Taxation-Federal Commons^™

Legislating In The Dark: How Congress Regulates Tax-Exempt Organizations In Ignorance, John F. Coverdale

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Much Uncertainty About Uncertain Tax Positions, Robert D. Probasco

Faculty Scholarship

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced in January 2010 a new initiative to require certain businesses to report “uncertain tax positions” on a new schedule filed with their annual tax returns. Draft schedules and instructions issued in April 2010 clarified some of the mechanical aspects of the new requirement but left many open issues and questions. The IRS proposal built on requirements by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes (“FIN 48”). The standard requires companies, in their financial statements, to reserve some of the benefits from any position taken …

Charitable Deductions For Rail-Trail Conversions: Reconciling The Partial Interest Rule And The National Trails System Act, Scott Andrew Bowman, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines an undeveloped legal topic at the intersection of tax law and real property law: charitable deductions from income tax liability for donations of railroad corridors that are to be converted into recreational trails. The very popular rails-to-trails program assists in the conversion of abandoned railroad corridors into hiking and biking trails. However, the legal questions surrounding the property rights of these corridors have been complex and highly litigated. In 1983, Congress amended the National Trails System Act to provide a mechanism for facilitating these conversions, a process called railbanking. In essence, a railroad transfers its real property …

Can The Irs Silence Religious Organizations, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the years following the 2004 presidential election, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Internal Revenue Service threatened revoking the tax-exempt status of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena because during a 2004 sermon, a church rector stated that he opposed the Vietnam and Gulf wars and that Jesus would have disapproved of the Bush Administration's preemptive war doctrine. The rector did not tell his parishioners who to support in the 2004 election, however. This threat of revoking an organization's tax-exempt status is just one example of the IRS's recent and unprecedented aggressiveness in seeking out violations of …

Tax Practice In A Circular Revolution: A Review Of Pli's Circular 230 Deskbook, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This short review essay evaluates the Practicing Law Institute's Circular 230 Deskbook by Jonathan G. Blattmachr, Mitchell M. Gans and Damien Rios. For attorneys, accountants and others who "practice" before the IRS, the Circular 230 Deskbook is a masterful analysis and an important guide to the Internal Revenue Service's labyrinthine rules and regulations governing tax penalties, reportable transactions and the conduct of tax practitioners.

Most tax attorneys and accountants have reacted to the recent changes to Circular 230 by appending banner notices to all written communications. Without fully understanding the underlying rules, however, a practitioner cannot be sure that a …

The Much Maligned 527 And Institutional Choice, Lloyd H. Mayer

ExpressO

The continuing controversy over “527” organizations has led Congress to impose extensive disclosure requirements on these political organizations and to consider imposing extensive restrictions on their funding as well. The debate about what laws should govern these entities has, however, so far almost completely ignored the fact that such laws raise a complicated institutional choice question. This Article seeks to resolve that question by developing a new institutional choice framework to guide this and similar choices. The Article first explores the context for making this determination by describing the current laws governing 527s, including both federal election laws administered by …

Substance Over Form? Phantom Regulations And The Internal Revenue Code, Amandeep S. Grewal

ExpressO

This paper addresses the appropriate response to tax statutes that call for the issuance of regulations, but that have been ignored by the Secretary. The courts and the IRS have taken the unusual step of treating these statutes as self-executing, notwithstanding the absence of regulations, and have invoked phantom regulations to enforce the statutes. Several commentators have analyzed the Tax Court's and the IRS's approaches, but have focused mostly on cases interpreting delegations found in the Internal Revenue Code. Because those cases themselves are inconsistent, it is not possible to extract a clear rule from analysis of those cases alone. …

Relinquish Control! Why The Irs Should Change Its Stance On Exempt Organizations In Ancillary Joint Ventures, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Computing Interest On Overpayments And Underpayments: How Difficult Can It Be? Very!, Mary A. Mcnulty, David H. Boucher, Joseph M. Incorvaia, Robert D. Probasco

Faculty Scholarship

Taxpayers often assume that the difficult part of a tax dispute is resolving the tax liability and penalties, while interest computation is fairly straightforward. In the authors' experience, however, interest determinations are as subject to controversy and prone to error as tax liability determinations. The Article explores some of the areas that taxpayers should review carefully in the process of finalizing interest computations.

