Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

Real Property Taxes In Maine And The Impoverished: An Expose?, J. Michael Conley Iii

Maine Law Review

As the clamor for war against poverty increases throughout our society, there are few social and legal spheres that remain unscathed. Congress and the state legislatures have finally begun to show compassion in enacting new laws concerning virtually every social field in an attempt to alleviate the atrocious conditions under which this nation's poor exist. Moreover, the judicial system seems to have gained more awareness of the legal standing of the poor man and has begun to vindicate his once-dormant constitutional and statutory rights. One poverty target that has been hit by both the lawmakers and the courts concerns the …

Becoming "Audit" It Can Be: Improving Public School Funding Through A Streamlined Sales And Use Tax Agreement For Real Property Tax, Megan E. Bowling

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Washington’S Capital Gains Tax Isn’T An Income Tax, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This article considers a widely noted decision of the Supreme Court of Washington, Quinn v. Washington, concluding that a state capital gains tax enacted in 2021 is not subject to the stringent limitations in the state constitution applicable to property taxes. That result was a surprise to many in that Washington courts for nearly a century had treated income taxes as property taxes for this purpose, and what is a tax on realized capital gains other than an income tax? This article sets out the constitutional requirements, explains the taxing statute, and critiques the Court’s decision.

How The State And Federal Tax Systems Operate To Deny Educational Opportunities To Minorities And Other Lower Income Students, Camilla E. Watson

Scholarly Works

The importance of education cannot be overstated. Education is a core principle of the American Dream, and as such, it is the ticket to a better paying job, homeownership, financial security, and a better way of life. Education is the key factor in reducing poverty and inequality and promoting sustained national economic growth. But while the U.S. Supreme Court has referred to education as "perhaps the most important function of the state and local governments," it has nevertheless stopped short of declaring education a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. As a consequence, because education is not considered a fundamental …

Tax Policy And Our Democracy, Clinton G. Wallace

Michigan Law Review

Review of Anthony C. Infanti's Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.

Municipal Annexation Reform In Texas: How A Victory For Property Rights Jeopardizes The State’S Financial Health, Julie Polansky Bell

St. Mary's Law Journal

Municipal annexation is the expansion of city boundaries. The greatest motivator behind municipal annexation is maintaining and improving economic prosperity of the annexing authority. The issue of annexation involves a balance of rights between property owners and municipalities of the state. Historically, Texas cities had broad annexation authority under an involuntary annexation scheme. However, in recent years the power has shifted as lawmakers have given property owners greater control over the annexation process. This trend culminated in the passage of the Municipal Annexation Right to Vote Act (MARVA) by the 85th Texas Legislature, which severely limits annexation authority.

Texas municipalities …

Path To Destruction: Cook County's Property Tax System Is A Cause For Concern As It Mimics The Defunct Taxing Procedures That Led To The Detroit Foreclosure Crisis, Robert Romano

Chicago-Kent Law Review

For decades, Cook County, Illinois, has had one of the highest property tax rates in the country, and as a result the County has begun to experience unprecedented foreclosure rates which has contributed, in part, to the State’s significant population decline. Residents are forced to endure a property tax system that disproportionately burdens low-income homeowners, while providing tax breaks to higher-income individuals and commercial owners. The primary causes and characteristics of Cook County’s defunct property tax system are strikingly similar to those that sent the City of Detroit spiraling into bankruptcy in 2013.

This note provides a comparative analysis of …

Property Tax: A Primer And A Modest Proposal For Maine, Clifford H. Goodall, Seth A. Goodall

Maine Law Review

Property taxation has been viewed for years as the perfect “dragon to be slain” and by most “as both bad and doomed.” In spite of being one of the most commonly questioned and scrutinized issues by voters and politicians, property taxation survives as the primary revenue source for local governments. Maine's experience is an example of this continuing debate. The 2005 reform attempt by the Legislature known as LD 1 is the most recent example. Municipal over-dependence on the property tax, rising property values, unfunded state mandates, loss of federal revenues, and increased spending has significantly increased the percentage of …

Incorporating Ny Land Banks Into The Delinquent Property Tax Enforcement Processes, J. Justin Woods

