Tax Law Commons^™

5 1/2 Problems With Legal Positivism And Tax Law, Bret N. Bogenschneider

Pepperdine Law Review

This essay is a reply to the famous paper by John Gardner, Legal Positivism: 51⁄2 Myths, and the more recent paper by John Prebble, Kelsen, the Principle of Exclusion of Contradictions, and General Anti-Avoidance Rules. The reply is developed from the perspective of tax law where the respective issues are of major significance. The “51⁄2 problems” correspond to Gardner’s arguments and are as follows: (#1) Legal Positivism centers on determining whether a tax law is legally valid based on its source (e.g., the legislature enacted a valid law applying tax at the rate of 25%). However, in the tax context, …

Improving Tax Administration Is The Optimal Way To Increase Budget Revenues (In The Example Of Taxing Individual Entrepreneurship In Uzbekistan), Sh.B. Egamkulov

Review of law sciences

In this article it is analyzed the development of tax administration, the profits of individuals and legal entities, the basis of taxation of individuals and legal entities, the basis of taxation of individual entrepreneurs, the incentives in the taxation.

The Upsides And Downsides Of Ending Chevron Deference, Steve R. Johnson, Kristin E. Hickman, Joseph B. Judkins, Donald B. Susswein

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Fighting Technology With Technology: Taking Aim At Electronic Sales Suppression, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Robert Chicoine

Faculty Scholarship

Electronic sales suppression (ESS) is a fraud that has been a (prominent) feature of the North American retail business since at least 1996. The first EES case in the US dates from 1981. ESS is a global problem. Depending on the jurisdiction, and the research study consulted, ESS is estimated to be present in 34% (of Canadian), 50% (of German – two studies), and 70% (of Swedish and Slovenian) businesses. It may be the case today, that “you cannot leave home without” encountering (or participating in) ESS.

The most common types of sales suppression technology are Zappers and Phantomware programming. …

Unconscionable: Tax Delinquency Sales As A Form Of Dignity Taking, Andrew W. Kahrl

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Zapped! An Analysis Of Washington’S Electronic Monitoring Agreement, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Robert Chicoine

Faculty Scholarship

The State of Washington v. Wong, Wash. Super. Ct., No. 16-1-00179-0 is the State of Washington’s first judicially resolved case involving an automated sales suppression device. Months of negotiations led to a plea agreement and the State’s first electronic sales monitoring agreement (August 30, 2017). The taxpayer violated RCW 82.32.290 (4)(a) by knowingly possessing, and knowingly using a Zapper to suppress sales.

The penalties in this case were severe. Not only were all taxes, penalties, and interest lawfully due required to be paid, but as a Class C felony incarceration of up to 5 years, a $10,000 fine, or both …

U.S. Tax Treatment Of Australian Superannuation, John A. Castro

Nevada Law Journal Forum

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates than more than 100,000 Australian citizens are living and working in the U.S. Those Australian nationals almost certainly have some sort of Superannuation Fund, which is a state-mandated occupational pension scheme in Australia. The problem is that nearly every accounting firm in the U.S. is treating Australian Superannuation as a taxable foreign grantor trust. This presents a serious issue since the funds within Superannuation Funds are completely inaccessible until retirement, disability, or death. For an Australian national living in the U.S., this would result in immediate U.S. taxation on all gains …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Law Professors And Economists In Support Of Petitioner, Edward A. Zelinsky

Amicus Briefs

Amici are professors of tax law and economics at universities across the United States. As scholars and teachers, they have considered the economic consequences of this Court’s decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), and have concluded that Quill’s dormant Commerce Clause holding should be overruled. Amici join this brief solely on their own behalf and not as representatives of their universities. A full list of amici appears in Appendix A.

