Evaluating Trickle Down Charity,
2014
Case Western University School of Law
Evaluating Trickle Down Charity, Matthew Rossman
Faculty Publications
As our nation's philanthropic sector becomes more entrepreneurial, ambitious and influenced by the private sector, longstanding legal standards on what constitutes “charity” struggle to stay relevant. More and more often, organizations that seek classification by the Internal Revenue Service as a Section 501(c)(3) charity (and the substantial public subsidy that this status unlocks) are not the soup kitchens and homeless shelters of yesteryear, but highly sophisticated ventures which accomplish their missions in ways that are less obviously charitable. In no case is this more true than in the recent widespread emergence of nonprofit organizations whose primary activity is providing direct …
The Individual Mandate Tax Penalty,
2014
Florida State University College of Law
The Individual Mandate Tax Penalty, Jeffrey H. Kahn
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In 2010, President Obama signed legislation that significantly altered the healthcare and health insurance markets in the United States. An integral part of that reform is the individual mandate, a provision that requires individuals to purchase and maintain healthcare insurance. Failure to maintain such coverage subjects an individual to a tax penalty. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that provision under Congress’s taxing power. Despite the Supreme Court upholding the individual mandate, fundamental questions remain. This Article addresses the question of whether the use of a tax penalty to encourage taxpayers to do something that the government desires is …
California – Land Of “Lawless Taxation” And The “Midnight Special”: Outlier Or Leader In A Growing Trend?,
2014
Bentley University
California – Land Of “Lawless Taxation” And The “Midnight Special”: Outlier Or Leader In A Growing Trend?, Mystica M. Alexander
The University of New Hampshire Law Review
[Excerpt] “Taxpayers in California recently found themselves the target of a retroactive grab for revenue by the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) in what has called an act of “lawless taxation” by the state of California. The source of the conflict was the Qualified Small Business Stock credit that had been in place in California since 1993. The tax credit, which was designed to encourage innovation and investment in California-based enterprises, allowed business owners who had at least eighty percent of their assets and employees in California to take a credit of fifty percent of the capital gain realized on a …
It Takes A Federalist Village: A Revitalized Property Tax As The Linchpin For Stable, Effective K-12 Public Education Funding,
2014
University of Richmond
It Takes A Federalist Village: A Revitalized Property Tax As The Linchpin For Stable, Effective K-12 Public Education Funding, Mildred Wigfall Robinson
Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest
Public education in the United States is a big business. In the fall of 2011, more than 55.5 million students from kindergarten through 12th grade were expected to enroll in the nation's public schools at a total cost of $599,145,678,000. Though it is a service provided by local governments, its cost is borne by local, state, and, to a more limited extent, federal taxpayers. Providing public education is a massive undertaking and no one level of government can solely bear its cost. Governmental revenue sources, from which allocated shares of expense are presently borne, differ. Local funding is provided predominately …
Tax Recognition,
2014
Notre Dame Law School
Tax Recognition, Barry Cushman
Journal Articles
This article was prepared for the St. Louis University Law Journal’s “Teaching Trusts & Estates” issue. Many law students take a course in Trusts & Estates, but comparatively few enroll in a class devoted to the federal wealth transfer taxes. For most law students, the Trusts & Estates course provides the only opportunity for exposure to some of the basic features of the estate tax, the gift tax, the generation-skipping transfer tax, and some related features of the income tax. The coverage demands of the typical Trusts & Estates course do not allow for intensive discussion of these issues, but …
Taxing Indirect Transfers: Improving An Instrument For Stemming Tax And Legal Base Erosion,
2014
Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia
Taxing Indirect Transfers: Improving An Instrument For Stemming Tax And Legal Base Erosion, Wei Cui
All Faculty Publications
Numerous countries (e.g. Canada, Australia and Japan) tax foreigners on the gain realized on their transfers of interests in foreign entities that invest in real estates in these countries. In the last few years, actions taken by tax authorities in India, China, Brazil, Indonesia and other non-OECD countries have highlighted the possibility of taxing a broader range of “indirect transfers” by foreigners. This Article argues taxing indirect transfers can have vital policy significance in countries where foreign inbound investments are actively traded in offshore markets: it may not only deter tax avoidance, but also stanch “legal base erosion” — the …
