Tax Law Commons^™

Inadequate Privacy: The Necessity Of Hipaa Reform In A Post-Dobbs World, Katherine Robertson

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Comment will provide an overview of HIPAA and the legal impacts of Dobbs. Part II will discuss the anticipatory response to the impacts of Dobbs on PHI by addressing the response from (1) the states, (2) the Biden Administration, and (3) the medical field. Part III will discuss the loopholes that exist in HIPAA and further address the potential impacts on individuals and the medical field if reform does not occur. Finally, Part IV will argue that the reform of HIPAA is the best avenue for protecting PHI related to reproductive healthcare.

Tax Benefits And Fairness In K–12 Education, Linda Sugin

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the tax law’s subsidies for inequality and segregation in primary and secondary education, analyzing the federal charitable deduction and education savings plans, and state tax credits for education. It argues that the tax system diverts funds from traditional public education into private education, fostering economic, racial, religious, and political separation. The tax law also operates to increase resource inequality within public education by subsidizing schools that affluent children attend. In a novel analysis, the Article contends that the jurisprudence around the charitable deduction for education—though longstanding—is legally incoherent, and argues that no deduction should ever be allowed …

The Chinese Enterprise Income Tax, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

China’s Enterprise Income Tax (EIT) is the world’s largest corporate income tax by revenue, contributes a significant share to China’s total tax revenue, and is clearly the most substantial component of capital taxation in China. Yet scholarly research on the EIT is still limited. This overview chapter outlines the EIT’s main components from a legal perspective, while referring to empirical economic and accounting research that sheds light on these components. It discusses the personal scope of the EIT, so as to identify the significance of the pass-through and the tax-exempt sectors relative to the taxable corporate sector. It then examines …

Purchasing Population Growth, Edward W. De Barbieri

Indiana Law Journal

State and local lawmakers compete to attract new populations of workers to purchase homes, grow the tax base, and develop local economies. Even before the pandemic, lawmakers used a variety of tax incentives and other legal levers to attract new residents. Increasingly, in some cases bolstered by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, local governments are attracting high-paid, well-skilled, remote workers with cash gifts and other direct economic benefits.

Although cash incentives for remote workers have been increasing in popularity, they remain unproven with respect to intended outcomes and have yet to face legal challenge. The …

State Workarounds To The Irc's Salt Cap: The Past, The Present, And Building For The Future, Richard Stephenson Mcewan

Indiana Law Journal

Recently, Congress has debated measures to provide some relief to taxpayers negatively impacted by the Internal Revenue Code’s State and Local Tax (SALT) deductibility limit. Although Congress has not yet budged on whether to adjust this cap, many states have taken it upon themselves to find creative workarounds to provide relief for their constituent taxpayers. In the face of an uncertain future for the current SALT cap, crucial questions exist for these state workarounds and those still to come. This Note carefully lays out the individual income tax issue posed by the SALT cap, before analyzing the core elements of …

Is A Duty To Pay Tax Inherent In Affirmations Of Human Rights?, Jonathan M. Barrett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (the Universal Declaration), as the preeminent statement of human rights, informs numerous cognate covenants and declarations of rights, and charters of rights included in national constitutions. Unlike the rights declarations of the Enlightenment, the Universal Declaration affirms broad welfare rights, in addition to civil and political rights. No right or set of rights is superior to another; they are indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.

Declarations of rights may also include duties. The Organization of American States’ American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man 1948 (“the American Declaration”), for example, includes …

Salt Substitutes And Other Workarounds, Karen Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

In response to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, many states have enacted elective entity-level passthrough taxes that allow business owners to circumvent the individual cap on deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT), reducing federal tax revenue at no cost to the states. Entity-level workarounds purport to shift state income tax liability from the owners' personal tax returns to the entity's tax return. The passthrough entity claims an uncapped ordinary business deduction for state income taxes, reducing the owners' adjusted gross income for federal tax purposes; state income tax credits roughly equal to the entity-level tax reduce …

Business-Entity Charitable Workarounds, Karen Burke

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2017 Congress enacted a controversial $10,000 cap on individual deductions for state and local taxes. States initially responded by enacting charitable workarounds which invited individual taxpayers to convert capped § 164 deductions for state income taxes into uncapped § 170 deductions for contributions to charitable organizations in exchange for state income tax credits that reduced or eliminated state tax liability. Final regulations under § 170 shut down the tax shelter by treating state tax credits received in exchange for charitable payments as a quid pro quo, reducing or eliminating any charitable deduction. In 2020, acceding to pressure from business …

