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Full-Text Articles in Taxation-Federal

Tax Treatment Of A Marijuana Business, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg Jan 2017

Tax Treatment Of A Marijuana Business, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Currently, twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes and permit the conduct of a business marketing of marijuana for that purpose. Eight of those states and the District of Columbia permit the recreational use of marijuana. There is reason to believe that more states will decriminalize the marketing of marijuana. However, marijuana is listed in Schedule 1 of the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA) which makes it illegal under federal law to manufacture or distribute marijuana even when it is legal to do so under local state law. In a …


The Mapmaker’S Dilemma In Evaluating High-End Inequality, Daniel Shaviro Nov 2016

The Mapmaker’S Dilemma In Evaluating High-End Inequality, Daniel Shaviro

University of Miami Law Review

The last thirty years have witnessed rising income and wealth concentration among the top 0.1% of the population, leading to intense political debate regarding how, if at all, policymakers should respond. Often, this debate emphasizes the tools of public economics, and in particular optimal income taxation. However, while these tools can help us in evaluating the issues raised by high-end inequality, their extreme reductionism—which, in other settings, often offers significant analytic payoffs—here proves to have serious drawbacks. This Article addresses what we do and don’t learn from the optimal income tax literature regarding high-end inequality, and what other inputs might …


Provisions Denying A Deduction For Illegal Expenses And Expenses Of An Illegal Business Should Be Repealed, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg Jan 2016

Provisions Denying A Deduction For Illegal Expenses And Expenses Of An Illegal Business Should Be Repealed, Douglas A. Kahn, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Currently, the tax law denies a deduction for business expenses that violate a federal or state law (but only if the state law is generally enforced). In addition, losses, including business losses, cannot be deducted if they arise out of an illegal activity. For example, medical expenses are denied a deduction if they are illegal. Kickbacks, bribes, and rebates given in connection with the Medicaid or Medicare program are nondeductible. Any expenses, legal or not, incurred in connection with the conduct of a business of selling a controlled substance that is prohibited by federal law (or by the law of …


Federal Income Tax Developments: 1984, Merlin G. Briner, Richard J. Kovach, James W. Childs Jul 2015

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1984, Merlin G. Briner, Richard J. Kovach, James W. Childs

Akron Law Review

FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEVELOPMENTS: 1984 is the twelfth in a series of articles published at The University of Akron School of Law. In keeping with the established format, the scope of this survey is limited to selected substantive developments in the field of income taxation.


Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra Apr 2015

Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Michigan Law Review

April 15 is a day that most Americans dread. That date is, of course, when federal and nearly all state-level individual income tax returns are due. Agonizing over the filing of income tax returns has long been a perennial part of modern American legal culture. Since the mid-1940s, when the United States first adopted a return-based mass income tax, the vast majority of Americans have been legally required to file an annual Form 1040. Over the years, taxpayers have been complaining about, procrastinating over, and generally loathing the filing of their annual tax returns. Indeed, in recent times, April 15 …


Cancellation Of Debt And Related Transactions, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn Jan 2015

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 Jan 2015

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 Us Treaty Policy, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2015

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

Articles

In 1997, I wrote an article on the international tax challenges posed by the then-nascent electronic commerce, in which I suggested that the international tax regime is based on two principles: the benefits principle and the single tax principle. The benefits principle states that active (business) income should be taxed primarily by the country of source, and passive (investment) income should be taxed primarily by the country of residence. This is the famous compromise reached by the four economists at the foundation of the regime in 1923 and is not particularly controversial. It is embodied in every one of the …


The Case For Taxing (All Of) Labor Income, Consumption, Capital Income, And Wealth, David Gamage Jan 2015

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 …


Reflections On The 'New Wave' Inversions And Notice 2014-52, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Oct 2014

Reflections On The 'New Wave' Inversions And Notice 2014-52, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On September 22 the Treasury Department issued Notice 2014-52, 2014-42 IRB 1. The notice was intended to fulfill President Obama’s pledge to use executive actions to the extent possible to block the new wave of corporate inversions. To what extent can the notice succeed? This article argues that while the notice is a useful first step, it is unlikely to stem the tide of inversion transactions. To do that, legislative action is needed in the short term. In the longer term, the only solution to inversions is coordination with other OECD countries in the context of the base erosion and …


Formulary Appointment In The U.S. International Income Tax System: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay Sep 2014

Formulary Appointment In The U.S. International Income Tax System: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, J. Clifton Fleming Jr., Robert J. Peroni, Stephen E. Shay

Michigan Journal of International Law

An affiliated corporate group consists of two or more corporations linked by sufficient stock ownership to cause them to function as an economic unit instead of as independent economic actors. Thus, an affiliated corporate group engaged in international business is often referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a term that we will use throughout this Article. When corporate members of an MNE engage in transactions among themselves, the prices they employ (transfer prices) will significantly affect the amount of overall MNE income that is allocated to each member and, hence, to the tax bases of the various countries in …


Moving Beyond Marriage: A Proposed Unit Of Presumed Economic Interdependence For Joint Filing Purposes In Bankruptcy And In Tax, Heather V. Graham Jul 2014

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 Devil In The Details: Reflections On The Camp Draft, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Mar 2014

The Devil In The Details: Reflections On The Camp Draft, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The discussion draft of the Tax Reform Act of 2014 (TRA 14) released by House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp, R-Mich., on February 26 represents a major effort for fundamental and far-reaching reform of U.S. tax law. Unfortunately, while many parts of the proposal seem sensible as an effort to bring back the spirit of 1986, the international tax reform proposals are deeply flawed and based on obsolete assumptions of the world that faces U.S. multinationals in 2014.


A Proposed Replacement Of The Tax Expenditure Concept And A Different Perspective On Accelerated Depreciation, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 2014

A Proposed Replacement Of The Tax Expenditure Concept And A Different Perspective On Accelerated Depreciation, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

Over 32 years ago, I published an article on accelerated depreciation in which I concluded that some amount of acceleration was consistent with normal tax principles and should not be classified as a tax expenditure. Over the intervening years, from time to time, I have exchanged comments with authors who have questioned that conclusion. It is time to revisit that topic and renew the consideration of how tax depreciation may properly operate. This Essay’s analysis of depreciation provides one example of how the tax expenditure budgets are flawed. The treatment of some accelerated depreciation as a tax expenditure is based …


Understanding The Amt, And Its Unadopted Sibling, The Amxt, James R. Hines Jr., Kyle D. Logue Jan 2014

Understanding The Amt, And Its Unadopted Sibling, The Amxt, James R. Hines Jr., Kyle D. Logue

Articles

Four million Americans with extensive tax preferences are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). By taxing a broad definition of income, the AMT makes it possible to have a tax system that both encourages certain activities with generous tax preferences and maintains a semblance of distributional equity. The same rationale supports the imposition of an Alternative Maximum Tax (AMxT), which would cap tax liabilities of individuals with very few preference items and thereby afford Congress greater flexibility in designing the income tax. The original 1969 AMT proposal included an AMxT; it is difficult to justify imposing one without the …


How Serious Is The Problem Of Base Erosion And Profit Shifting?, James R. Hines Jr. Jan 2014

How Serious Is The Problem Of Base Erosion And Profit Shifting?, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

In recent years, the problem of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) by multinational corporations has entered the public consciousness as a potentially important impediment to tax collections. The purpose of this article is to identify the nature of BEPS, consider empirical evidence of its magnitude, and evaluate proposed policy responses. There is considerable evidence that multinational firms arrange their affairs in a tax-sensitive manner, from which it is easy—indeed, perhaps a little too easy—to infer that beps is a serious problem. There are journalistic accounts of apparently spectacular international tax-avoidance schemes used by multinational corporations, though these stories commonly …


Corporate Taxation And Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2014

Corporate Taxation And Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This Article will address the question of whether publicly traded U.S. corporations owe a duty to their shareholders to minimize their corporate tax burden through any legal means, or if instead, strategic behaviors like aggressive tax-motivated transactions are inconsistent with corporate social responsibility (“CSR”). I believe the latter holds true, regardless of one’s view of the corporation. Under the “artificial entity” view, such behavior undermines the constitutive relationship between the corporation and the state. Under the “real view,” such behavior runs contrary to the normal obligation of citizens to comply with the law (even absent effective enforcement). And under the …


Tax Recognition, Barry Cushman Jan 2014

Tax Recognition, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

This article was prepared for the St. Louis University Law Journal’s “Teaching Trusts & Estates” issue. Many law students take a course in Trusts & Estates, but comparatively few enroll in a class devoted to the federal wealth transfer taxes. For most law students, the Trusts & Estates course provides the only opportunity for exposure to some of the basic features of the estate tax, the gift tax, the generation-skipping transfer tax, and some related features of the income tax. The coverage demands of the typical Trusts & Estates course do not allow for intensive discussion of these issues, but …


The Almost-Restatement Of Income Tax Of 1954: When Tax Giants Roamed The Earth, Lawrence A. Zelenak Jan 2014

The Almost-Restatement Of Income Tax Of 1954: When Tax Giants Roamed The Earth, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Tearing Out The Income Tax By The (Grass)Roots, Lawrence A. Zelenak Jan 2014

Tearing Out The Income Tax By The (Grass)Roots, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Dec 2013

Why Y? Reflections On The Baucus Proposal, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The international tax reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on November 19 contains several significant innovations that promise to define the terms of the debate for the foreseeable political future. (Prior coverage: Tax Notes Int’l, Nov. 25, 2013, p. 691.) It is therefore worth examining in detail even if it seems unlikely that progress toward meaningful reform can be achieved very soon.


The End Of Cash, The Income Tax, And The Next 100 Years, Gregg D. Polsky, Jeffery H. Kahn Oct 2013

The End Of Cash, The Income Tax, And The Next 100 Years, Gregg D. Polsky, Jeffery H. Kahn

Scholarly Works

The income tax is technologically very similar to the way it was in its early years, and technological developments have been at the margins of the income tax and have not affected its core elements. Still, technological improvements have made third-party reporting and withholding more efficient, which has allowed these mechanisms to become more pervasively used. Technology has also made it easier for taxpayers to substantiate their activities. These changes have facilitated the evolution of the incometax from its original class tax to the mass tax it is today.

While further technological advances might improve the federal income tax, it …


Application Of The Active Business Requirement To The Tax-Free Spin-Off Of Corporate Real Estate , Richard J. Albrecht May 2013

Application Of The Active Business Requirement To The Tax-Free Spin-Off Of Corporate Real Estate , Richard J. Albrecht

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Civil Tax Penalties: Changes And Recommendations, Arthur A. Graves Iii May 2013

Civil Tax Penalties: Changes And Recommendations, Arthur A. Graves Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Should The Us Dictate World Tax Policy? Reflections On Ppl, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Feb 2013

Should The Us Dictate World Tax Policy? Reflections On Ppl, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in PPL offers it a unique opportunity to change the law regarding foreign tax credits that has significantly impeded the ability of other countries to engage in meaningful tax reform. In 1938 the Court said in dicta that to qualify for the FTC a tax had to be an income or excess profits tax (or a tax imposed in lieu thereof) under U.S. tax principles. This statement has led to an elaborate set of regulations defining what is an income tax, which has significantly hampered the ability of foreign countries to adopt …


Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jan 2013

Corporate And International Tax Reform: Proposals For The Second Obama Administration (And Beyond), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) offers an opportune moment to consider proposals for corporate and international tax reform. With the debate over individual tax rates for the income and estate tax settled for the present, the President and Congress are free to consider broader reforms. Few observers doubt that such reforms are sorely needed, for several reasons. First, the long-term budgetary outlook is unsustainable. Second, the U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Third, the current system raises relatively little revenue and large amounts of …


Will The Federal Income Tax Have A Bicentennial?, Lawrence A. Zelenak Jan 2013

Will The Federal Income Tax Have A Bicentennial?, Lawrence A. Zelenak

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Utility Of Personal Service Corporations For Athletes, Bret M. Kanis Nov 2012

Utility Of Personal Service Corporations For Athletes, Bret M. Kanis

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Retirees Beware: Don't Worry About The British-- 2013 Is Coming, Douglas A. Kahn, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jul 2012

Retirees Beware: Don't Worry About The British-- 2013 Is Coming, Douglas A. Kahn, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Retirees beware. The easy money policy of the Federal Open Market Committee and the 15 percent tax rate on qualified dividends have encouraaged retirees, especially middle-income retired savers, to reorient their nest eggs away from certificates of deposit, treasuries, and money market funds to dividend-paying stocks and mutual funds. According to the IRS, 43 percent of taxpayers age 65 or older reported qualified dividend income amounting to nearly half of the qualified dividend income reported by all taxpayers. By contrast, 46 percent of taxpayers age 65 or older reported net capital gains amounting to 30.5 percent of the net capital …


Vive La Petite Difference: Camp, Obama, And Territoriality Reconsidered, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2012

Vive La Petite Difference: Camp, Obama, And Territoriality Reconsidered, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The recent tax reform proposals by House Ways and Means Committee Chair David Camp, R-Mich., and by President Obama seem to offer starkly contrasting visions of how to reform the taxation of foreign-source income earned by U.S.-based multinational enterprises.1 Both acknowledge the problem, which is that U.S.-based MNEs currently have more than $1 trillion of ‘‘permanently reinvested’’ income offshore, which they cannot bring back to the U.S. without incurring a 35 percent tax penalty. However, they seem to offer radically different solutions: Under the Camp proposal, a participation exemption will enable U.S.-based MNEs to bring back the income without paying …