Tax Law Commons^™

Why Congress Adopted The Church Audit Procedures Act And What Must Be Done Now To Restore The Law For Churches And The Irs, J. Michael Martin

Akron Tax Journal

This Article explores the significant policy purposes achieved by CAPA through the lens of the law's history and present challenges. Part II reviews the historical context and events leading to the adoption of CAPA in 1984. Part III then describes the present challenges associated with the law due to the failure of Congress and the Treasury Department to rectify the issue of who is an appropriate high-level Treasury official under CAPA. Finally, Part IV concludes with recommended solutions for restoring the law consistent with congressional intent in adopting CAPA-solutions that could easily be achieved through a simple amendment to the …

What's Mine Is Mine: Taxing Pre-Contribution Gains, Rodney P. Mock, Jeffrey Tolin

Akron Tax Journal

This article conducts an analysis of the Internal Revenue Code's varied income tax treatment between depreciated property and appreciated property transferred into C corporations by shareholders in nonrecognition transactions.7 It is at the entry point of the non-recognition transaction where the lobster pot unfairly doubles up on unrecognized gains at both the corporate and shareholder level notwithstanding that unrecognized losses generally remain singular at either level. The authors call into question this long-standing practice of artificial gain duplication upon corporate entry under Subchapter C. From a tax policy perspective, such disparate treatment makes little sense - particularly when the duplicated …

A Case For Simpler Gain Bifurcation For Real Estate Developers, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Occupy Wall Street, Distributive Justice, And Tax Scholarship: An Ideology Critique Of The Consumption Tax Debate, Partrick Crawford

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “This Article argues that the pro-consumption tax literature is wrong to claim that no legitimate fairness objections to the consumption tax exist. It argues that the persistent and widespread wariness about replacing our current hybrid consumption tax/income tax system with a pure consumption tax is, contrary to what the pro-consumption tax literature asserts, completely justified. In fact, our reservations about the consumption tax’s fairness reflect legitimate concern about the role of capitalist power in America, particularly over the past thirty years. Indeed, the more the nation continues to experience the social welfare effects of increased capitalist power, the more …

China's Business-Tax-To-Vat Reform: An Interim Assessment, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The reform to replace the Business Tax (BT) with the VAT is the largest tax reform initiative in China since 1994. This article assesses the first two years of the reform from a tax policy perspective. It shows that the government has tried to preempt resistance to reform through highly unusual tax design and by allowing local governments to retain revenue from pilot sectors. The VAT for pilot sectors is characterized by two new reduced rates that apply to a wide range of business-to-business transactions as well as consumer services (such as internet and mobile data services) not generally regarded …

Administrative Decentralization And Tax Compliance: A Transactional Cost Perspective, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

A common phenomenon in tax administration in developing countries is that tax is collected not according to the rules of law but according to informal agreements between taxpayers and tax collectors. This article offers a novel explanation of this phenomenon in the Chinese context in terms of administrative decentralization. Administrative decentralization is defined as the concentration of government functions at the lowest ranks of a geographically-dispersed bureaucracy. Decentralization increases communication costs associated with the implementation of law, and changes the structure of taxpayers’ costs in obtaining knowledge about the law. As a result, a “semi-compliant” type of behavior, involving many …

(Un)Appealing Deference To The Tax Court, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. Tax Court (Tax Court), which hears the vast majority of litigated federal tax cases, occupies an unusual place in the federal government. It is a federal court located outside of the judicial branch, but its decisions are appealable to the federal courts of appeals. This odd structure, coupled with the court's history as an independent agency in the executive branch, can give rise to important questions, such as the standard of review that should apply to its decisions. In particular, should the courts of appeals treat Tax Court decisions the same as those of district courts in tax …

Restructuring The U.S. Tax Court: A Reply To Stephanie Hoffer And Christopher Walker's The Death Of Tax Court Exceptionalism, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article is an invited reply to an article in the Minnesota Law Review regarding whether the “reviewing court” provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) apply to the U.S. Tax Court, the principal court hearing disputes between taxpayers and the IRS. (The Tax Court has repeatedly said that the APA does not apply to it). It argues in part that the question of whether the Tax Court must apply the APA’s standard and scope of review when reviewing IRS action is not as clear as a matter of history and doctrine as Professors Hoffer and Walker argue. The author …

Health Accounts/Arrangements: An Expanding Role Under The Affordable Care Act?, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 991 (2014), Edward Morse

UIC Law Review

This article outlines the foundations of health-related accounts and arrangements, including tax and economic considerations affecting their role in various designs for health insurance coverage. It explores the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and related administrative guidance affecting their usage, arguing that emerging trends showing that insured patients are bearing increasingly significant levels of out-of-pocket costs suggest an expanding role for consumer-directed accounts and arrangements, albeit one clouded by looming excise taxes imposed on “excess benefit” coverage beginning in 2018. It also examines the potential to utilize health accounts/arrangements to resolve moral and ethical conflicts in healthcare policy. …