Background And Implications Of China's Central Bank Digital Currency: E-Cny, Jiaying Jiang, Karman Lucero

UF Law Faculty Publications

The People’s Republic of China is a leading experimenter in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). This Article explores the current background, deployment, features, potential impacts, challenges, and legal concerns of China’s CBDC: the electronic yuan, or E-CNY. This Article explains the potential significance of what is known and not known about E-CNY with a particular focus on how E-CNY might fit into existing legal and economic systems, both within China and internationally. On the surface, E-CNY looks transformative. When you dig a little deeper, however, most of the potential changes or transformations turn on broader institutional, political, and legal changes …

Stepping Up Basis In Living Taxpayer Assets With Upstream Wealth Transfers Through Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts, Michael J. Schaum

St. Thomas Law Review

This paper will begin with a brief background discussion on the tax and estate planning principles underlying the legality of the wealth transfer including (A) the Taxable Gross Estate; (B) the Unified Tax Credit against the Estate and Gift Tax; (C) Basis and Adjustments; (D) Defective Grantor Trusts; and (E) Downstream Sale Combined with a Grantor Trust. The paper will then discuss the absence of guidance from the IRS on the legality of these trust structures and finally conclude that the IRS should allow wealth preservation through the transactions described herein because the current Code, properly construed, allows for it.

The Digital Transformation Of Tax Systems Progress, Pitfalls, And Protection In A Danish Context, Louise Blichfeldt Fjord, Peter K. Schmidt

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The authors examine possibilities and challenges in using digital tools to obtain tax simplification and to improve tax assessment, collection, and transparency. Hence, the main objectives of the article are, from a legal perspective, to shed additional light on the relations between tax administrations and taxpayers in an increasingly digitalized world and to discuss how this development may influence taxpayers’ rights and the overall efficiency of tax systems. In doing so, practical experiences—incurred in Denmark during its journey from a paper-based and manual tax administration process toward a more digitalized one— are analyzed. Against this background, it is concluded that …

Welfare V. Wealthfare: The Illusion Of Equality In Tax Policy, Phyllis C. Taite

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The (Tax) Policy Entrepreneur, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Judicial Line Drawing And Implications For Tax Avoidance, Ivan Ozai

Articles & Book Chapters

The choice between a bright line and a nuanced approach is one of the cornerstones of judicial law making. Yet the nature and implications of this choice remain to be fully understood. The term “bright line” is often used ambiguously to refer to two distinct line-drawing techniques. The first construal of the term refers to the variability in determining the circumstances that qualify the facts for the application of the law (the legal rule’s antecedent), where the choice ranges between a bright-line rule, characterized by simplicity and unambiguity, and a multifold rule, which involves a complex, multifactor analysis. The second …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

How Firms Turn Middle Managers Into Diversity Leaders, Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin

Seattle University Law Review

In 2007, the Conference Board published a piece calling middle managers “the biggest roadblock to diversity and inclusion” for standing in the way of change efforts. Today, many chief diversity officers report that they have failed both to diversify middle management and to get middle managers involved in promoting inclusion. We explore popular diversity programs that create “paper” or “symbolic” principles for achieving diversity (diversity policy statements and guidelines for hiring, promotion, and discharge), as well as programs that engage middle managers in promoting diversity (special recruitment and mentoring programs, and diversity task forces). “Paper” policies often fall flat, but …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Investment Bankers And Inclusive Corporate Leadership, Afra Afsharipour

Seattle University Law Review

Few major deals happen without the engagement and advice of investment bankers. Whether a company is undertaking an initial public offering or engaging in a large merger or acquisition deal, investment bankers play a central role in advising corporate executives. Successful investment bankers are devoted to cultivating relationships with executives. And these relationships place bankers in a position to earn tens of millions in fees for their advisory and service roles in connection with corporate dealmaking. Investment bankers’ constant endeavors to nurture relationships with executives, while also maximizing their own ability to enhance fees, commonly leads to allegations of double-dealing, …

Beyond The Business Case: Moving From Transactional To Transformational Inclusion, Jamillah Bowman Williams

Seattle University Law Review

While workplace diversity is a hot topic, the extent to which the diversity management movement has effectively improved intergroup relations and reduced racial inequality remains unclear.1 Despite large investments in diversity and inclusion training and other company wide initiatives, historically excluded groups remain vastly underrepresented in leadership and the most lucrative careers, such as finance, law, and technology. This calls the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts into question, particularly with respect to reducing racial inequality in the workplace.

This Article explains why it is time for organizational leaders to move beyond the transactional case for diversity and …