Tax Morale,
2014
Dartmouth College
Tax Morale, Erzo F. P. Luttmer, Monica Singhal
Dartmouth Scholarship
There is an apparent disconnect between much of the academic literature on tax compliance and the administration of tax policy. In the benchmark economic model, the key policy parameters affecting tax evasion are the tax rate, the detection probability, and the penalty imposed conditional on the evasion being detected. Meanwhile, tax administrators also tend to place a great deal of emphasis on the importance of improving "tax morale," by which they generally mean increasing voluntary compliance with tax laws and creating a social norm of compliance. We will define tax morale broadly to include nonpecuniary motivations for tax compliance as …
Bad Tax Shelters — Accountability Or The Lack Thereof: Ten Years Of Tax Malpractice,
2014
St. John's University School of Law
Bad Tax Shelters — Accountability Or The Lack Thereof: Ten Years Of Tax Malpractice, Jacob L. Todres
Faculty Publications
In the 1990’s and early 2000’s the tax landscape in the United States was overrun by an epidemic of tax shelters that was unprecedented. The shelters were designed and sold by seemingly reputable large accounting and law firms. The same shelters were sold to many taxpayers. They became generic, off-the-shelf, products. However, the tax shelters had no business substance. The shelters were eventually found to be invalid by the courts. In light of the invalidity of the shelters, the large fees paid for the shelters and the large damages caused by participating in the invalid shelters, there were predictions that …
Tax Consequences Of Distributing Equity Compensation Rights In Divorce,
2014
University of Georgia School of Law
Tax Consequences Of Distributing Equity Compensation Rights In Divorce, Gregg Polsky, Jeffrey D. Fisher, Zachry R. Potter
Scholarly Works
This article discusses the federal tax issues arising from the equitable distribution of compensatory stock options and restricted stock in divorce. While the tax consequences of distributing vested options and shares are clear, the treatment of unvested rights is muddled. This article explains the state of the law and provides practical advice to divorce lawyers who confront these issues.
Unilateral Climate Regulation,
2014
Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law
Unilateral Climate Regulation, James W. Coleman
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
It is now plain that decades of negotiation toward a binding global climate treaty have failed. Yet, at the same time, many nations are adopting a range of unilateral policies to address climate change. The existing literature on climate policy neglects these unilateral climate regulations because it focuses on the necessity and possible design of a multilateral climate treaty. But these domestic regulations present a unique puzzle: given that climate outcomes are determined by global emissions, and that unilateral regulations inevitably influence incentives to regulate elsewhere, how can domestic action achieve the greatest marginal reduction in global emissions? In other …
Revisiting The Tax Treatment Of Citizens Abroad: Reconciling Principle And Practice,
2014
Notre Dame Law School
Revisiting The Tax Treatment Of Citizens Abroad: Reconciling Principle And Practice, Michael S. Kirsch
Journal Articles
In an increasingly mobile world, the taxation of citizens living abroad has taken on increased importance. Recent international administrative developments — most notably, the weakening of foreign bank secrecy and expansion of global information sharing norms — have further raised the profile of this issue. While U.S. law traditionally has taxed U.S. citizens living abroad in the same general manner as citizens living in the United States, a number of scholars have proposed abandoning the use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis to tax. In its place, they would apply residence-based principles — i.e., exercising full taxing rights over U.S. …
The Taxation Of Intellectual Capital,
2014
Seattle University School of Law
The Taxation Of Intellectual Capital, Lily Kahng
Faculty Articles
Intellectual capital-broadly defined to include nonphysical sources of value such as patents and copyrights, computer software, organizational processes, and know-how-has a long history of being undervalued and excluded from measures of economic productivity and wealth. In recent years, however, intellectual capital has finally gained wide recognition as a central driver of economic productivity and growth. Scholars in fields such as knowledge management, financial accounting, and national accounting have produced a wealth of research that significantly advances the conceptual understanding of intellectual capital and introduces new methodologies for identifying and measuring its economic value. This article is the first to analyze …
Valuation In Light Of Uncertainty: How Stock Option Pricing Models Can Inform More Accurate Valuation Discounts For Built-In Gains,
2014
Wake Forest University
Valuation In Light Of Uncertainty: How Stock Option Pricing Models Can Inform More Accurate Valuation Discounts For Built-In Gains, Rebecca N. Morrow
Kentucky Law Journal
No abstract provided.
