Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

Chevron Deference To State Tax Agencies, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

The last installment of this column inaugurated a multi-installment project examining judicial doctrines of deference to interpretations and positions taken by state and local tax agencies. We noted that in the various states, these doctrines fall into about a half dozen categories.

This installment explores one of those categories. A major deference rule in federal administrative law (including tax law) emanates from the U.S. Supreme Court’s famous Chevron case. This installment considers the extent to which Chevron and similar approaches are applied in state and local tax cases.

The first part be low briefly describes C …

The Stable American Mind: Understanding Attitudes Towards Government And Taxes, 1990-2011, Christopher P. Eldred

CMC Senior Theses

As the federal government seeks ways to stimulate our economy and reduce our national debt, understanding public attitudes on the role and size of government and the taxes that support it is important. This thesis evaluates how US public opinion towards government and taxes has changed from 1990 to the present, and analyzes several potential causes for changes that have occurred. It is intended to be an update of William G. Mayer’s 1992 book entitled The Changing American Mind, which analyzed changing public opinion from 1960-1988. In following his analysis, the causes I have analyzed are generational replacement, fiscal …

Summaries From The 26th Annual Tei-Sjsu High Technology Tax Institute, Ankit Mathur, Zhihua Cai, Tim Kelly, Marja Mirkovic, Sampada Deshmukh, Ami Shah

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Tilted Versus Reasonable Interpretation Of Tax Law, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

In part, Interpretation Matters is about the craft of advocacy, how statutory interpretation arguments can be effectively made – and effectively countered – in state and local tax cases. For example, when one’s opponent in such a case invokes one or another of the canons of construction, how is that canon to be blunted?

One strategy we often have explored is fighting fire with fire – that is, identifying and asserting another recognized canon that leads to an opposite conclusion. One of the most famous articles on statutory interpretation arrayed dozens of pairs of canons that seemingly contradict each other. …

Estimating The Costs Per Job Created Of Employer Subsidy Programs, Timothy J. Bartik

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

E-Vat: An Electronically Collected Progressive Consumption Tax, Daniel S. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

This report proposes replacing the income tax with an electronic, progressive consumption tax that couples a credit-method VAT (modified for wages) with a progressive wage tax. I have called this proposal e-VAT (a convenient contraction for an electronic value added tax), because it is based on a business-level-credit VAT and can be collected automatically and electronically at the point of sale.

The essential advantage of e-VAT over the Hall-Rabushka flat tax is that e-VAT’s use of a credit VAT as its foundation facilitates automatic and electronic collection of the tax. A credit VAT lends itself to electronic monitoring and auditing …

Where Credit Is Due: Advantages Of The Credit-Invoice Method For A Partial Replacement Vat, Itai Grinberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

If a value-added tax (VAT) were chosen to supplement or replace some portion of the revenue from the income tax, a choice would likely be made between the credit-invoice method and the subtraction-method for calculating VAT liability. Credit-invoice method VATs and subtraction-method VATs are, at a conceptual level, very similar taxes. The key substantive difference between most subtraction-method VAT proposals and extant credit-invoice method VATs is that subtraction-method VAT proposals generally do not impose an invoice requirement. The invoice requirement substantially reduces tax avoidance opportunities in the VAT, and also ensures the ability to provide appropriate treatment for exports while …

The Virginia Historic Tax Credit Funds Case And The Uncertain Federal Income Tax Treatment Of State Tax Credits, William F. Machen

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Misguided Relief: Unsimplifying The Standard Deduction, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

The push to use federal money for benevolent purposes occasionally produces more cost than benefit, particularly when the outlay comes in the form of taxes forgiven. The Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008 added a supplement to the basic standard deduction. A nonitemizing taxpayer may claim a deduction for real property taxes paid, up to $500, $1,000 in the case of a joint return. Initially, the change applied only to 2008, but subsequent legislation extended its life through 2009, and pending legislation would make it a permanent part of the Code. Although well intentioned, the real property tax provision makes …

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 …

Forging Fiscal Reform: Constitutional Change, Public Policy, And The Creation Of Administrative Capacity In Wisconsin, 1880-1920, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 1911, Wisconsin became one of the first U.S. states to adopt an effectively administered income tax. Wisconsin reformers were able to overcome several institutional barriers to create the administrative capacity necessary to assess and collect a graduated income tax that in time raised significant revenue, but did not supplant the property tax. With this limited success, the Wisconsin income tax soon became a model for other states and even the national government. In this sense, Wisconsin was a leader in forging fiscal reform. Political activists, lawmakers, and other government actors in the Badger State led a turn-of-the-century property tax …

Imagining A Progressive And Comprehensive Consumption Tax, Sean K. Raft

ExpressO

The income tax system has become quite a mess. Unfortunately, the brunt of that mess falls primarily on the backs of the individual taxpayer, who is required to sift through the tens of thousands of pages of instructions and tax rules just to calculate, file, and pay what they owe. The filing burden and costs of compliance are already exorbitant, but they are only increasing.

In response to the complaints over the increasing complication, economists and tax scholars have imagined ways to improve or replace the income tax. Yet, the alternatives are either regressive or fail to generate enough revenue …

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.

