Taxation-Federal Commons^™

Ancient And Comely Order: The Use And Disuse Of Arbitration By New York Quakers, F. Peter Philips

Articles & Chapters

From the late 17th century, the Religious Society of Friends (“Quakers”) observed a method of resolving disputes arising within congregations that was scripturally based, and culminated in final and binding arbitration. The practice of Quaker arbitration gradually disappeared during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and few modern Quakers are even aware of it. This article traces that decline and notes similarities with mercantile arbitration. In both religious and mercantile arbitration, a defined community valued the goal of avoiding group disruption more than the goal of vindicating individual legal rights. In both cases, members of the community applied distinct …

When International Tax Agreements Fail At Home: A U.S. Example, Diane Ring

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Over the past two and a half years, the international tax community has focused on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project (BEPS project) undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at the behest of the G20. According to the OECD, the resulting 2015 agreement involved the direct participation of more than sixty countries. An additional fifty-nine countries indirectly participated through regional dialogues. Furthermore, numerous international organizations are credited with participating in discussions and contributing to the resulting product. But, effective implementation of the BEPS agreement requires domestic action of various types—the domestic side of international agreement …

The Social Boundaries Of Corporate Taxation, Sloan G. Speck

Publications

Historically, the tax law distinction between corporate and conduit treatment drew primarily on doctrinal understandings, treating state-law corporations as corporate for tax purposes and classifying unincorporated legal entities based on their resemblance to conventional state-law corporations. More recently, commentators and Treasury have abandoned these doctrinal touchstones in favor of efficiency, broadly construed, as the guiding principle in determining an entity’s tax classification. This Article argues that, while important, efficiency considerations should not function as the sole arbiter of the boundary between corporate and conduit tax treatment. First, classical corporate taxation is, in many ways, deeply embedded within a larger network …

A Bipartisan Tax Reform?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

A Bipartisan Tax Reform?By Reuven S. Avi-YonahIf one listens to what Democratic and Republicancandidates for president are saying on the cam-paign trail, it would appear that the chances for taxreform in 2017 and beyond are minimal. A biparti-san approach is essential for tax reform to passbecause even if there are majorities from the presi-dent’s party in both houses, major tax reform wouldnot likely get through the Senate without 60 votes.But the parties seem very far apart on tax reform.Democrats are focused on using the tax system toreduce inequality and are determined to raise thetax rates at the top of the …

Back To 1913?: The Ryan Blueprint And Its Problems, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

From the Revolutionary War to the late 19th century, the federal government was financed primarily through regressive tariffs on imported goods. The exception was the income tax enacted during the national emergency of the Civil War, which was allowed to expire in 1872. The rise of an industrial economy in the post- Civil War era led to significant increases in inequality, which the tariffs exacerbated by falling primarily on the working class. ‘‘Robber barons’’ like J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller did not consume most of their income, and their intangible wealth avoided state-level personal property taxes as …

Saving The Farm Or Giving Away The Farm: A Critical Analysis Of The Capital Gains Tax Preferences, Phyllis C. Taite

Faculty Articles

Over the years the topic of capital gain preferences has been thoroughly debated. Discussions range between whether the tax rates on capital gains should be raised, reduced, or repealed. Other discussions have centered on whether capital gains has an effect on the economy, and if so, how the research supports those assertions. It would be difficult to cover all aspects of the issues associated with capital gains taxes in one article; therefore this discussion will focus on capital gains as applied to individual income taxes. The capital gains tax has been criticized for the questionable effect it has on the …

Supply, Demand, And The Taxation Of Knowledge, Shu-Yi Oei

Faculty Scholarship

In The Knowledge Tax, Professor Michael Simkovic tackles the question of why rates of return on higher education are higher than rates of return on other types of investments, such as equity and real estate. Dissatisfied with existing economic explanations, the additional account that he offers is distortionary taxation: specifically, we tax higher education less favorably than other investments, thereby driving down demand for higher education relative to alternatives, creating an undersupply of labor, and buttressing education’s rate of return. In this invited response essay, I explore some of the issues raised but left open by The Knowledge Tax. I …

Benefits Vs. Costs Of Business Incentives, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The United States Tax Laws On International Technology Transfer: An Overview And Some Suggestion For Minimizing The Bite, Marcus B. Finnegan, Robert E. Mccarthy

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Of More Than Usual Interest: The Taxing Problem Of Debt Principal, Charlene D. Luke

Seattle University Law Review

Leverage is an essential but often troubling component of the U.S. market. The financial crisis highlighted the risks and complexity of a leverage web that includes flesh-and-blood people from all walks of life and paper people from all corners of the business and investment world. In the tax area, the potentially problematic incentive effects of interest deductibility have long engaged a wide array of tax commentators and policymakers. While interest deductibility rightly receives widespread scrutiny, a more comprehensive approach to leverage is needed. This Article focuses on the surprisingly complicated tax treatment of cash (and cash equivalent) borrowings. This Article …

Federal Tax Update, Stephen L. Owen

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

With Marriage On The Decline And Cohabitation On The Rise, What About Marital Rights For Unmarried Partners?, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Law & Economics Working Papers

Part I of this paper uses recent government data to trace the decline of marriage and the rise of cohabitation in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the population grew by 9.71%, but the husband and wife households only grew by 3.7%, while the unmarried couple households grew by 41.4%. A counter-intuitive finding is that the early 21st century data show little correlation between the marriage rate and economic conditions. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), same-sex marriage is now universally available to same-sex couples. Part I considers the impact of same-sex marriage on …

Becker V. Becker, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 85 (Oct. 29, 2015), Paul George

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In response to a certified question by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada, the Court concluded that under NRS 21.090(1)(bb) a debtor can exempt his stock in the corporations described in NRS 78.746(2), but his economic interest in that stock is still subject to the charging order remedy in NRS 78.746(1).

