Tax Law Commons^™

The Largest Tax Fraud?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On October 1, 2020, the Department of Justice indicted Robert T. Brockman on 39 counts of federal tax evasion and related charges.1 The department’s press release explains: The charges stem from an alleged decades-long scheme to conceal approximately $2 billion in income from the IRS as well as a scheme to defraud investors in the software company’s debt securities. . . . According to the indictment, Brockman, a resident of Houston, Texas, and Pitkin County, Colorado, used a web of offshore entities based in Bermuda and Nevis to hide from the IRS income earned on his investments in private equity …

Ladies First? The Tax Code Says Otherwise Tax Policy And The Cost Of Economic Dependence, Doron Narotzki, Tamir Shanan

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

First, inclusion and equity policies—such as anti-discrimination laws, affordable childcare, or education access—increase people’s participation in the labor market and thus increase federal and state revenues. Second, ultimately, tax law is not just a mechanism for raising revenue. It actively shapes economic and social realities. By acknowledging the ways in which it has reinforced outdated structures, we can also recognize its untapped potential. If designed differently, tax policy could—and should—serve as more than just a fiscal tool. It could foster economic autonomy, address inequalities, better reflect the needs of a changing society which includes, among other factors, a transition …

Should Single-Sales-Factor Formulas Be Constitutional?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On October 28, 2025, Florida sued California in the Supreme Court over its application of a single-sales-factor (SSF) formula to exclude large out-of-state asset sales. But Florida couched its critique in much broader terms, seemingly attacking the validity of the SSF altogether. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) stated that: California has created a tax system that punishes economic freedom. We will not tolerate California over-taxing revenue earned in Florida. The Newsom regime is obviously attempting to punish business owners who have fled California due to its disastrous policies. Given that multitudes of California businesses and residents are moving to …

Three Bites Of The Apple, Jeffery M. Kadet, Philip L. Jezzi, Brian J. Visalli, David G. Chamerlain, Stephen L. Curtis, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In her latest letter, “A Second Bite at the Apple,” Kimberly Blanchard repeats her recent criticisms of the September 2024 EU Court of Justice decision concerning two Irish-incorporated Apple subsidiaries. Her letter title, which of course inspired the title of this article, and her explanations recall the 1967 MGM comedy Three Bites of the Apple, in which a helpful stranger offers elaborate explanations for why taxes need not be paid. In the film, and perhaps in this exchange as well, the relevant question is who ultimately benefits from the arrangement.

This exchange began with professor Philip Laroma Jezzi article reassessing …

Can They Take Your Money If You’Re Not Here ?, Cardozo Tax Law Society

2025–2026 Flyers

Come listen to a mock trial of Professor Zelinsky's ongoing case against New York for a tax assessment.

Inequality As Market Failure, Erick J. Sam

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article explores economic, philosophical, and legal relationships between economic inequality and market failure, and it draws on these linkages to develop an innovative normative justification and alternative constitutional basis for a levy on wealth.

The Article’s central analytic result is that several general mechanisms responsible for common market failures can also systematically produce economic inequalities whenever preferences against extreme inequality are fairly widespread. Because these mechanisms satisfy both the ‘process-based’ and ‘outcome-based’ criteria of market failure, redistributive transfers designed to reduce these inequalities would be normatively justified under the widely accepted market failure theory of government action. On this …

The Contemporary Tax Journal’S Interview Of Taylor Reid, Shuang Zhang

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025:Ai And Other Emerging Technologies For Tax Practitioners, Raymond Clark

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025:Corporate Amt, Weng (Gary) Ng

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: The Latest And Greatest In M & A And Other Transactional Tax Developments, Agnes Yip

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of H.R.1129 Tax Relief Unleashed For Seniors By Trump Act, Shuang Zhang

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Do We Have A Partnership?, Sviatlana Yakavets, Cynthia Flores

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Hot Topics In Accounting For Income Taxes, Jing Luo

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Building A Relationship With The Board Of Directors, Jasleen Hothi

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Digital Assets And Its Numerous Instruments Governing Formation And Operation, Joyce Yu

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Research And Development Credits, Cases, Tcja.2 And More, Dale Loepp

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Controversy And Guidance In A Constrained And Restricted Environment, Leah Upson

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Dealing With The 2025 Forms 1099-Da, Leah Upson

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Legislative And Administrative Updates (Tax And Non-Tax), An Thai

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Frankenstein’S Drugs: Did Gilead Sciences’ Bahamas Tax Caper Create A Multibillion-Dollar Periodic Adjustment?, Stephen L. Curtis, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

With about 182 million infections worldwide at the time, the potential value of a cure for the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was staggering.2 The company behind this drug, Pharmasset Inc., was a startup in Princeton, New Jersey, with 42 researchers and $127 million in the bank, churning through $66 million per year with no commercialized products and no codevelopment or commercialization partners. The “Pharmasset combo” was an extremely effective nucleotide analog that could treat HCV-infected individuals across genotypes, known as PSI-7977 (later renamed GS-7977), also called sofosbuvir, the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) found in multiple current drugs used to treat …

The Contemporary Tax Journal Volume 14, No. 2 – Winter 2026

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4 ,2025: Domestic And Multistate Update, Shuang Zhang

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025:International High Technology U.S. Tax Current Developments, Sviatlana Yakavets

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Tariffs, Transfer Pricing, §1059a, Customs, Retaliation And More, Mya Hoang

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The 41st Annual Tei – Sjsu High Tech Tax Institute Conference On November 3-4, 2025: Tax Issues In International Ip Transactions, Sandhya Dharani

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Valuing Digital Assets, Raymond Clark

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

The Third Annual Blockchain Tax Conference On January 30, 2026: Where In The World Is My Digital Asset?, Lisa Tran

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …