Tax Law Commons^™

Rethinking Tax Priorities: Marriage Neutrality, Children, And Contemporary Families, James Puckett

Faculty Articles

Tax scholarship has long struggled with whether married taxpayers should be taxed differently from unmarried taxpayers. Currently, married taxpayers are subject to different tax rates than unmarried taxpayers, and may file a joint tax return. A married couple may pay a higher or lower amount of tax than an unmarried couple with the same total income, and a single person generally pays more tax on a given income than a married couple with a single earner with the same income. These outcomes are difficult to reconcile with a commitment to income tax progressivity, which in theory requires that higher incomes …

Reconstructing The Individual Mandate As An Escrow Account, Gregg Polsky

Scholarly Works

This short essay in Michigan Law Review First Impressions describes how the individual mandate could be reconstructed as an escrow account. Such a restructuring would ameliorate policy concerns regarding the mandate while still deterring the opportunistic behavior that would otherwise occur as a result of the nondiscrimination rules imposed on insurers.

China, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The Chinese indirect tax system is on the eve of a major overhaul, with the integration of the VAT and business tax (BT) to start in select industries in Shanghai on January 1, 2012. This paper provides an overview of China's idiosyncratic VAT as well as the BT as they stood towards the end of 2010. BT law and practice are discussed only in connection with select conceptual issues such as the exclusion from the VAT/BT base, place of supply, etc. This decision is based on the considerations that many of the legal issues arising under the VAT cannot be …

Reforming 501(C)(3): Putting The "Charity" Back In The Charitable Deduction, Jennifer Mccrabb Black

Law Student Publications

This paper seeks to lay out a proposal to redefine what it takes to receive tax-deductible donations. Part II of this paper will summarize the current state of the law as it applies to the charitable contribution deduction and the qualification for tax exemption under the Internal Revenue Code. Part III discusses the Charities Act 2006, a recent British act aimed at attempting to redefine charity for England and Wales by requiring organizations to prove that they provide a public benefit before receiving the benefits of being a charity. Part IV proposes additions and changes to the Internal Revenue Code …

Equity And Efficiency In Intellectual Property Taxation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

This article examines the federal income tax regime governing intellectual property using normative criteria in evaluating taxes: equity and efficiency. The article first evaluates the current intellectual property tax scheme in terms of horizontal equity, identifying differences in tax treatment of what appear to be similar intellectual property activities. It argues that disparate tax treatments between seemingly similar intellectual property owners signal that flaws may exist in the tax system. The article then assesses the efficiency of the intellectual property tax system, examining numerous tax subsidies for intellectual property and their effectiveness in promoting economic growth. It argues that many …

Challenges And Opportunities For The Tax Professional Guiding Closely-Held Entities: 2009 & 2010 Regulatory And Judicial Developments Impacting Fourth Circuit Tax Practitioners, Rose L. Bailey

Campbell Law Review

When framing adequate tax advice to protect oneself from preparer penalties under sometimes ambiguous or unsettled tax law, or when trying to affect your best appellate argument or direct a strategic audit litigation path, there can be no doubt of the importance of considering judicial precedent developments in all of these paths. To that end, under the discretion of this Author, a selection of relevant administrative regulations and rulings as well as judicial authority rendered in 2009 through spring 2010 are contained in this Article to cover significant income taxation developments impacting certain closely-held entities. Closely-held entities are considered, for …

The People Versus Corporate Welfare: North Carolina's Forsaken Opportunity To Reverse Perversion Of The Commerce Clause And To Reinvigorate The Public Purpose Doctrine, Jeanette K. Doran

Campbell Law Review

This Article neither espouses judicial intervention in any political controversy nor offers "broad" and "sweeping" constitutional theories. Instead, this Article is calculated to recognize the efforts of taxpayers who have resorted to the very constitutional rights afforded to them as citizens and taxpayers to challenge governmental acts which are repugnant to the very foundations of our society and to encourage the judiciary to fulfill its duty to reject legislation which is contrary to the state or federal constitution. As the North Carolina Supreme Court stated in the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Maxwell case: "The principle of equal …

President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Suggested Considerations In Fundamental Reform Of The United States Tax Treatment Of Income From Cross Border Trade And Investment, Robert H. Dilworth

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board ("PERAB") has as part of its mandated inquiry the reform of the U.S. tax treatment of income from cross border trade and investment. This paper sets forth a short set of recommendations as to tax reform methodology and some substantive proposals. Tax reform should not "start over," or undertake significant changes, without a fairly detailed understanding of what the present regime actually does, or does not do, and identifying the relationship (if any) between the various existing provisions and whatever "the problem" is perceived to be. The present architecture results from the striking of …

International Tax Reform Should Begin At Home: Replace The Corporate Income Tax With A Territorial Expenditure, William B. Barker

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The present U.S. system of international taxation is riddled with problems because it does not satisfy critical principles of economics, justice, or common sense. It fails to accomplish the most important goals that an international system should achieve - that is, protecting the domestic tax base in a way that fosters domestic economic development and the creation of jobs. This paper explores alternatives to the present system to see if they do a better job. Some of the alternatives fail for the same reasons as the present system because they are predicated on the same outmoded theories. Some are clearly …

U.S. International Tax System At A Crossroads, Barbara Angus, Tom Neubig, Eric Solomon, Mark Weinberger