Dare You Sue The Tax Collector? An Empirical Study Of Administrative Lawsuits Against Tax Agencies In China, Ji Li

Washington International Law Journal

Though taxes are as certain as death, each year tens of thousands of people in the United States go to court to challenge their assessed tax liabilities, and many succeed. By contrast, very few Chinese taxpayers litigate against tax agencies, and most of those who sue eventually settle, despite low formal litigation costs. China’s nonlitigious culture does not fully explain the reluctance to sue, as courts in Taiwan adjudicate five times more lawsuits against tax agencies. Judicial bias favoring government officials, weak enforcement of judgments against the state, and agency retaliation help to explain the aversion to litigate disputes with …

A National Mineral Policy As An International Investment Law Stratagem: The Case Of Tajikistan's Gold Reserves, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Parallel March Of The Ginis: How Does Taxation Relate To Inequality And What Can Be Done About It?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The United States currently has one of the highest levels of inequality among industrialized economies. In addition, numerous scholars have shown that social mobility in the United States is significantly lower than it was in the period between 1945 and 1970, when inequality was also declining. The combination of these trends is dangerous because it risks transforming the US into a society where small elites capture most of the gains, a pattern in which growth cannot be sustained over time (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, Zingales 2012). The level of inequality in the US after taxes and transfers are taken into …

Profile - The Wildlife Conservation Society, James Hagy, Lana Buchbinder, Barbara Beau

Rooftops Project

What might it be like if your not-for-profit was responsible for projects with occupants consisting of humans plus some 1,700 other species? How can physical location and the needs of animals and visitors be harmonized through architectural design? Barbara Beau, Lana Buchbinder, and Professor James Hagy of The Rooftops Project interview Sue Chin about her work as Chief Architect at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

At The Intersection Of Insurance And Tax: Equitable Remedies Under The Affordable Care Act, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 973 (2014), Julie Lewis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Oil And Water: Mixing Taxable And Tax-Exempt Shareholders In Mutual Funds, Jeffrey M. Colon

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

As of 2012, roughly 23% of U.S. households’ assets and 50% of retirement assets are invested in mutual funds, thus making mutual funds one of the most important investment vehicles for U.S. households. The federal taxation of mutual funds and mutual fund shareholders has played a vital role in the development of mutual funds and their appeal to U.S. investors.

Despite the significant amount of mutual fund assets held in retirement accounts, there has been very little analysis of the issues that arise when taxable and tax-exempt shareholders invest together in the same mutual fund. A substantial body of research …

The Pay Or Play Penalty Under The Affordable Care Act: Emerging Issues, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Affordable Care Act does not require that employers provide employees with health care coverage. It does, however, impose an excise tax on large employers that fail to offer their employees affordable employer-sponsored health care coverage. The excise tax, commonly referred to as a “pay-or-play penalty,” was scheduled to go into effect beginning in 2014. The United States Treasury Department (“Treasury”), however, has delayed enforcement of the penalty until 2015 for employers with 100 or more full-time employees, and until 2016 for employers with 50 to 99 employees.

Implementation of the pay-or-play penalty has given rise to a host of …

Taking The Student Out Of Student Athlete: College Sports And The Unrelated Business Income Tax, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Staring At The Sun: How Property Tax Incentives And Third Party Ownership Can Stimulate The Residential Solar Energy Market, Dillon Nichols

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Heal The Suffering Children: Fifty Years After The Declaration Of War On Poverty, Francine J. Lipman, Dawn Davis

Scholarly Works

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the War on Poverty. Since then, the federal tax code has been a fundamental tool in providing financial assistance to poor working families. Even today, however, thirty-two million children live in families that cannot support basic living expenses, and sixteen million of those live in extreme poverty. This Article navigates the confusing requirements of an array of child-related tax benefits including the dependency exemption deduction, head of household filing status, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit. Specifically, this Article explores how altering the definition of a qualifying child …

Sentencing In Tax Cases After Booker: Striking The Right Balance Between Uniformity And Discretion, Scott A. Schumacher

Articles

It has been nearly ten years since the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in United States v. Booker, in which the Court invalidated the mandatory application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. In the cases that followed, the Court addressed subsidiary issues regarding the application of the Guidelines and the scope of appellate review. However, despite — or perhaps because of — these opinions, there is little consensus regarding the status and extent of appellate review, as well as the discretion afforded sentencing courts. More troubling, what consensus there is seems to permit judges to impose any sentence they wish, as …