Taxation-Federal Commons^™

Federalizing Tax Justice, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Orli Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien, Hayian Xu

Articles

The United States is the only large federal country that does not have an explicit way to reduce the economic disparities among more and less developed regions. In Germany, for example, federal revenues are distributed by a formula that takes into account the relative level of wealth of each state (the so-called Finanzausgleich, or fiscal equalization). Similar mechanisms are found in Australia, Canada, India, and other large federal countries. The United States, on the other hand, has no such explicit redistribution. Each state is generally considered equal and sovereign, and the federal government does not distribute revenues to equalize …

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric For Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions, Gabriel Weil

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a onedimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Fictitiously Overstating Taxable Income, Stanley Veliotis

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Health Insurance And The Undocumented Immigrant, Anja Diercks

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to perform a comparative analysis on how seven different countries (USA, South Africa, Germany, England, Canada, France and Singapore) organize their healthcare system to cope with the issue of undocumented immigrants and whether or not these systems in place were “fair.” The thesis will also explore the possible ways the United States could change to be more inclusive and fairer in the world of healthcare and health insurance for the undocumented immigrant. A study on what fairness means both in ethical and economical terms is done to suggest a new basis of a fair …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Prescription For Charity Care: How National Medical Debt Ills Can Be Alleviated By Integrating State Financial Assistance Policies Into The Nonprofit Tax Exemption, Margarita Kutsin

Seattle University Law Review

Despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world, the United States has been consistently ranked as having the worst system in terms of equity, efficiency, and healthcare outcomes among industrialized nations. The effects of these systemic issues are grounded in the patient experience as nearly forty-four percent of individuals have forgone recommended treatments and thirty-two percent have reported that they were unable to afford a prescription due to the high cost, according to a study conducted in 2018. Health is sacred, and financial circumstances should not determine the difference between treatment and illness, or life and death. “Financial …

Superficial Proxies For Simplicity In Tax Law, Emily Cauble

University of Richmond Law Review

Simplification of tax law is complicated. Yet, political rhetoric surrounding tax simplification often focuses on simplistic, superficial indicators of complexity in tax law such as word counts, page counts, number of regulations, and similar quantitative metrics. This preoccupation with the volume of enacted law often results in law that is more complex in a real sense. Achieving real simplification—a reduction in costs faced by taxpayers at various stages in the tax planning, tax compliance, and tax enforcement process—often requires enacting more law, not less. In addition, conceptualizing simplicity in simplistic terms can leave the public vulnerable to policies advanced under …

The Impact Of Law On The State Pension Crisis, Elizabeth S. Goldman, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

While some state and municipal pension plans have funds sufficient to meet obligations to retirees without imposing onerous obligations on current and future taxpayers, underfunding of plans in other states has reached disastrous proportions, raising the possibility of default on pension obligations, cuts in public services, steep tax increases, or some combination of the three. The substantial differential in pension funding might be attributed to divergent political pressures, different responses to uncertainty about investment returns, or other factors. Our examination of pension funding law in ten states-five with the best-funded plans and five with the worst-funded plans-highlights the role of …

Taxation, Craig G. Bell, Michael H. Brady

University of Richmond Law Review

This article reviews significant recent developments in the laws affecting Virginia state and local taxation. Its sections cover legislative activity, judicial decisions, and selected opinions or pronouncements from the Virginia Department of Taxation and the Attorney General of Virginia over the past year.

Law School News: Does Indictment Mean Correia Will Likely Be Forced To Resign? Law School Dean Says 'Wait A Week' 10/17/2018, Michael Holtzman, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Maintaining Condominiums And Homeowner Associations: How Much Of A Priority?, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

During the recent real estate crisis, competition for scarce dollars pitted the holders of defaulted mortgages against condominiums and homeowner associations seeking to collect maintenance assessments. Statutes providing mortgagees with lien priority threatened association ability to provide services, and imposed a disproportionate burden on non-defaulting unit owners. Statutes enacted in other states gave associations a “super priority” lien for six months of assessments, but left uncertainty about the meaning of that super priority in an environment in which foreclosure delays became the norm.

The last five years have brought a spate of litigation over the relative rights of associations and …

The Economics Of American Higher Education In The New Gilded Age, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Open Source: The Enewsletter Of Rwu Law 09-22-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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 …

Tax Cannibalization And Fiscal Federalism In The United States, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Northwestern University Law Review

We began this project pondering a riddle. Most state governments have adopted what we—and many others—view as clearly suboptimal tax policies, especially in regard to the taxation of corporate income and capital gains. Yet, with the notable exception of those who oppose progressivity and the taxation of capital, state-level tax policymakers have had remarkably little appetite for reform. This Article provides one major explanation for this riddle by identifying and demonstrating a phenomenon that we label as “tax cannibalization.” We argue that flawed state-level tax policies derive in part from perverse incentives inadvertently created by the federal government.

Dirty Remics, Revisited, David J. Reiss, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For The Retention Of The State Death Tax Credit In The Federal Transfer Tax Scheme: "Just Say No" To A Deduction, John M. Janiga, Louis S. Harrison

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Minnesota Mandates: County Government Fiscal Stress In An Era Of Declining State Support, Selena Krueth

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Minnesota counties are experiencing more than just financial burdens from state mandates these days. Counties and local governments currently are seeking the most effective solution of implementing state mandates; leaving behind the argument of no mandates without funding to "give us mandates that work". In my analysis I combined county budgetary and demographic data, with phone survey data gathered from Minnesota counties. I anticipate results that will show a wide variety in county administrator attitudes towards state mandates and varying local capacity to meet them. Costly state mandates, such as health services, and large county populations have proven significant in …

Federal Fairness To State Taxpayers: Irrationality, Unfunded Mandates, And The "Salt" Deduction, Brian Galle

Michigan Law Review

By sheer dollars alone, the largest impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax is to deny many taxpayers the deduction for the taxes they paid to their state and local governments under § 164 of the Internal Revenue Code. This Article provides a fine-grained analysis of the overall fairness of the state-andlocal- tax deduction--and, by implication, the fairness of its partial repeal through the Alternative Minimum Tax. I offer for the first time a close examination of how newly understood limits on taxpayer mobility and rationality might affect individuals' choices of bundles of local taxes and localgovernment services, which in turn …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Using State Fraudulent Conveyance Law To Collect Federal Taxes, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

The I.R.S. has an imposing armamentarium of means by which to collect unpaid taxes. They include the general tax lien, various special tax liens, administrative levy and sale, and judicial sale. There are many administrative and judicial protections for taxpayers and third parties against the overly zealous application of these and other devices. Nonetheless, the I.R.S.’s collection options are of imposing breadth and power, considerably exceeding collection options available to private creditors.

Confronted by these collection devices, those who owe taxes and are determined not to pay them sometimes resort to transferring their assets to others, typically family members, close …

A Republic Of The Mind: Cognitive Biases, Fiscal Federalism, And The Tax Code, Brian Galle

ExpressO

Our federal government annually donates more than $75 billion in potential revenue to the States under section 164 of the Tax Code, the provision allowing itemizing taxpayers to deduct the cost of the state and local income, property, and sales taxes they paid during the tax year. This Article argues that expenditure may be a massive mistake. The deduction is, in theory, supposed to further federalism, by shifting revenues -- and therefore regulation -- downwards from the federal government to states and their local subsidiaries. What few commentators seem yet to have recognized, though, is that using the deduction for …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.