Of Enforcing Compliance, Thomas R. Allen

Vanderbilt Law Review

If Professor Sacks is correct in his cyclical view of the public concern over charitable foundations, the present period must surely be classed as one of maximum turbulence. At the moment both houses of Congress have had presented to them proposals for levying new restrictions on charitable foundations through the tax law, a flood of law review comments has appeared, and at the state level new legislation, partly directed to control of charitable foundations, has been proposed, and in some cases adopted...As this paper is concerned primarily with sanctions, only those proposals in the Treasury Report for which no sanctions …

Book Reviews, Estes Kefauver, Stanley D. Rose, W. Edward Sell, Harold G. Wren, Robert N. Covington

Vanderbilt Law Review

Congress and the Court By Walter F. Murphy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962. Pp. xi, 308. $6.95. (judicial power)

reviewer: Senator Estes Kefauver

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Interstate Apportionment of Business Income for State Income Tax Purposes By Charles E. Ratliff, Jr. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1962. Pp. xi, 132. $4.00. (tax law)

reviewer: Stanley D. Rose

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Expulsion or Oppression of Business Associates By F. Hodge O'Neal and Jordan Derwin. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,1961. Pp. vii, 263. $10.00. (business organizations)

reviewer: W. EDWARD SELL

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The Ideologies of Taxation By Louis Eisenstein. New York: The …

Characterization Of An Income Tax For The Purpose Of The Foreign Tax Credit, Stanley L. Ruby

Vanderbilt Law Review

Perhaps the best reconciliation of the many conflicting policies underlying the foreign tax credit would be to give preferential treatment by tax treaties to investment income from those areas where our foreign policy dictates that investment should be encouraged, whereas taxes imposed on income from other areas should be handled by the deduction approach. Thus the loss of revenue through investment in heavily industrialized areas (with stable governments and relatively little risk-taking) with high tax rates would end, but there would exist the flexibility, through treaties, to encourage investment in underdeveloped areas.

State Taxation Of Corporate Income From A Multistate Business, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

So long as we have a federal system of government, a continuing problem, and certainly one of the most pressing, is that of an effective coordination of taxes. That problem has achieved paramount impor- tance in late years. Because of new and expanding conceptions as to what governments should do for people, our state governments are continually confronted with ever-increasing demands that they provide additional governmental functions and supply more governmental services. The resulting increase in governmental activities and extension of benefits mean urgent needs for additional revenue. As prices have spiraled under the increasing pressure of meeting our domestic …

Subchapter S And Its Effect On The Capitalization Of Corporations, Mortimer M. Caplin

Vanderbilt Law Review

Our federal tax laws encourage the creation of complex capital structures. "Thinning" capitalizations by issuing corporate indebtedness offers well known tax advantages to both shareholder and corporation.' Also, since 1954, issuing preferred stock on incorporation is a standard procedure for side-stepping the "bail-out" prohibitions of code section 306. A "good" capitalization from a tax viewpoint, therefore, will often involve a small base of common stock, a heavier layer of preferred stock and as much debt as the tax adviser believes will be given tax recognition.

Tax Considerations In Selecting A Form Of Foreign Business Organization, Walter W. Brudno

Vanderbilt Law Review

The provisions of the Internal Revenue Code which are of particular relevance to the planning of foreign operations are few in number and are generally deceptively simple in phraseology. The substantive provisions consist of those sections which specify rules for determining the source of income, for calculating the credit for foreign taxes paid in respect of foreign source income, and for allowance of concessional treatment accorded Western Hemisphere Trade Corporations, United States Possessions Corporations, and China Trade Act Corporations. Measures designed to prevent tax avoidance which are of particular relevance are those which relate to acquisition of corporate control for …

The Tax Treatment Of Collapsible Corporations, Boris I. Bittker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Introductory.-Section 331 (a) (1) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that a complete liquidation of a corporation is to be treated by the shareholder as a sale of his stock, which will ordinarily produce capital gain or loss, and section 334 (a) provides that the shareholders' basis for property acquired on the liquidation is its fair market value at the time of distribution. These rules, which are of long standing, led to the tax avoidance device known as the "collapsible corporation," which in its turn led,in 1950, to the enactment of what is now section 341. As will be seen, …

Administration And Collection Problems, Dixwell L. Pierce

Vanderbilt Law Review

"In the field of revenue administration, there is no longer such a thing as a simple tax law. Complex problems require complex laws, and complex laws are made to protect all taxpayers alike."

When a state or local government provides for a general sales and use tax, it is assuming a heavy administrative responsibility. Such tax laws are deceptively simple. They are not easy to administer. Failure to recognize these facts has resulted all too often in disappointing revenue yields and widespread dissatisfaction among retailers and their customers.

No one really enjoys paying taxes. What may be merely mild distaste …

Life Insurance, The Forbidden Fruit, William J. Rowe

Vanderbilt Law Review

Until recently life insurance has represented the most impenetrable stronghold of the professional tax avoider and his advisors. As a vehicle for the transmission of wealth to future generations with minimum tax levies, it stood unrivaled. During a policyholder's life the value of his policy for gift tax purposes was and is measured by replacement cost.' Under applicable regulations during the thirties, when insurance was transferred by way of inter vivos gift the tremendous increase in value of the policy that came with death escaped gift tax, income tax, and estate tax. But since 1941 the situation has been reversed …