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The current U.S. international tax system, the administration's international tax proposals, and other potential international tax reforms all have ramifications for U.S. businesses, American workers, and the U.S. economy that must be fully discussed and understood. This report focuses on some of the most important facts and perspectives that should be considered as part of that discussion. This process starts by asking, at a minimum, questions like these: (1) How have the dynamics of the global economy changed? (2) What role should differences between the U.S. tax system and those of other countries play in determining an advantageous international tax …

Transfer Pricing And Fin 48: Removing Uncertainty Through The Advanced Pricing Agreement Process, Christopher Capuzzi

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The increasing globalization of companies is indisputable, and the multinational enterprise offers many heuristic challenges. Among these are jurisdiction-specific taxation and accounting standards and principles. Enterprises often operate without regard to legal entity structures but rather along business lines. While entities may operate without regard to jurisdictional lines, local taxing and accounting regimes are steadfast on ensuring adherence to their respective principles. Chief among these is ensuring that there is a proper allocation of the tax base. The proper allocation of the tax base has long been at the forefront of concerns, so much so that normative transfer pricing principles …

Tax Classification Of Foreign Entities In China: The Current State Of Play, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

This article considers recent changes to the classification of foreign entities under Chinese tax law, the implications for China’s treaty partners in this regard and the general legal framework within which future changes may occur.

The Ioc Made Me Do It: Women's Ski Jumping, Vanoc And The 2010 Winter Olympics, Margot Young

All Faculty Publications

This case comment discusses the judicial decisions in Sagen v. VANOC regarding the constitutional challenge brought by women ski jumpers to their exclusion from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. While the claimants argued that the constitutional equality provision (section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) had been infringed, the BC courts' decisions focussed on the novelty of the state action problem. At least one level of court accepted that the exclusion was discriminatory but the challenge failed because the decision to exclude lay within the power of the International Olympic Committee, an entity beyond the ambit of …

Responses To Tax Treaty Shopping: A Comparative Evaluation, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

Over the last 40 years, the world has experienced exponential growth in international trade and investment, as well as the number of bilateral tax treaties which now number roughly 3,000. As the globalization of economic activity has greatly increased opportunities for tax avoidance and evasion, so also has the expansion of the international tax treaty network increased opportunities for taxpayers to take advantage of domestic tax rules and bilateral tax treaties by arranging their affairs in ways that reduce taxes otherwise owing or eliminate them altogether. Regarding many of these arrangements as abusive treaty shopping, the OECD and several member …

Governing Board Accountability: Competition, Regulation And Accreditation, Judith C. Areen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article examines the three primary ways in which the governing boards of American colleges and universities are held to account: (1) competition; (2) regulation, including state nonprofit corporation laws, tax laws, and licensing laws; and (3) accreditation. It begins by tracing how lay (meaning nonfaculty) governing boards became the dominant form of governance in American higher education. It argues that governing boards provide American institutions of higher education with an exceptional degree of autonomy from state control and that, together with the shared governance approach that gives faculties primary responsibility for academic matters, they have been a vital factor …

United States Of America Experience With And Administrative Practice Concerning Mutual Assistance In Tax Affairs, Henry Ordower

All Faculty Scholarship

This report was part of the project for the 2009 meeting of the European Association of Tax Law Professors in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The general reporter for the project was Professor Dr. Roman Seer, Ruhr Universität, Bochum, Germany. The report identifies and discusses United States cooperation with the member states of the European Union through treaties and other agreements on matters of sharing tax and taxpayer information and assisting in assembling tax information and collecting tax revenue. The United States report responds to questions that the general reporter posed and provides additional information concerning United States tax procedure.

Human Capital And Transfer Taxation, Kerry A. Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the question of whether education and healthcare transfers should be included in the federal gift tax base. It initially frames the issue in two ways: (1) through the lens of a proposal by the American Law Institute to exempt all “transfers for consumption” from gift taxation, and (2) within the context of a debate among economists about whether such expenditures should be included in the definition of “intergenerational transfers” for purposes of determining the total share of such transfers in U.S. accumulated wealth. Finding the first lens unsatisfactory on its own doctrinal terms and the second lens …

Reducing Information Gaps To Reduce The Tax Gap: When Is Information Reporting Warranted?, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A core problem for enforcement of tax laws is asymmetric information. The taxpayer knows the facts regarding the relevant transactions it engages in during the year-or at least has ready access to that information. The government is forced to play catch-up, obtaining that information either from the taxpayer or from third parties. Information reporting is routinely used to address this information gap. The government obtains information about the taxpayer's tax situation from a third party and-equally important-the taxpayer knows that the government has received that information. This fosters taxpayer honesty. Information reporting is not a panacea, however. It imposes costs …

Cognitive Capture, Parliamentary Parentheses, And The Rise Of Fractional Apportionment, Stanley I. Langbein

Articles

No abstract provided.

Taxes And Death: The Rise And Demise Of An American Law Firm, Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Misconduct by lawyers in law firms is often attributed to pressures from increasing competition for legal services. Modern firms do face fierce competitive pressures. We can gain more subtle insights, however, by focusing on the specific markets in which particular firms operate and the ways in which forms of influence in law firms interact with common patterns of behavior in organizations.

This paper, a chapter in the collection Law Firms, Legal Culture, and Legal Practice, draws on this type ofanalytical framework to provide a case study of the experience of Jenkens & Gilchrist, a national law firm that had …