A Unifying Approach To Nexus Under The Dormant Commerce Clause, Adam B. Thimmesch

Michigan Law Review Online

The Supreme Court has long debated the existence and scope of its power to restrict state regulation under the so-called negative or dormant Commerce Clause. The Court took a broad view of that power in the late 1800s, but it has refined and restricted its role over time. One area where the Court has continued to wield considerable power, however, has been in the context of state taxes. Specifically, the Court has continued to restrict states' power to compel out-of-state vendors to collect their sales and use taxes based on a physical-presence "nexus" rule. That rule dates back to the …

Assessing The Impact Of The Philippine Sin Tax Reform Law On The Demand For Cigarettes, Myrna S. Austria, Jesson A. Pagaduan

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

One of the significant legislations during the Aquino Administration was Republic Act 10351, otherwise known as the Sin Tax Reform Act of 2012. Considered a landmark legislation, the law addressed the long-standing structural weaknesses of the country’s tobacco tax system. It considerably increased the specific excise tax on tobacco and tobacco products, simplified the tax structure, removed the price classification freeze and indexed the tax rates to address inflation. Prior to the reform, tobacco taxation in the country followed a complex four-tiered tax system using a tax base freeze at 1996 price levels. And since the excise tax was not …

A (Partial) Defense Of Section 501(C)(4)'S “Catchall” Nature, Lloyd Histoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(4) provides exemption from federal income tax for “social welfare” organizations. The vagueness of this term and the failure of the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service to interpret it in a manner that would significantly limit that vagueness has led some commentators to criticize this section’s “catchall” nature. While much scholarly attention has been paid to this criticism with respect to the most visible section 501(c)(4) organizations, particularly those involved in political campaign activity and lobbying, almost no attention has been paid to the many less common types of section 501(c)(4) organizations that illustrate that …

Tax Compliance In A Decentralizing Economy, Manoj Viswanathan

Georgia State University Law Review

Tax compliance in the United States has long relied on information from centralized intermediaries—the financial institutions,employers, and brokers that help ensure income is reported and taxes are paid. Yet while the IRS remains tied to these centralized entities,consumers and businesses are not. New technologies, such as sharing economy platforms (companies such as Airbnb, Uber, and Instacart)and the blockchain (the platform on which various cryptocurrencies are based) are providing new, decentralized options for exchanging goods and services.

Without legislative and agency intervention, these technologies pose a critical threat to the reporting system underlying domestic and international tax compliance. Until now, legal …

How Special Is The Special Timing Rule? Analyzing The Timing Of Fica Taxation In Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans, Alan J. Ponce

Georgia State University Law Review

Many employers offer nonqualified deferred compensation plans as a benefit to select employees, and those plans allow the employees to prepare for retirement in a tax-efficient manner. For employers,designing and administering such plans in compliance with federal law represents a paramount concern in order to achieve the tax advantages such plans entail. However, for these employers, there remains an inherent ambiguity in the tax code regarding how and when employers should withhold Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes—that is, Social Security and Medicare taxes—on deferred compensation in nonqualified retirement plans.

Tax regulations provide two distinct methods for withholding FICA taxes …

Potential Penalties And Ethical Problems In Filing An Amended Return: The Case Of The Repentant Sports/Entertainment Figure's Legal Expenses Deduction, John R. Dorocak

Maine Law Review

A prominent sports/entertainment figure walks into your office (all preparers should be so lucky). He is in a repentant mood--not because he escaped conviction for the murder of his former wife and her friend, but because he deducted his legal expenses in defending against the criminal prosecution and the civil wrongful death suit. This Article discusses the obligation of the taxpayer, even one as nefarious as the athlete posited, and the practitioner to file an amended return. As one pair of commentators has stated, “How should the amendment be made, and what are the possible consequences of amending a return? …

After The European Commission Ordered Apple To Pay Back Taxes To Ireland: Ireland's Future In The New Global Tax Environment, Boyu Wang

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

On August 30, 2016, the European Commission ordered Ireland to collect $14.5 billion plus interest in unpaid taxes between 2003 and 2014 from Apple Inc. The European Union suggested that Ireland made "sweetheart deals" with Apple in exchange for bringing more jobs into the country and concluded that these deals constituted illegal tax benefits, contrary to the European Union's prohibitions against "state aid."