Tribal-State Gaming Compacts And Revenue Sharing Provisions: Are The States Upping The Ante? , Richard L. Skeen

ExpressO

In the ten years following, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Seminole Tribe v. Florida, Indian Gaming has grown to over a $19 billion a year industry, in 26 States, involving over 241 Approved Class III Tribal Gaming Ordinances. States have been eager to get a piece of this ever-increasing pie. Some commentators have predicted that States will be reluctant to enter into new compacts or renew existing compacts, however, other’s have indicated that States will continue to demand a percentages of Gaming revenues.

This comment addresses the central issue of whether the Tribal-State compacts entered into subsequent to the …

Five Recommendations To Law Schools Offering Legal Instruction Over The Internet, Daniel C. Powell

ExpressO

This article addresses the emerging market for legal distance education. The market is being driven by recent changes in ABA regulations, as well as specialization in the curriculum, and expanding costs of traditional education. We are seeing the emergence of legal distance education consortiums, which offer a platform for the trading or selling of courses and programs.

However, much skepticism remains about the ability of distance education technology to offer law schools and law students a sufficiently interactive pedagogy. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg legal education is a “shared enterprise, a genuine interactive endeavor” that …

Finding The Constitutional Right To Education In San Antonio School District V. Rodriguez, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court abolished the scrutiny regime because it impermissibly interfered with an important fact, liberty. And yet, even in earlier cases which ostensibly upheld the scrutiny regime, it is difficult to see that the Court ever did so to the detriment of facts it considered important. In short, the Court often (always?) found itself raising the level of scrutiny for a fact in the same case it upheld the regime, leaving us to wonder if the scrutiny regime ever actually had any effect at all, or even whether the Court felt it was relevant. As …

Constitutional Limits On State Taxation Of Nonresident Trusts: Gavin Misinterprets And Misapplies Both Quill And Mcculloch, Joseph W. Blackburn

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Forcing Fairness In State Taxation, Randall J. Gingiss

ExpressO

The article recommends amending the Internal Revenue Code to change to deduction for state and local income taxes to a credit up to some defined limit. This change will encourage states without an income tax to enact one at no cost to its taxpayers and will help these states and other states with a low income tax rate find a politically acceptable way to end the financial crisis in which many states find themselves. Recent recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform advocate eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes to finance elimination of other undesirable …

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 …

Property Tax Reassessment: Who Needs It?, Stewart E. Sterk, Mitchell L. Engler

Articles

No abstract provided.

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

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Fuel Efficiency: The Disconnect Between Environmental Policy And Tax Policy, John J. Marciano

ExpressO

The recent high gas prices in America have intensified the debate over oil and gas efficiency, use, and reserves. As the national average for a gallon tops $2.10, Congress and the President strive to find a common position to foster energy independence, protect the environment, and bolster the struggling economy.

President Bush’s energy policy and recent Senate and House bills have not contemplated their effects on the environmental state of our nation or its impact on the internal revenue code. In this time of uncertainty, energy independence and measured use of resources may be at odds, but must we stray …

Taxation, Craig D. Bell

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Myth Of Ownership / Myth Of Government, Jeffrey Schoenblum

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Indisputably, the lives of all individuals, now and throughout history, have not been commensurate in every respect. No individual has the most of everything at all times - net worth, love, happiness, security, companionship, fame, food, land, grandchildren, or whatever else he or she values.1 Nevertheless, a utopian strain in intellectual thought, emanating as the Enlightenment afterglow,2 continues to place its faith in the public construction of an ersatz equality that has never existed naturally.3 The Myth of Ownership, a recent book by two New York University law/philosophy professors, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, is a striking exemplar of this …

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly In Post-Drye Tax Lien Analysis, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Irs As Super Creditor, Steve R. Johnson

Scholarly Publications

The IRS is a super creditor in the sense that its efforts to collect tax debts are free of restrictions imposed by state law on other creditors. This principle is no novelty. Several recent developments, though, have involved interesting applications of it. Part I of this article explains the principle. Part II examines recent applications of it.

Anatomy Of Valuing Stock In Closely Held Corporations: Pursuing The Phantom Of Objectivity Into The New Millennium, Stephen J. Leacock

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, And The Privatization Of Religion, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The government exempts religious associations from taxation and, in return, restricts their putatively political expression and activities. This exemption-and-restriction scheme invites government to interpret and categorize the means by which religious communities live out their vocations and engage the world. But government is neither well-suited nor to be trusted with this kind of line-drawing. What's more, this invitation is dangerous to authentically religious consciousness and associations. When government communicates and enforces its own view of the nature of religion - i.e., that it is a private matter - and of its proper place - i.e., in the private sphere, not …

The Death Of The Income Tax (Or, The Rise Of America’S Universal Wage Tax), Edward J. Mccaffery

Indiana Law Journal

The killing of the income tax has not been open and notorious: such is not the style of contemporary politics. As with other markers of progressive social policy—the promises of universal health care, Obamacare, come to mind6—the income tax is dying a death by stealth, albeit stealth played out in plain view. The plot lines of the tragedy are apparent. The individual “income” tax has been split in two. One tax, for the masses, is a simple, increasingly formless wage tax. This wage/income tax adds higher brackets onto the payroll tax, the model toward which the wage/income tax aims, to …