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Student Publications

This article argues that New York municipalities should integrate land banks into the tax enforcement process to break the unhealthy cycle perpetuated by real estate and lien speculators. By transferring all tax liens and foreclosed properties to local land banks, municipalities can generate an important funding source that will help cover land banks' operations while simultaneously maximizing land banks' ability to reinvest lien proceeds and equity into redeveloping or demolishing properties with little or no value. If New York municipalities use their Land Bank Act powers fully, local and regional land bank efforts can become a vital tools for planning …

Tax Ferrets, Tax Consultants, Bounty Hunters, And Hired Guns: The Property Tax Netherworld Fueled By Contingency Fees And Champertous Agreements, J. Lyn Entrikin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Contingency fee agreements between local tax assessors and contract auditors on the one hand, and property owners and private tax consultants on the other, create perverse financial incentives that undermine the integrity of state and local property tax administration. When local governments engage outside auditors to identify undervalued or escaped taxable property, the practice raises serious due process and ethical concerns. As a matter of policy, diverting a share of property tax revenue to private third parties in consideration for outsourced tax assessment services undermines public accountability and reduces net property tax revenue for local government services. And when states …

Tax Ferrets, Tax Consultants, Bounty Hunters, And Hired Guns: The Property Tax Netherworld Fueled By Contingency Fees And Champertous Agreements, J. Lyn Entrikin

Law Faculty Scholarship

Contingency fee agreements between local tax assessors and contract auditors on the one hand, and property owners and private tax consultants on the other, create perverse financial incentives that undermine the integrity of state and local tax administration. When local governments engage outside auditors to identify undervalued or escaped taxable property, the practice raises serious due process and ethical concerns. As a matter of policy, diverting a share of property tax revenue to private third parties in consideration for outsourced tax assessment services undermines public accountability and reduces net property tax revenue for local government services. And when states allow …

Inhibiting Intrastate Inequalities: A Congressional Approach To Ensuring Equal Opportunity To Finance Public Education, Joshua Arocho

Michigan Law Review

What is the purpose of the international law on armed conflict, and why would opponents bent on destroying each other’s capabilities commit to and obey rules designed to limit their choice of targets, weapons, and tactics? Traditionally, answers to this question have been offered on the one hand by moralists who regard the law as being inspired by morality and on the other by realists who explain this branch of law on the basis of reciprocity. Neither side’s answers withstand close scrutiny. In this Article, we develop an alternative explanation that is based on the principal–agent model of domestic governance. …

The Economics And Politics Of Washington's Taxes: From Statehood To 2013, Don Burrows

Washington State Books

The book is divided into three parts. Part I contains five chapters. Chapters 1 and 4 provide a description, comparison and evaluation of Washington’s current tax structure. Chapter 2 provides a description, history and evaluation to the state’s three most important taxes: property, sales and B&O. Chapter 3 describes the roles played by the “tax policy makers” (i.e., citizens, governors, legislators, other public officials, businesses, labor groups, and numerous other interest group) in bringing about those changes. Chapter 5 includes a discussion and an analysis of contentious tax issues of concern to citizens, public officials and interest groups alike. Most …

Just A Matter Of Fairness: Tax Consequences Of The Service’S Revised Community Property Treatment Of California Registered Domestic Partners (Rdps), Francine J. Lipman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Ideal Deal: How Local Governments Can Get More For Their Economic Development Dollar, Rachel Weber, David Santacroce

Books

This handbook is designed to provide local economic development practitioners with an important tool. It takes the reader step-by-step through the different elements of contracts that treat public incentive packages as a quid pro quo for public benefits. Each section discusses a different element of the ideal deal: valuation of public costs and benefits, performance standards, disclosure and oversight, and enforcement. In each section we provide detailed examples of model provisions used by local governments in their incentive legislation, ordinances, and contracts -- information that has not before been obtained or recorded in any systematic way. These examples are meant …

Taxation, Craig D. Bell

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Tax Law, Second Edition, Office Of Continuing Legal Education At The University Of Kentucky College Of Law, Thomas A. Brown, Timothy C. Kimmel, C. Christopher Muth, Douglas P. Romaine, Mark F. Sommer, Randy L. Treece

Continuing Legal Education Materials

A reference for Kentucky lawyers on real and personal property taxation, Kentucky sales and use taxation, Kentucky individual income taxation, corporate income taxation, and procedures before the Kentucky Board of Tax Appeals.

