Tax Law Commons^™

Business Law Bulletin, Fall 2015

Business Law Bulletin

No abstract provided.

Perspectives - William Morrish, Professor Of Urban Ecologies At Parsons The New School For Design, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

How can arts organizations with an aspiration to build their own facilities connect project design both with the broader community and with financial sustainability? The Rooftops Project’s Zulaihat Nauzo and Professor James Hagy talk with William Morrish, Professor of Urban Ecologies at Parsons The New School for Design.

Without Representation, No Taxation: Free Blacks, Taxes, And Tax Exemptions Between The Revolutionary And Civil Wars, Christopher J. Bryant

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Essay is the first general survey of the taxation of free Blacks in free and slave states between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. A few states treated all equally for tax purposes, but most states enacted taxation systems that subjected free Blacks to different requirements. Both free and slave states viewed free Blacks as an undesirable population, and this Essay posits that—within the relevant political constraints—states used taxes and tax exemptions to dissuade free Black immigration and limit the opportunities for free Blacks within their borders. This topic is salient for at least two reasons. First, the Essay sheds …

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 …

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

UF Law Faculty Publications

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 …

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. …

Keeping Up With Tax Law And The Affordable Care Act, Frederick W. Dingledy

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Reforming Reit Taxation (Or Not), Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Practitioner's Guide To United States Employment Taxation Of Nonresident Aliens Working In The United States, John L. Gornall Jr., John B. Copenhaver

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Schoppe V. Commissioner: The Federal Circuit Split Regarding The Application Of The Automatic Stay Provision Of 11 U.S.C. § 362(A)(1) To Appeals From The United States Tax Court, Nathaniel Tucker

Akron Law Review

Part II of this Note establishes the background of the automatic stay which exists in bankruptcy law under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(1). It examines the purpose of the automatic stay and how its scope is very broad and applicable to many different proceedings. Further, this part discusses how the automatic stay applies to tax deficiencies, and it examines the federal circuit court split regarding the applicability of the automatic stay to appeals from Tax Court. Part III presents a factual and procedural history of the most recent circuit court decision regarding this matter, Schoppe v. Commissioner, which the Tenth Circuit …

Distinguishing Deductible Repairs From Capitalized Improvements: An Expectations Approach To The New Repair Regulations, George Mundstock, Thomas J. Korge

Akron Law Review

This Article explores an economic model of the business use of assets that supports an expectations approach to distinguishing between immediately deductible repairs and capitalized improvements. Under an expectations approach, the classification of an activity as a repair or a capital improvement depends on the taxpayer’s reasonable expectation when first placing the depreciable property in service—whether, upon acquisition of the property, the taxpayer reasonably expected the activity to be required in the future to keep the property operating in its ordinarily efficient operating condition. Many of the rules provided by the new regulations are consistent with this approach. The inconsistent …

The Same Sex Marriage Tax Shelter: What's Love Got To Do With It?, Stephen T. Black

Akron Law Review

This Article examines how wide, and asks whether the tax planning opportunities post-Windsor threaten the stability of the tax system and the stability of marriage. Part II of this Article discusses the federal tax benefits married couples receive when treated as a single economic unit. In Part III, the Article examines the use of partnerships and marriages to attain tax benefits for the parties involved. Next, Part IV discusses the possibility of tax shelter opportunities through the use of multiparty marriages, which are now possible in light of the Windsor decision. Finally, Part V concludes.

Bogus Refunds & Bad Penalties: The Feckless And Fixable Refund Penalty System, Del Wright Jr.

Akron Law Review

This Article analyzes the problems with section 6676 as it currently applies and offers suggestions to change it. The Article begins by identifying the reasons section 6676 has been unable to accomplish its policy goals and then highlights problems on the horizon. It ends by suggesting legislative and regulatory changes that will ameliorate the problems with section 6676 and allow the law to accomplish the goals Congress sought to achieve through its enactment. Part II of this Article lays out the problems associated with erroneous claims for refund and past legislative attempts to deal with the problem, ultimately leading to …

Better Late Than Never: Incorporating Llcs Into Section 4943, Elaine Waterhouse Wilson

Akron Law Review

Part I of this Article traces the historical development of Code Section 4943 and the business entanglement issues that the Code Section was designed to combat. It then discusses developments in the law that occurred after the passage of Section 4943 that have implications for its structure, most importantly the introduction of the LLC. Part II describes the current statutory scheme of Section 4943, and the ambiguity in the manner in which it applies, and the practical problems and abuses that potentially arise from this ambiguity. In Part III, the Article reviews various options for clarifying the treatment of Section …

Untangling The Strings: Transfer Taxation Of Retained Interests And Powers, Matthew A. Reiber

Akron Law Review

This Article takes a more sanguine approach: it acknowledges the utility of certain portions of these provisions to a functioning transfer tax system, but ultimately concludes that the current statutory scheme is overbroad in reach, clumsy in application, and therefore should be replaced with a single, stand-alone provision. Such a provision would require inclusion of property irrevocably transferred during life in which (a) the transferor retains an economic interest in the property, such as the right to use the property or to receive the income generated by the property, (b) the transferor pays gift tax at the time of transfer …

Breaking Beps: The New International Tax Diplomacy, Itai Grinberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

International tax avoidance by multinational corporations is now front-page news. In a time of public austerity, citizens and legislators around the world have focused on the erosion of the corporate income tax base. In response, in 2012 the G-20 — the gathering of the leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies — launched the “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” (BEPS) project, the most extensive attempt to change international tax norms since the 1920s.

This article is the first to explain that in the course of the BEPS project, the field of international tax has adopted the institutional and procedural architecture …

Front Matter

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Planned Parenthood: Adult Adoption And The Right Of Adoptees To Inherit, Richard C. Ausness

ACTEC Law Journal

This Article is concerned with the effect of adult adoptions on the inheritance rights (in the broad sense of that term) of adult adoptees. The Article contends many adult adoption statutes assume the existence of a parent-child relationship in which the adopter is the "parent" and the adoptee is a "child" even though this is not true of all adult adoption cases. In addition, legislatures and courts frequently fail to differentiate between "quasi-familial" adoptions and "strategic" adoptions, particularly where inheritance rights are concerned.

The Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax And Sociological Shifts In Generational Length: Proposing A Generation-Inflation Index For Taxation, Alyssa A. Dirusso

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Medicaid Planning For Long-Term Care: California Style, John A. Miller, Vanessa S. Stroud

ACTEC Law Journal

California's Medicaid program, "Medi-Cal", differs significantly from programs in other states. This article sets out the major distinctions between California's program and other state programs as applied to long term care for disabled seniors. It illustrates the major planning techniques that are employed throughout the country and also those techniques that are available only in California.

Medicaid is the means tested, cooperative state and federal program that pays for much of the nursing home and other long term care in the United States. California's uneven implementation of federal legislation regulating Medicaid over the last several decades has created many challenges …