Taxation-Federal Commons^™

For Better And Worse: The Differing Income Tax Treatments Of Marriage At Different Income Levels, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

Although both marriage penalties and marriage bonuses exist at all income levels under the federal income tax, the system is tilted toward penalties for lower-income couples, toward bonuses for middle-income couples, and back toward penalties for upper income couples. This Article begins by explaining how the tax rules produce these differing treatments of marriage at different points in the income distribution. It then argues that the increase in recent decades in the social acceptability and prevalence of cohabitation makes tax marriage effects a more serious concern--in terms of both behavioral, effects and fairness-than in earlier decades. After demonstrating that Congress …

Structural Tax Exceptionalism, James M. Puckett

Georgia Law Review

Following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research v. United States, many scholars of tax law have declared that Mayo marks the death of tax exceptionalism. The tax exceptionalist view holds that because tax is different or special, generally applicable administrative law procedural rules and doctrines do not apply in the tax context. In Mayo, however, the Supreme Court held that generally applicable administrative law rules and doctrines do apply to the Treasury Department and the IRS. Contrary to the prevailing narrative that proclaims the death of tax exceptionalism, this Article posits that the …

Dodging The Taxman: Why The Treasury’S Anti-Abuse Regulation Is Unconstitutional, Linda D. Jellum

Articles

To combat abusive tax shelters, the Department of the Treasury promulgated a general anti-abuse regulation applicable to all of subchapter K of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The Treasury targeted subchapter K because unique aspects of the partnership tax laws—including its aggregate-entity dichotomy—foster creative tax manipulation. In the anti-abuse regulation, the Treasury attempted to “codify” existing judicially- created anti-abuse doctrines, such as the business-purpose and economic-substance doctrines. Also, and more surprisingly, the Treasury directed those applying subchapter K to use a purposivist approach to interpretation and to reject textualism. In this article, I demonstrate that the Treasury exceeded both …

The Rescission Doctrine: Everything Old Is New Again, Allen Sparkman

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of Chevron In Tax: From The Early Days To King And Beyond, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Estate Planner's Income Tax Playbook, Samuel A. Donaldson

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Airbnb And The Housing Segment Of The Modern Sharing Economy: Are Short-Term Rental Restrictions An Unconstitutional Taking, Jamila Jefferson-Jones

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Taxes, The Problem And Solution: A Model For Vanishing Deductions And Exclusions For Residence-Based Tax Preferences, Phyllis C. Taite

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cancellation Of Debt And Related Transactions, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Articles

If a taxpayer borrows money, the borrowed funds are not included in the taxpayer's gross income. That treatment is proper even though the taxpayer has increased his assets by the amount he borrowed because he also has created a corresponding liability to pay back the loan. The taxpayer's net: wealth has not increased. 'The more difficult and interesting questions arise when the taxpayer fails to repay the loan. At first blush, it would appear that upon cancellation of a loan, the taxpayer should have income for the amount that was cancelled. However, the current tax treatment is not that simple. …

The Rise And Fall Of The Consumption Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The year 1974 was an eventful one in U.S. history. For the first time, a president resigned under threat of impeachment. Watergate and the Vietnam War shook Americans’ faith in their government. The economy was reeling from the first oil embargo, and the United States’ prospects seemed bleak. In that context, Professor William Andrews of Harvard Law School published an article that would revolutionize tax scholarship. Against the backdrop of widespread dissatisfaction with the government in general and the income tax in particular, Andrews suggested replacing the income tax with a consumption tax. That suggestion was ironic for anyone familiar …

Who Invented The Single Tax Principle?: An Essay On The History Of U.S. Treaty Policy, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reporting Loss Transactions: Too Much Of A Good Thing, Megan L. Brackney

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Need For Tax Reform: Schedule K-1 Document Matching Program And Effective Revenue Collection, Valeriya Avdeev

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Overtaxing The Working Family: Uncle Sam And The Childcare Squeeze, Shannon Weeks Mccormack

Articles

Today, many working parents are caught in a “childcare squeeze”: While they require two incomes just to make ends meet, they end up spending a strikingly large percentage of their income on childcare so that they can work away from the home. Worse still, some parents find themselves “squeezed out” of the market entirely, unable to earn the additional income their family requires because they cannot find jobs that pay enough to offset soaring childcare expenses. This Article argues that the tax laws have played an important role in aggravating these hardships. Currently, the Internal Revenue Code treats the childcare …

The Charitable Contributions Deduction: Federal Tax Rules, Roger Colinvaux, Harvey P. Dale

Scholarly Articles

This article provides a succinct overview of the main federal income tax law rules affecting charitable contributions. his Article covers all principal topics, including: eligibility to receive deductible contributions, eligible gifts, the amount allowed as a deduction, the specific rules for gifts of non-cash property, contributions to certain split-interest trusts, substantiation rules, and valuation. his Article also touches on the estate and gift tax charitable deduction and provides a survey of select policy issues, including the rationale and form of the tax benefit, concerns about efficiency, the ability to deduct the appreciation in value of property, a non-itemizer deduction, and …

Corporate Inversions And The Unbundling Of Regulatory Competition, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Several prominent public corporations have recently embraced a noteworthy (and newsworthy) type of transaction known as a "tax inversion." In a typical inversion, a U.S. multinational corporation ("MNC") merges with a foreign company. The entity that ultimately emerges from this transactional cocoon is invariably incorporated abroad, yet typically remains listed in U.S. securities markets under the erstwhile domestic issuer's name. When structured to satisfy applicable tax requirements, corporate inversions permit domestic MNCs eventually to replace U.S. with foreign tax treatment of their extraterritorial earnings – ostensibly at far lower effective rates.

