Tax Law Commons^™

Income Or Liability: How Casinos' Classification Of Outstanding Chips Determine Taxability, John Bulloch

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Drilling And Deductions: Making The Section 170(H) Conservation Easement Work In The Shale Boom Era, Michael T. Fulks

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panorama - London Olympics Site Redevelopment, James Hagy, Dmitriy Ishimbayev

Rooftops Project

The 2012 London Olympics are over, yet the work is just beginning. Solicitor Linda Fletcher of the London office of the law firm Pinsent Masons talked with Dmitriy Ishimbeyev and Professor James Hagy about the 18-year project to redevelop and repurpose the Olympics venue for the longer term as a major, sustainable, mixed-use community in east London.

Profile - The Noguchi Museum, James Hagy

Rooftops Project

Few not-for-profit cultural or historic sites can be traced through a single thread, from heritage in an unlikely industrial setting in Queens; its conversion to workspace for the creation, staging and deployment of art throughout the world; its rededication by the living artist as a museum space while still a working gallery; and ultimately its preservation as a permanent cultural destination. At the Noguchi Museum, members and visitors can appreciate artist Isamu Noguchi’s full body of work in many media, enjoy the tranquility of galleries and gardens in a profoundly close-by urban setting, and understand the context in which that …

Profile - Not-For-Profit As Urban Neighbor: Groundswell, James Hagy, Scott Haggmark

Rooftops Project

Few not-for-profit organizations can claim to have made a dramatic, permanent, outdoor visual impact on more than 450 city blocks through the five boroughs of New York City. Groundswell has done just that. As part of a continuing series looking at not-for-profits as urban neighbors, The Rooftop Project’s Scott Haggmark and Professor James Hagy visit with Amy Sananman and Sharon Polli at Groundswell’s Brooklyn headquarters.

Profile - Not-For-Profit As Urban Neighbor: The Bowery Residents’ Committee, James Hagy, Tamara Salzman

Rooftops Project

From the very beginning of its new headquarters project, The Bowery Residents’ Committee set out not only to serve its mission but to be the very best neighbor. Seriously, how many of us freeze our garbage before putting it out for collection? Muzzy Rosenblatt, Christine Lalor-Chisholm, and John Johnson of The Bowery Residents’ Committee, and Charles Thanhauser and Sarah Corcoran of its architectural firm, TEK Architects, talk with the Rooftops Project’s Tamara Salzman an Professor James Hagy about their approach to this unique project in the heart of Manhattan.

The New Flat Tax: A Modest Proposal For A Constitutionally Apportioned Wealth Tax, John Plecnik

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article is the first to propose a solution that complies with the Apportionment Clause without imposing different rates in different states. This Article discusses the practical and administrative issues with implementing a wealth tax in the United States as well as the substantive fairness of such a tax relative to the income and consumption tax regimes. This article describes the Apportionment Clause, so-called direct taxes, and the constitutional issues with implementing a wealth tax. It also describes prior proposals to circumvent the Apportionment Clause for the sake of a wealth tax. It also outlines a modest proposal to pass …

Magnifying Deterrence By Prosecuting Professionals, Scott Schumacher

Indiana Law Journal

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, represent 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 …

Officers Under The Appointments Clause, John Plecnik

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Much ink has been spilled, and many keyboards worn, debating the definition of "Officers of the United States" under the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution. The distinction between Officers and employees is constitutionally and practically significant, because the former must be appointed by the President, with or without the advice and consent of the Senate, Courts of Law, or Heads of Departments. In contrast, employees may be hired by anyone in any manner.

Appointments Clause controversies are triggered when a government official who was hired as an employee is accused of unconstitutionally wielding …

From Here To Eternity: The Folly Of Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Law & Economics Working Papers

Trusts that can operate for as many as a thousand years or even forever, typically for the benefit of the settlor’s descendants living from time to time, now and in the future, are all the rage in banking and estate-planning circles. Before 1986, when Congress passed the federal generation-skipping transfer tax (GST tax), settlors had little incentive and probably little desire to establish perpetual trusts, even though they were permitted to do so under the law of Wisconsin, South Dakota, or Idaho. The GST tax created an artificial incentive for the wealthy to establish such trusts. The origin of the …

The Fiscal Cliff As Reelection Strategy: Rethinking The Temporary Taxation Debate, Frank Fagan

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federalism And Phantom Economic Rights In Nfib V. Sibelius, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

Few predicted that the constitutional fate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would turn on Congress’ power to lay and collect taxes. Yet in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the centerpiece of the Act — the minimum coverage provision (MCP), commonly known as the “individual mandate” — as a tax. The unexpected basis of the Court’s holding has deflected attention from what may prove to be the decision’s more constitutionally consequential feature: that a majority of the Court agreed that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to penalize people who decline to purchase health insurance. …

What's Wrong With A Federal Inheritance Tax?, Wendy G. Gerzog

All Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have proposed a federal inheritance tax as an alternative to the current federal transfer tax, but there are serious flaws with that idea. In existing inheritance tax systems, those problems include: (1) different tax rates and exemptions based on the decedent’s relationship to the beneficiary; (2) the lack of a tax on lifetime gratuitous transfers, including gifts with retained interests or control; and (3) the persistence of most current valuation distortion abuses. In any inheritance tax model, moreover, there would be significantly decreased compliance rates and increased administrative costs because by focusing on the transferees instead of the transferor, …

Complicity And Collection: Religious Freedom And Tax, Jennifer Carr

Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on how the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill might be improved so that members of Congress enact it. The bill would allow war tax resisters who qualify as pacifists to direct their tax money to a separate fund not to be used for military spending. At present, the IRS is expending time and resources trying to track down tax resisters, which results in loss of revenue for the government. This Article argues that passage of an amended version of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill would eliminate the tension between the IRS and war tax …

Summary Of Harrah's V. Nevada Department Of Taxation, 130 Nev. Op. 15, Edward Wynder

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered the meaning of “first use” to determine whether Harrah’s was entitled to a refund of the Nevada use tax under NRS 372.258 for four aircraft it purchased outside Nevada and used to fly employees and clients to Harrah’s properties when most flights either began or ended outside Nevada.

Business Lobbying As An Informational Public Good: Can Tax Deductions For Lobbying Expenses Promote Transparency?, Michael Halberstam, Stuart G. Lazar

Journal Articles

The view that “lobbying is essentially an informational activity” has persistently served the suggestion that lobbying provides a public good by educating legislators about policy and the consequences of legislation.

In this article, we link a proposed tax reform with a substantive disclosure requirement to promote the kind of “information subsidy” that serves the public interest, while mitigating – at least to some extent – the distortion that may result from the imbalance of financial resources on the business side and other institutional contraints identified in the literature. We argue that corporate lobbying should be encouraged – by allowing business …

Pass-Through Entity Reform: Is A Major Overhaul Necessary?, Walter D. Schwidetzky

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The 2013 Irs Crisis: Where Do We Go From Here?, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that the IRS’s new proposed regulation on candidate-related political activities is a good first step. It creates a bright-line standard that is easy to apply and will reduce concerns that the IRS is manipulating the enforcement process for political gain. The regulation addresses serious concerns that some independent groups are circumventing disclosure laws in the code. These groups are improperly arguing that they qualify as social welfare organizations when in fact they are political organizations subject to disclosure under section 527. A better solution would be for Congress to pass broad-based campaign disclosure laws that would apply …

The Physician Orders For Life-Sustaining Treatment (Polst) Coming Soon To A Health Care Community Near You, Robert B. Wolf, Marilyn J. Maag, Keith Bradoc Gallant

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.