- Frequent Errors. The Article reviews twelve areas in which, even though the law is settled and the facts are usually clear, the Service's interest computations frequently include mistakes. Taxpayers need to be aware of these provisions, …

Addressing Imperfections In The Tax System: Procedural Or Substantive Reform?, Leandra Lederman, Stephen W. Mazza

Michigan Law Review

Books about tax administration tend to fall into one of two broad categories: those that paint the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") as an agency peopled by corrupt, out-of-control bureaucrats who take pleasure in seeing innocent taxpayers suffer, and those that tell readers how to structure their affairs to minimize the risk of incurring an IRS employee's wrath during a tax audit. Perfectly Legal, the full title of which communicates David Cay Johnston's intent to focus on the tax system, does neither of those things. Instead, it is a book much like The Great American Tax Dodge, which explained …

Addressing Imperfections In The Tax System: Procedural Or Substantive Reform?, Leandra Lederman, Stephen W. Mazza

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In his book "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else", David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, covers a wide array of topics, including some that are quite complex, in a very readable way. The federal income tax system generally and tax compliance in particular are important focuses of the book, but the theme that implicitly connects chapters that otherwise appear unrelated is a variety of aspects of income inequality.

Although "Perfectly Legal" does not make a clear case that politicians and …

The E.L. Wiegand Lecture: Administrability-Based Tax Simplification, Steve R. Johnson

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Legislating Morality: The Duty To The Tax System Reconsidered, Watson

Scholarly Works

Four years ago, I presented a paper at a symposium on professionalism jointly sponsored by the University of Kansas Law School and the Kansas Bar Association. That paper espoused the view (contrary to what appears to be the popular view among tax scholars) that tax lawyers owe no special duty to the "tax system" other than to abide by the law and the applicable standards of professional conduct. During the four-year interim since my last visit to Kansas, however, we have witnessed the deleterious effect of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA '98) on IRS enforcement and …

Options To Acquire Partnership Interests: Can The Tax Law Keep Pace?, Walter D. Schwidetzky

All Faculty Scholarship

It has become increasingly common for partnerships to issue options that give the holder the right to acquire an interest in the partnership for a set price. The holder of the option will exercise it if he feels that the partnership interest to be acquired is worth more than the exercise price. There is a dearth of authority on the federal tax treatment of option transactions, and the Service has recently asked for guidance from the tax bar as to what approach it should take. This article focuses on one piece of the partnership option puzzle, options to acquire partnership …

Employer Tax Liability For Employees' Tips: Fior D'Italia, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

Given Nevada's heavy concentration of businesses in which employees are tipped, lawyers here may be more than usually interested in a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court. On June 17, 2002, the Court decided United States v. Fior D'ltalia, Inc. By 6 to 3, the Court held that the IRS may use an “aggregate estimation” method to determine employers’ liability for Social Security (FICA) taxes imposed on their employees’ tip income. The decision is an important development in a controversy of long duration, but it is not the end of that controversy. This article …

Even Before Enron: Banking Regulators, The Income Tax, The S&L Crisis, And Deceptive Accounting At The Supreme Court, Stephen B. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Years before the ENRON debacle, the Supreme Court heard a pair of cases involving dishonest financial accounting, Frank Lyon Co. v. U.S. and Cottage Savings Ass'n. v. Commissioner. In both cases, federal bank regulators had encouraged deceptive financial accounting, and the deceptive accounting became the basis for taxpayer claims. The Supreme Court, however, did not comment in either opinion on the deceptive character of the financial accounting that gave rise to tax litigation.

Rendering Unto Caesar Or Electioneering For Caesar--Loss Of Church Tax Exemption For Participation In Electoral Politics, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The restriction on church participation in political campaigns contained in the Internal Revenue Code operates uneasily. It appears to serve the useful purpose of separating the spheres of religion and electoral politics. But the separation often is only apparent, as churches in practice signal support for a particular candidate in a variety of rays that historically have not cost them their exemptions. Although the limited enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service has reflected the sensitive nature of the First Amendment values present, the federal government should provide more formal elaboration by statute or regulation. Focus on the use of funds …

Are There Procedural Deficiencies In Tax Fraud Cases? A Reply To Professor Schoenfeld, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Federal Tax Collection Controversies In The Era Of Drye, Steve R. Johnson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

By "tax collection controversies," I mean cases in which it has been established that the taxpayer owes additional taxes, those taxes remain unpaid, and the IRS is attempting to enforce collection out of the taxpayer's assets. Such cases are numerous and involve attorneys in general legal practice as well as tax specialists. For example, the taxpayer may be your client for non-tax matters, and may expect you to handle her tax collection controversy as well. Or, your client may not be the taxpayer herself, but instead someone who co-owns property with the taxpayer. Your client expects you to make sure …

A Discussion Of The Application Of Fica And Futa To Indian Tribes' On-Reservation Activities, Robyn L. Robinson