Future Issues Facing Boston: The Assessing Department, Janet L. Hunkel

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

Taxpayers' opinions of municipal government often focus on the property tax. Taxpayers are stingy, and they are critical as to whether their money is purchasing competent services. For citizens to have faith that government is democratic, taxes must be equitable — everyone must pay their fair share. For government to function efficiently, tax administration must be efficient in order to support city services.

The property tax is a complex, difficult tax to administer; it is vulnerable to misuse. However, there have been recent, dramatic changes to the tax laws. Municipal government in Massachusetts now has the political and legal wherewithall …

Local Taxes, Federal Courts, And School Desegregation In The Proposition 13 Era, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines a federal court's dilemma when the remedy of school desegregation collides with the trend of tax limitation - when a school desegregation order requires funds that the local school authorities do not have and cannot raise. Can the district court order a local tax levy to fund school desegregation when the school authorities have already reached their maximum taxing limit? Is there a better alternative remedy?

To tackle those questions, this Note first elucidates three equitable principles to guide courts in fashioning desegregation decrees. It then explores the history of judicial power to order state and local …

Seattle School District No. 1 V. State--Demise Of The Pygmy, Warren C. Thompson Iii

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment discusses how the Washington Supreme Court's holdings regarding the constitutionality of the Washington system of funding grade school education through state funds and local property tax levies.

Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This note will attempt to explain the new Michigan statute and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of legislation as a means of preserving open space and farmland from conversion to more intensive use.

The Minnesota Tax Title: An Argument For Its Marketability -- The 1874 Forfeiture System From A 1974 Perspective, Donald H. Gjerdingen

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Real Property Tax Relief For The Elderly, Edsell M. Eady Jr.

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article focuses on the elderly person's problem of coping with real property taxation. Although property taxes vary in intensity from place to place, the elderly bear a particularly heavy burden. The property tax generally does not reflect a taxpayer's ability to pay, since it is usually levied in proportion to the value of real property rather than in relation to a homeowner's income. Thus people with low incomes may have to pay a greater percentage of their incomes as real property tax than people with higher incomes. The real property tax can be a formidable problem for an elderly …

Property Tax Assessment Administration In Kentucky, Walter W. Turner

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Public Schools: Serrano V. Priest--A Challenge To Kentucky, Jack G. Stephenson, Richard C. Stephenson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Property Tax Revenue Assessment Levels And Taxing Rates: The Kentucky Rollback Law, William L. Stevens

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Property Tax--A Withering Vine, Jerry W. Markham

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Walz Decision: More On The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The principal thrust of this Article is to determine the contribution made by the Walz decision to the body of ideas that has been developed by the Court in its application of the interdependent free exercise and establishment limitations of the first amendment, to point up any distinctively new emphases, and to suggest the implications of these new ideas and emphases for important cases coming before the Court at its 1970-1971 term.

Constitutional Uniformity And Equality In State Taxation, Wade J. Newhouse

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The method of approach and arrangement of materials are developed during the course of the monograph. Therefore, it is not necessary to repeat them here. The purpose of the study is twofold. First, it should provide background material for constitutional revision. Second, it should aid counsel and court in deciding cases arising under existing constitutional limitations and state legislatures in drafting tax measures in such a way that pitfalls in existing limitations are avoided. The greater part of this monograph was prepared during a two year period from June 1951 to 1953, while I was a Research Assistant with the …

The Measure Of Sales Taxes, Arthur H. Northrup

Vanderbilt Law Review

The measure of the tax is as significant a problem in sales taxation as is assessment in ad valorem property taxation or the determination of net income for income taxation. It is the base for taxation.

Sales taxes are creations of state statutes. The appendix presents a general summary of these statutes to show their provisions. Separate state excise taxes on cigarettes or spirits are not included within the scope of this paper, nor are taxes on selling, storing or distributing motor fuels or oils. These excises present special problems, as do separate taxes on extraction, oil drilling and mining. …