Basing Budget Baselines, David Kamin

William & Mary Law Review

Measuring the cost of legislation or even projecting the course of the federal budget requires defining a budget baseline—a starting point capturing the current state of the budget. Budget baselines underlie most measures employed in federal budget debates and enforcement rules. Yet, despite their widespread use, budget baselines engender considerable confusion and abuse.

For instance, when legislators enact temporary tax breaks, the breaks are officially estimated to cost far less than they likely will because of a loophole in federal budget baseline rules. Then, later efforts to extend the tax cuts are counted as increasing deficits when, in fact, by …

Tax Incentives To Exportation: Alternatives To Disc, Timothy A. Peterson

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Through The Antiboycott Morass To An Export Priority, Mark D. Menefee, Don Samuel

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

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

University of Miami Law Review

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 its …

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

Scholarly Publications

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. …

Silent Tax Changes: The Political Economy Of Indexing For Inflation, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The federal income tax adjusts many but not all of its dollar components automatically to account for inflation. In this article I analyze the benefits and burdens this process confers on some taxpayers and the political logic behind them. I discuss the choice of the proper index for making the adjustments, as well as the effects of the failure to adjust specific dollar amounts. I conclude that some adjustments have become overly generous, while unadjusted provisions suffer slow repeal, sometimes intentionally. Indexation thus can have the effect of tax legislation by stealth.

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1873

Akron Law Review

This article goes through the new development of the Federal Income Tax.

Income Tax Considerations In The Transition To A Professional Corporation, Harvey Dunn

Akron Law Review

[T]he tax considerations in the formation and operation of a professional corporation are numerous and, unfortunately, there are many areas which lack definite guidelines so as to enable the practitioner to give as definite an answer as he would like to. However, as with any new area of tax law, it will take time, decisions and rulings to develop what one may term as reasonable guidelines for reaching a conclusion. In the meantime, there is little doubt that with careful planning in the formative stages and close observation of the operation of a professional corporation, the risk of problems with …

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1974

Akron Law Review

FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEVELOPMENTS: 1974 is the second of an annual series of articles to be published in the Winter Issue of the AKRON LAW REVIEW. The thrust of this article is not only to identify the new developments, but also to trace these concepts through their formative stages. A synopsis of recent legislation appears before the TABLE OF CONTENTS, and a TABLE OF CASES, TABLE OF INTERNAL REVENUE CODE SECTIONS, and TABLE OF RECENT REVENUE RULINGS can be found following the text of the article.

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1976 Part Two

Akron Law Review

Tax Reform Act of 1976

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1976

Akron Law Review

FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEVELOPMENTS: 1976 is the fourth of an annual series of articles to be published in the Winter Issue of the AKRON LAW REVIEW. The scope of this survey is limited to the substantive developments in the field of income taxation. The thrust of this article is not only to identify the new developments, but also to trace these concepts through their formulative changes. This article covers not only the new developments in the case law but also the TAX REFORM ACT OF 1976.

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1975

Akron Law Review

FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEVELOPMENTS: 1975 is the third of an annual series of articles to be published in the Winter Issue of the Akron LAW REVIEW. The thrust of this article is not only to identify the new developments, but also to trace these concepts through their formative stages. The area of concentration for this article includes cases decided through September 30, 1975. Given the volatile nature of taxation, it is crucial for the practitioner in this field to remain current with the changes which have occurred during the tax year. The purpose of this article is to highlight for …

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1977

Akron Law Review

The thrust of this article is not only to identify the new developments, but also to trace these concepts through their formulative changes. This article covers the new developments in the case law including those cases and rulings implementing the Tax Reform Act of 1976.

Hanging Together: A Multilateral Approach To Taxing Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The recent revelation that many multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay very little tax to the countries they operate in has led to various proposals to change the ways they are taxed. Most of these proposals, however, do not address the fundamental flaws in the international tax regime that allow companies like Apple or Starbucks to legally avoid taxation. In particular, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project and is supposed to make recommendations to the G20, but it is not clear yet whether this will result in a …

Nontaxable Transfers; Interest-Free Loans; Crown V. Commissioner, Linda Haught Robb

Akron Law Review

"INTEREST-FREE FAMILY LOANS remain outside the purview of the federal estate and gift tax statutes despite the recent efforts of the Internal Revenue Service to convince the judiciary that, in such loans, the fair market value of the foregone interest is a gift. This is an extrapolation of the Service's efforts to find income to the recipient in other interest-free money situations. In light of the Service's limited activity in dealing with tax consequences of the interest-free loans, the Seventh Circuit's decision in Crown v. Commissioner' will be an important reference for estate and tax planning. Doubtlessly, the Service will …

Revenue Act Of 1978, Merlin G. Briner

Akron Law Review

"THE REVENUE ACT OF 1978 is a continuation of Federal Income Tax Developments: 1978 which appeared in the Fall, 1978 issue of the AKRON LAW REVIEW. This survey examines the substantive changes in federal tax law resulting from the passage of the Revenue Act of 1978 and other legislation. This author has again engaged the most able assistance of several members of the AKRON LAW REVIEW. Without their substantial contributions and complete dedication, this article would not have been possible. Special appreciation is extended to Linda Robison for her dedicated efforts."

Federal Income Tax Developments: 1978

Akron Law Review

FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEVELOPMENTS: 1978 is the sixth of an annual series of articles to be published in the AKRON LAW REVIEW. The scope of this survey is limited to the substantive developments in the field of income taxation. The thrust of this article is not only to identify new developments, but also to trace these concepts through their formulative changes.