Tax Law Commons^™

Digital Barter Taxes Are Good Tax Policy, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Darien Shanske

Articles

This short essay, aimed at state legislators, argues that digital barter taxes are good tax policy.

Critical Tax Theory In The U.S., Australia, And Brazil: Current Challenges And Perspectives For The Future, Júlia Silva Araújo Carneiro

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

Tax law has never been a neutral field. On the contrary, it impacts a range of identity axes, including socioeconomic class, race, and gender, and can act as a mechanism for maintaining the status quo or as a catalyst for social change. By examining the ongoing debate on critical tax theory in the United States, Australia, and Brazil, this Article shows that, no matter the differences found in distinct tax systems, tax law functions as a mirror of a country’s values and can be employed either to support or to disadvantage minorities.<.p>American critical tax scholars have consistently highlighted the …

Now You Have It, Now You Don’T: Taxing Crypto, Part 1, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The latest rise in the value of bitcoin has rekindled the debate on whether cryptocurrencies perform a useful function. For example, a recent article in the Financial Times argued: Have we learnt the lessons from the disastrous 2022 crash in digital assets? To judge from recent action in the crypto market, the answer appears to be no. Since hitting bottom after FTX collapsed into bankruptcy with a $9bn-ish hole in its balance sheet in November 2022, crypto market values have roughly tripled. Bitcoin’s price rose above $70,000 this week to touch record highs. A new wave of enthusiasm is growing, …

Front Matter

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Shakespeare, Succession, And Estate Planning:Lessons From The Bard, Leslie Kiefer Amann

ACTEC Law Journal

Probated in 1616, Shakespeare's Will is surprisingly relevant today. Two daughters survived him, but his only son died at age 11. Wife and daughters could not inherit a business in the theater, so he made changes in structure of the businesses he owned, and reallocated assets to accommodate the loss of his male heir. Shakespeare left no autobiographical information, but by examining his legal documents, we see him shift a thriving business, dependent on the unique talents and active participation of its founder, to passive assets in modified entity structures and generate an income stream for female descendants. Changes made …

The Dark Side Of Codifying U.S. Trust Law, Thomas P. Gallanis

ACTEC Law Journal

For most of Anglo-American history, trust law was case law. The law of trusts was born and molded in the English Court of Chancery and then re-shaped by the courts of the U.S. states. The U.S. law of trusts primarily was to be found in the decisions of state courts and in respected secondary sources digesting and refining the rules from those decisions, such as the American Law Institute's Restatements and the multi-volume treatises on trust law originally authored by Austin Wakeman Scott or George Gleason Bogert. U.S. trust law no longer is primarily case law. In 2000, the Uniform …

Towards A Review And Reform Of The Gst Tax:Symmetry Of Exemptions, The Reverse Gst Taxelection, And Consistent Inclusion Ratio Reporting, Stephen W. Murphy

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Policy And Politics Of Alternative Minimum Taxes, David Gamage, Ari Glogower

Faculty Publications

This paper contributes to a literature offering qualified justifications for alternative minimum tax (AMT) structures. We conclude that there is a narrow case for justifying AMTs even from the social planner perspective and that the proposed Billionaire’s Minimum Income Tax satisfies that narrow case. Next, incorporating governance collective action problems and electoral political constraints, we conclude that these considerations support a broader case for justifying AMTs that potentially also supports both preference-disallowance AMTs and the new corporate alternative minimum tax enacted in 2022.

Squeezing Blood From Stones? A Comparative Analysis Of Tax Relief For Victim-Survivors In Australia And The United States, Christine Speidel, Leslie Book, Ann Kayis-Kumar

Faculty Publications

Women who leave abusive relationships generally do so with increased debt, reduced assets, insecure housing and longer-term economic insecurity. Most of these women will be experiencing economic abuse even after the relationship has ended, and many cite financial instability as a key factor driving them back into abusive relationships. So, it is imperative that the tax and transfer system helps rather than hinders (albeit inadvertently) this cohort of financially vulnerable taxpayers. However, this is not always the case, with victim-survivors of economic abuse often liable for tax debts incurred by former partners operating businesses in the victim-survivor's name.

This article …

The International Tax Revolution: Introduction, Christine Kim, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

(This book chapter, Introduction, is included in the forthcoming book, titled THE INTERNATIONAL TAX REVOLUTION, which the Cambridge University Press will publish in 2024-25.)