Profit shifting and transfer pricing manipulation dominate the analysis of the corporate tax structure in Ireland and its position in the context of global tax policy. This note explains the European Commission's Apple decision and analyzes how …

Proposal For A Non-Subsidized, Non-Retirement-Plan, Employee-Owned Investment Vehicle To Replace The Esop, Sean M. Anderson, Andrew Stumpff Morrison

Law & Economics Working Papers

The authors have previously been critical of the existing American legal exemption and subsidy regime for employee stock ownership plans (“ESOPs”). By definition such plans create dangerously undiversified investment programs tying employees’ retirement security to the financial health of a single company – which, to compound the problem, is the employees’ employer, thereby correlating participants’ retirement security risk with the risk of losing their jobs. No demonstrated compensating policy benefit justifies this extraordinary large-scale departure from basic principles of financial prudence. One context, however, where a plausible case might be made for employee ownership is that which arises when a …

Analysis Of H.R.2802 - 115th Congress (2017-2018) First-Time Homebuyer Savings Account Act Of 2017, Shimiao Gong, Xiaotong Stella Li, Ling Wei, Pingrong Xue

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Why Section 179(B)(3)(A)'S Business Income Limitation Does Not Apply To Partnerships And S Corporations, David Randall Jenkins Ph.D.

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Who Truly Benefits From The Mortgage Interest Deduction?, Stephen Wildt Mba

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal's Interview With Mr. Jim Fuller, Ophelia Ding

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of S.1352 - 115th Congress (2017-2018) Apprenticeship And Jobs Training Act Of 2017, Veena Hemachandran, Katrina Jodrey, George (Peixuan) Liu, Leigh Ann Moore

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Latent Semantic Analysis: A Big Data Opportunity For Tax Research, Paul D. Hutchison Ph.D., C. Elizabeth Plummer Ph.D., Cpa, Benjamin George Ph.D.

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Tax Treatment Of High-Tech Start-Up Costs, June (Yun) Hostetter Cpa

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

R&D Credit Against Payroll Tax Liabilities - The Payroll Tax Credit, Sarah Yaqin Sun

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of H.R.2551 - 115th Congress (2017-2018) - Student Loan Debt Relief Act, Soon-Young Apple, Debanjana Banerjee, Nilesh Lad, Anna Li

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 7, No. 1 - Winter 2018

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Summaries For The 2017 Irs-Sjsu Small Business Tax Institute, Ruchi Chopra Cpa, Mba, Ophelia Ding, Surbhi Doshi, Nilesh Lad Cpa, Sara Yaqin Sun

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Is American Multinational Enterprises’ Honeymoon With The European Union Over?An Analysis Of The European Commission’S Investigations Into American Multinational Enterprises’ Tax Deals With Ireland, Luxembourg And The Netherlands, Luyang Liu

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Elephant Always Forgets: Us Tax Reform And The Wto, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Martin G. Vallespinos

Law & Economics Working Papers

The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) enacted on December 22, 2017 includes several provisions that raise WTO compliance issues. At least one such provision, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII) rule, is almost certain to draw a challenge in the WTO and is likely to lead to another US loss and resulting sanctions. This outcome would be another addition to the repeated losses suffered by the US for export subsidies from the 1970s to 2004, which led to the imposition of sanctions and the ultimate repeal of the offending regime. The important question for 2018 and beyond is whether the …

Loudoun County, Virginia V. Dulles Duty Free, Llc: Brief Of Tax Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Appellate Briefs

Amici are professors of tax law at universities across the United States. As scholars and teachers, they have considered the doctrinal roots and practical consequences of judicial limits on state and local taxation. Amici join this brief solely on their own behalf and not as representatives of their universities. A full list of amici appears in the Appendix to this brief.

For more than seven decades, state and local governments as well as market actors have labored under an export tax regime that is inconsistent, inefficient, and inequitable. This case presents the Court with a chance to restore rationality to …