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tax Lawyers, Ethical Obligations, And The Duty To The System, Watson

Scholarly Works

Perhaps the most elusive area of law is that of legal ethics. While the term itself is easy to define,' the subject all but defies codification because ethics, or morals (the terms are interchangeable), cannot be encapsulated by or in law. This is because law, in general, contains its own standard of validity on which there is usually clear societal consensus. For example, murder, rape, and theft are morally repugnant universally. Hence, punishment for any of these offenses does not impinge upon religious or individual autonomy because there is no ethical freedom to choose whether or not to engage in …

The Taxpayer's Third Personality: Comments On Redlark V. Commissioner, William D. Popkin

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"Civil"Lzing Tax Procedure: Applying General Federal Learning To Statutory Notices Of Deficiency, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Tax procedure has been rather isolated from the main currents of civil procedure. Using the statutory notice of deficiency as an exemplar, the article explores how viewing tax procedure issues from the perspective of general civil litigation can facilitate procedural regularity and foster fairness to United States Tax Court contestants. The statutory notice is the document by which the IRS forewarns a taxpayer of impending assessment of tax greater than the amount reported on the taxpayer's return. The article identifies three functions of the notice and their general civil litigation analogues. First, like legal process, it provides the taxpayer with …

Is An Employment-Discrimination Award Taxable?, L. Scott Stafford

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Good A Samaritan? Federal Income Tax Exemption For Charitable Hospitals Reconsidered, James B. Simpson, Sarah D. Strum

Seattle University Law Review

Do contemporary charitable hospitals provide a sufficient community benefit to justify the loss of government revenue caused by their tax exemption? Focusing particularly on federal income tax exemption and on the community benefit derived from the provision of services to persons unable to pay, this Article argues that not all hospitals do. Accordingly, the authors recommend that the Internal Revenue Service issue a Revenue Ruling revising the current standards for federal income tax exemption to encourage charitable hospitals to clearly and explicitly identify and respond to health care needs, including the needs of persons unable to pay, in their local …

The Innocent Spouse Problem: Joint And Several Liability For Income Taxes Should Be Repealed., Richard C.E. Beck

Articles & Chapters

Husbands and wives who elect to file joint federal income tax returns

are jointly and severally liable for the entire tax due. Ninety-nine

percent of married couples who file income tax returns make the election

to file jointly, and each spouse thereby incurs personal liability for

the other spouse's income taxes. This Article argues that the rule is

unfair and unjustified and should be repealed

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1985, Merlin G. Briner, James W. Childs

Akron Tax Journal

This article discusses the federal income tax developments of 1985, including relevant Supreme Court cases, deductions, legislative and treasury regulations, and income recognition and related topics.

Fiduciary Income Taxation And The Holloway Adjustment, Dennis E. Bires

Akron Tax Journal

A great deal of the complexity of the rules dealing with income taxation of trusts and estates' can be attributed to the imperfect compatibility of two different regimes of law: the federal taxation of income and local rules of trust accounting. Just as the confluence of two rivers may generate turbulence exceeding that of either branch, the meeting of federal tax law and state trust law in Subchapter J of the Internal Revenue Code generates problems that neither discipline would present by itself.

In 1972, a New York Surrogate's Court introduced the Holloway adjustment to fiduciary accounting. This equitable adjustment …

Over The Back Fence: Tax Shelters And Other Sales Of Federal Income Tax Reductions, Thomas A. Robinson

Akron Tax Journal

Structural features of the federal income tax system frequently make the same tax reduction' more valuable to one taxpayer than to another. There are many types of such tax reductions (including deductions and credits), creating a fertile environment for the tax shelter markets. Black letter law says tax reductions are nontransferable. In other words, taxpayers are not allowed to sell their mortgage interest deductions over the back fence to their neighbors. Yet, observation reveals some transactions where tax reductions are in effect bought and sold. This article will examine four of these transactions: business sales, divorce agreements, sale-leasebacks, and partnership …

Selling A Business And Starting Anew: Liquidation-Reincorporation In The Simple Situation, John R. Dorocak

Akron Tax Journal

A client approaches his attorney with a fairly common problem. The client, as sole or predominant shareholder, operates a business in the corporate form. He wishes to sell all the assets of that business to a third party. The client will then take the proceeds of the sale, after distribution to himself as shareholder, and use a part of them to capitalize a new corporation, which will purchase a new business. The question for the attorney is whether this simple transaction will ever call forth the tax doctrine of liquidation-reincorporation. This article will examine the likelihood of the liquidation reincorporation …