The Problem Of Abusive Related-Partner Allocations,
2014
University of Georgia School of Law
The Problem Of Abusive Related-Partner Allocations, Gregg D. Polsky, Emily Cauble
Scholarly Works
This Article highlights a flaw in the existing rules regarding partnership tax allocations that has not yet received sufficient attention by existing literature. Namely, the partnership tax allocation rules are implicitly premised on the assumption that partners are unrelated and, thus, transact with each other at arm’s length. As a result, related partners can and do devise tax allocation schemes that exploit the gap in the current partnership tax allocation rules to achieve unwarranted tax savings.
This Article proposes to end this abuse by disallowing special allocations among related partners. Under the proposal, allocations among related partners would be required …
Locality V. Online Travel Company: Does The Bell Finally Toll For Quill Corp. V. North Dakota,
2014
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Locality V. Online Travel Company: Does The Bell Finally Toll For Quill Corp. V. North Dakota, Jaan Rannik
Journal of Business & Technology Law
No abstract provided.
Apportioning State Personal Income Taxes To Eliminate The Double Taxation Of Dual Residents: Thoughts Provoked By The Proposed Minnesota Snowbird Tax,
2014
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Apportioning State Personal Income Taxes To Eliminate The Double Taxation Of Dual Residents: Thoughts Provoked By The Proposed Minnesota Snowbird Tax, Edward A. Zelinsky
Articles
As a matter of both tax policy and constitutional law, it is time to apportion state personal income taxes to eliminate the double taxation of dual residents. Individuals who, for income tax purposes, are residents are two or more states should be taxed along the lines recently proposed by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton for “snowbirds”: As to income with respect to which a state has source jurisdiction, that state should tax such income. As to income which two or more states tax only on the basis of residence, such states should apportion, based on the dual resident’s relative presence in …
Magnifying Deterrence By Prosecuting Professionals,
2014
University of Washington School of Law
Magnifying Deterrence By Prosecuting Professionals, Scott A. Schumacher
Articles
This article examines the recent series of criminal prosecutions against tax professionals and offshore bankers. These criminal cases, brought against the largest Swiss bank (UBS), the oldest Swiss bank (Wegelin), one of the largest accounting firms in the world (KPMG), as well as numerous lawyers and accountants, was a dramatic shift for the U.S. Department of Justice. After decades of tolerating abusive tax shelters and tax haven banks, the Government changed its policy. However, rather than indicting the individuals and corporations who invested in tax shelters or hid money in offshore accounts, the Justice Department indicted the lawyers, accountants, and …
Space Madness: Subsidies And Economic Substance,
2014
Boston University School of Law
Space Madness: Subsidies And Economic Substance, Steven A. Dean
Faculty Scholarship
Extending the reach of the recently codified economic substance doctrine to embrace transactions spurred by tax subsidies would help both Congress and taxpayers promote worthy objectives such as historic preservation and the production of renewable energy. Congress-or quite possibly the courts-could use losses as the lynchpin of an economic substance doctrine for subsidized transactions.
A Market For Tax Compliance,
2014
Georgia State University College of Law
A Market For Tax Compliance, W Edward Afield
Faculty Publications By Year
It is becoming increasingly clear that, due to political realities and budgetary constraints, the IRS is going to have to attempt to enforce the tax laws by doing more with less. Current enforcement efforts have yielded a tax gap (i.e., the difference between the amount of taxes that should be paid and the amount that are collected) of roughly $450 billion annually. Faced with this task, one of the steps that the IRS has recently taken is to try to improve the quality in services performed by paid tax preparers, a group that historically has been subject to little IRS …
Retreat From Progressive Taxation In The Swedish Welfare State: Does Immigration Matter?,
2014
Saint Louis University School of Law
Retreat From Progressive Taxation In The Swedish Welfare State: Does Immigration Matter?, Henry Ordower
All Faculty Scholarship
This paper questions whether late twentieth century immigration patterns may have contributed to retreat from progressive taxation in Sweden (and elsewhere). The paper applies critical methodology to ask whether the societal generosity reflected in development of Sweden’s welfare state yielded to greater parsimony as Sweden opened its borders to ethnically and racially diverse groups of immigrants. The paper explores whether Sweden’s loss of societal homogeneity facilitated the development of a political climate in which protecting traditional Scandinavian-owned capital from taxation became acceptable. Social science literature already has detected various unintentional ethnic and gender biases in delivery of welfare services and …