The past decade has witnessed the creation of a new international tax regime (ITR). Since the advent of globalization in the 1980s and digitalization in the 1990s, the original ITR ceased to function as intended. The main problems were the increased mobility of capital related to intangibles, a relaxation of capital controls, and increased tax competition. The outcome was a significant fall in tax revenues that threatened the social safety net of the modern welfare state. …

Littlejohn’S Unjust Tax Sentence, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

On May 1 Charles Littlejohn began serving a five-year prison sentence for unauthorized disclosure of tax information. His crime is described by the Department of Justice as follows: According to court documents, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., while working at the IRS as a government contractor, stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official (Public Official A). Littlejohn accessed tax returns associated with Public Official A (and related individuals and entities) on an IRS database after using broad search parameters designed to conceal the true purpose of his queries. He then uploaded the tax returns to a …

History Of Mexico’S Tax Regime: A Haphazard Journey, Nicolás José Muñiz Arias

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Mexico’s tax regime can best be described as haphazard and uncoordinated, as indirect levies were often assessed to satisfy short-term needs, irrespective of the economic capacity to pay of the local population. When compared to other members of the OECD, Mexico reports a relatively low tax-to-GDP ratio. This may be attributable to the vast presence of small to medium size companies conducting business in the informal market, the comparatively minor percentage of individuals and companies that regularly pay tax, and proliferation of tax benefits historically enjoyed by the wealthy.

This Article covers the more salient features of Mexican tax legislation …

The Case For Targeted Location Incentives, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Both the global intangible low-taxed income provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the substance-based income exclusion of pillar 2 provide incentives to shift real investment to lowtax locations. Under GILTI, a 10 percent return on tangible assets of the subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals (qualified business asset investment) is exempt from tax. Under pillar 2, the top-up tax calculation excludes 10 percent of payroll costs and 8 percent of the carrying value of tangible assets in a jurisdiction.

Should U.S. Tax Law Be Constitutionalized?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Moore is the first Supreme Court case involving a constitutional challenge to a federal income tax law since Macomber, which was decided more than a century ago. Whatever way the Court rules, other such cases are likely to be brought and some of them may reach the Court. Moore won’t be the last case of its kind.

Can Investment Treaties Defeat Pillar 2?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In their excellent recent Tax Notes International article, “Using Investment Treaties to Prevent Pillar 2’s Revocation of Promised Tax Incentives,” Javier Rubinstein, Lauren Friedman, and Tamsin Parzen make an interesting new argument about the interaction between bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and pillar 2. They argue that an investor benefiting from an existing BIT can rely on it to prevent the imposition of a qualified domestic minimum top-up tax (QDMTT) even without resorting to treaty arbitration. This argument is problematic, however, because it does not fully address the likely reaction of other countries that are not party to the BIT.

Decoding Cryptocurrency Taxes: The Challenges For Estate Planners, Max Angel

Duke Law & Technology Review

In this article, Angel explores the unique challenges of estate planning with cryptocurrency, which include accurately valuing those assets, preserving their value, and addressing the complex tax implications of transferring cryptocurrency to heirs.

Reforming International Investment Law To Advance Tax Justice, Madeleine Songy

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Reforming International Investment Law to Advance Tax Justice" highlights the detrimental impact of current international investment treaties on tax justice and sustainable development objectives. It argues that Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms often impede states' ability to implement effective tax policies by allowing foreign investors to challenge tax measures. The brief recommends a comprehensive reform of international investment law to ensure that investment treaties support rather than undermine tax justice. This can include eliminating ISDS provisions, drafting new treaties that safeguard the sovereign right of states to regulate taxation, and facilitating cooperation among states to reform tax systems at national, …

California V. Texas: Avoiding An Antidemocratic Outcome, Jon Lucas

Journal of Law and Health

The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) contains a section titled “Requirement to Maintain Essential Minimum Coverage.” Colloquially known as the Individual Mandate, this section of the Act initially established a monetary penalty for anyone who did not maintain health insurance in a given tax year. But with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the monetary penalty was reset to zero, inducing opponents of the ACA to mount a legal challenge over the Individual Mandate’s constitutionality. As the third major legal challenge to the ACA, California v. Texas saw the Supreme Court punt on the merits and instead decide …

Moore V. United States: The U.S. Supreme Court’S Impending Revisiting Of The Definition Of “Income”, Beckett Cantley, Geoffrey Dietrich

University of Miami Business Law Review

The passing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) in December 2017 made significant changes that affect both domestic and international businesses income taxes. One of the most notable changes involves the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) section 965 transition tax on foreign earnings of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, which deems those earnings to be repatriated. Effectively, this transition tax disregards the realization element thought by some to be a U.S. Constitutional requirement. As such, questions have arisen in the courts regarding the constitutionality of these laws. The most noteworthy case of Moore v. United States has found its …

Reply Brief Of Edward A. And Doris Zelinsky In The New York Tax Appeals Tribunal, Edward A. Zelinsky, Doris Zelinsky

Amicus Briefs

Three reasons of state law independently compel a refund of the New York income tax Professor Edward A. Zelinsky paid on the Cardozo Law School salary Professor Zelinsky earned during the COVID period from March 15, 2020 through December 31, 2020. That salary was not New York source income because Professor Zelinsky earned that COVID period salary at his home in Connecticut “wholly without” New York’s borders. 20 N.Y.C.R.R. § 132.4(b). In addition, New York’s “convenience of the employer” rule does not apply to that COVID period salary because Professor Zelinsky’s remote work at home was for Cardozo’s necessity rather …