Tax Law Commons^™

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

The Alchemy Of Sin: Turning Tobacco Sin Tax Revenue Into Public Health Gold, Audre L. Sylvester

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Note proposes a reallocation of tobacco excise tax revenue towards health and education programs related to tobacco cessation. Revenue collected from federal excise taxes on tobacco products is currently used to support the daily and long-term operations of the United States while tobacco cessation and education programs remain underfunded and underutilized. This Note examines the history of these “sin taxes,” their modern-day function, and the issues that arise from the current allocation of sin tax revenue to support the argument that revenue from federal sin taxes on tobacco products should be exclusively allocated to a dedicated federal trust fund …

In (Tax) Hindsight: When Should The Tax System Ease Taxpayer Regrets?, Charlene Luke

UF Law Faculty Publications

A brief review of, Emily Cauble, Taxpayers’ Tax Election Regrets, 77 The Tax Law. 77 (2023), that focuses on § 754 elections.

Taxing People, Not Residents, Yariv Brauner

UF Law Faculty Publications

Essentially all states tax their residents’ worldwide income. This norm is difficult to justify beyond vague notions of state provided benefits enjoyed by residents. Recent increased mobility (particularly tax-motivated mobility of wealthy individuals) and the growing importance of remote work and digital nomadism present a serious challenge to this linking of residence and taxing rights. This article examines whether exclusive source taxation of individuals could replace the existing rules which are based on a compromise between residence and source taxation. The article concludes that exclusive source taxation of individuals is both feasible and desirable, mainly due to its fairness and …

Taxing Torts Today And Tomorrow, Steven J. Willis

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article shows how tax law has long subsidized tortfeasors, often to the detriment of victims. Changes in the 1980s reduced the tortfeasor subsidy but did not eliminate it. The article shows how various changes which purported to help victims have, in practical terms, helped tortfeasors.

The article first covers the pre-1985 tax history of making torts profitable. The resulting financial incentives triggered multiple legal changes, which the article outlines prior to covering them in depth. The statutory issues involve Internal Revenue Code sections 104 (allowing victims to exclude personal physical injury payments from income); 130 (purporting to facilitate structured …

The Service’S Overgenerous Tax Treatment Of Crowdfunding, Jeffrey H. Kahn

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

The Internal Revenue Service released a fact sheet that defines crowdfunding as a method to raise money on websites by soliciting contributions from a large number of people. This article considers how crowdfunding is treated for tax purposes and argues that, contrary to the fact sheet's determination, all donations collected by commercial websites should be income to the recipient.

Foreword: Moore, Loper Bright, Corner Post, And The Future Of The Federal Tax System, David Hasen

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the 2023 Term, the Supreme Court decided three cases that are likely to have significant implications for the federal tax system. Moore v. United States presages a resuscitated constitutional realization requirement for the income tax—a requirement long thought moribund, if not dead, by most commentators and policymakers. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo jettisoned the Chevron doctrine’s deferential standard of review of agency rulemaking, returning the standard to some perhaps modified version of its more searching pre-Chevron status. And Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System held that the statute of limitations for most …

Global Tax Wars In The Digital Era, Assaf Harpaz

Scholarly Works

The digital economy fundamentally disrupts international tax principles that rely on physical presence. When a business earns income abroad, the country of residence (where the taxpayer resides) and the country of source (where income is generated) both have legitimate, competing claims to tax that income. The international tax system tends to favor residence-based taxation. The source country has the right to tax business profits only if the enterprise carries on a permanent establishment within its borders, which typically requires physical presence. The permanent establishment standard becomes flawed in a digital economy where profit shifting practices are abundant and businesses no …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

Clarifying The Constitutional Boundaries Of Income Taxation After Moore V. United States, Catherine Gluchowski

St. Thomas Law Review

Despite the significance of the term “income,” both the United States Supreme Court and the Internal Revenue Code do not provide an explicit definition of the term. This ambiguity causes the constitutionality of income taxation to remain a contested issue. Central to this ongoing debate is the issue of realization as a prerequisite for income taxation, exemplified by the case of Moore v. United States. In a landmark decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled that realization is not a constitutional requirement for Congress to impose a tax exempt from apportionment under the Sixteenth Amendment. This decision marked a pivotal departure from …

Fiscal Citizenship And Taxpayer Privacy, Alex Zhang

Faculty Articles

Should individual tax data be public or confidential? Within the United States, secrecy has been the rule since the Tax Reform Act of 1976. But at three critical junctures—the Civil War, the 1920s, and the 1930s—Congress made individual tax records open for public inspection, and newspapers published the incomes of the billionaires of the time. Today, Finland, Norway, and Sweden all mandate significant transparency for individual tax information.

This Essay intervenes in the tax-confidentiality debate by building a new analytical framework of fiscal citizenship. Until now, scholars have focused on compliance—whether disclosure incentivizes honest reporting of income, and if it …

Carried Interest: Recent Tax Holding Envisions Need For New Legislation, Patrick Lucas

FIU Law Review

In the financial world, carried interest represents the share of the profits of a private equity fund allocated to its manager which is disproportionate when compared to the manager’s relative capital contribution. On May 3, 2023 the Tax Court issued its memorandum opinion in ES NPA Holding, LLC v. Commissioner. The decision quickly became popularized as providing reassurance to sponsors of private equity funds that they will rarely, if ever, realize income as a result of the issuance of a profits/carried interest (the so-called front-end issue for carried interest). The so-called back-end issue is how the income arising from a …

Refundable Tax Credit Design: Cohabitating Parents And Gender Presumptions, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Essay is meant to encourage further thinking to improve upon design options for unmarried cohabitating parents. Are there better ways to recognize the needs of unmarried co-parents (whether living together or not) and to provide support for shared parenting? The policy considerations for providing support to unmarried cohabitating parents are different than those for supporting married couples, given that these individuals lack the financial protections of a formal partnership.

One solution is to have a default rule whereby the CTC is awarded to the primary caregiver. Canada’s gender presumption provides a degree of administrative simplicity, but the IRS could …

The Arena Tax: Subsidiary Athletics Departments And The Limits Of University Property Tax Exemptions, Matthew Razzano

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

The Irs Approach To Periodic Adjustments: Losing Bet Or Royal Flush?, Jeffery M. Kadet, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, David G. Chamberlain, Stephen L. Curtis

Articles

In this article, the authors argue that GLAM 2025-001 is consistent with the terms and purposes of the commensurate with income provision, relevant legislative history, and applicable case law and that the IRS approach to commensurate with income enforcement is a valid application of discretion delegated by Congress to the Treasury under Loper Bright.

The Irs's Misguided Playbook For Nil Collectives, Olivia M. Lubarsky

American University Law Review

Since the emergence of name, image, and likeness (NIL) opportunities for NCAA student-athletes, the IRS continues to scrutinize and ultimately deny many NIL collectives’ claims for section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, particularly questioning their asserted charitable purposes. This Note explores the foundation of the IRS's reasoning and argues that the IRS tangles key legal requirements, undervalues the public benefits generated by NIL collective activities, and applies inconsistent standards that overlook the educational and amateur sports charitable purposes these collectives can serve. By addressing the inconsistencies in the IRS's reasoning, NIL collectives may chart a viable path toward securing tax-exempt status.