Most regulators and politicians have reacted to the inversion …

Book Review. Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In recent years, numerous lawmakers, policy analysts, and scholars have been decrying the many defects of the present U.S. income tax system. Few have attempted to defend our return-based mass income tax. This essay reviews Learning to Love Form 1040, Lawrence Zelenak’s stirring and persuasive defense of a simplified version of our present federal income tax system. In contrast to the conventional economic critiques, Zelenak explores the underappreciated social, cultural, and political benefits of a return-based, mass income tax. Chief among these, he argues, is the existing regime’s potential to raise the tax consciousness of the average citizen and to …

The Case For Taxing (All Of) Labor Income, Consumption, Capital Income, And Wealth, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Perhaps the most fundamental questions in tax legal scholarship concern debates about what should be the ideal tax base or tax bases. In particular, scholars have vigorously disagreed about (1) whether the United States should follow other developed countries in supplementing its income tax with a value-added consumption tax, and (2) whether governments should seek to tax capital income and wealth or should instead seek to redesign or replace income taxes with progressive consumption taxes.

The prior economics-oriented theoretical literature on these questions has largely focused on analyzing labor supply and savings behaviors. Yet the existing empirical literature does not …

When Helpers Hurt: Protecting Taxpayers From Preparers, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

In this article, Drumbl explores return preparer regulation as a policy matter and questions what would be gained by applying Circular 230 to return preparers.

Speak Up: Issue Advocacy In Increasingly Politicized Times, Sally Wagenmaker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article first provides a brief primer on current constraints affecting Section 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations' communications within the context of what has become known as “issue advocacy.” It then sets forth the problem of increasing politicization of nonprofits' issue advocacy activities. The article next evaluates related constitutional tensions for politically tinged issue advocacy, through the lens of the Supreme Court's free speech decisions. It concludes by addressing how the IRS's different content-based standards for issue advocacy are susceptible to abuse, are otherwise constitutionally suspect, and therefore warrant reform.

Reinvigorating The Reit's Neutrality And Capital Formation Purposes Through A Modernized Tax Integration Model, Simon Johnson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Efforts at reform have not spared the REIT arrangement, but have focused on objectives unrelated to its model of tax integration, despite its significant flaws. Owing to the interaction of several provisions, the model largely precludes capitalization through retained earnings. This increases the cost of REIT capital and limits its capacity to realize the neutrality and private real estate capital formation objectives Congress pursued in creating the arrangement. Accordingly, it is important to consider how to durably improve the REIT tax integration model. Ultimately, the article concludes that the shareholder allocation model, a complete integration model conceptually similar to the …

Net Investment Income Tax Planning, Jeanne M. Sullivan

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Structuring And Restructuring Deals In 2014 (And Beyond), Stephen L. Owen

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Integrating Subchapters K And S And Beyond, Walter D. Schwidetzky

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article builds upon a similar, lengthier effort that I published in the Tax Lawyer in 2009. While there is overlap, this Article contains much new material. Important case law and tax proposals from the House Ways and Means Committee have come out in the interim. Due to space limitations, unlike my Tax Lawyer effort, this Article attempts to avoid prolixity. It assumes the reader has good knowledge of both Subchapters S and K and the tax entity selection process. If you are not that reader, a review of my Tax Lawyer article or Professor Mann's article in this symposium …

Moving Beyond Marriage: A Proposed Unit Of Presumed Economic Interdependence For Joint Filing Purposes In Bankruptcy And In Tax, Heather V. Graham

Pace Law Review

In order to promote both equality and efficiency, this Comment proposes that individuals should have the opportunity to file jointly for tax and bankruptcy purposes when they have a relationship predicated upon economic interdependence, as opposed to basing the opportunity to file jointly upon marital status. Part I of this Comment will briefly discuss the history of marriage in the United States. In particular, Part I will discuss the role that the government has had in promoting and regulating marriage and how the treatment of married persons operates to the exclusion of the unmarried. Parts II and III of this …

The Affordable Care Act And Its Impact On The Professional Tax Preparation Market In Kingsport, Tennessee, Robert S. Forney Jr.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this study is to test whether the Affordable Care Act will have an effect on the professional tax preparation industry of Kingsport, Tennessee. To accomplish this objective, the researcher collected surveys concerning taxpayers’ initial reaction to the realization that the law affects their 1040. A two proportion test for equality was performed and failed to reject the idea that the ACA will have an effect on the tax preparation industry of Kingsport. Because this study failed to prove that the change in legislation causes a jump in clientele for the professional tax preparation market, the fight for …

Reasoned Explanation And Irs Adjudication, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), an administrative action can be invalidated as arbitrary and capricious if the agency fails to sufficiently explain the reasons for its choices. This principle applies to agency adjudication as well as to agency rulemaking. How does this principle apply to IRS adjudications? Examining five paradigms of IRS decisionmaking, this Article first establishes that the IRS does engage in APA–style adjudication. The Article then examines tax-specific explanation requirements and asks whether a more robust explanation duty patterned on the APA should be imposed on IRS determinations. Based on a variety of legal and prudential considerations, …

The Contemporary Tax Journal’S Interview Of Pam Olson, Stuti Seth

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Income Or Liability: How Casinos' Classification Of Outstanding Chips Determine Taxability, John Bulloch

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Complicity And Collection: Religious Freedom And Tax, Jennifer Carr

Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on how the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill might be improved so that members of Congress enact it. The bill would allow war tax resisters who qualify as pacifists to direct their tax money to a separate fund not to be used for military spending. At present, the IRS is expending time and resources trying to track down tax resisters, which results in loss of revenue for the government. This Article argues that passage of an amended version of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill would eliminate the tension between the IRS and war tax …