Tax Law Commons^™

Giving Taxpayer Rights A Seat At The Table, Leslie Book

Faculty Publications

How can Congress’s codification of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR) make a meaningful difference in tax administration? This question will likely confront academics, policymakers, and judges in the coming years. In late 2015, Congress codified the rights that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) administratively adopted in 2014, explicitly requiring that the Commissioner ensure that IRS employees receive training and act in accord with the codified rights. A recent article by Professors Alice Abreu and Richard Greenstein refers to the codification of TBOR as having the power to “transform the tax practice and the relationship between taxpayers and the IRS.” …

Collaboration Theory And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Eric C. Chaffee

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article argues that aggressive corporate tax avoidance is legally impermissible based upon the essential nature of the corporate form. The history of the debate over the essential nature of the corporation is substantial. This debate has been reinvigorated by the Supreme Court’s recent opinions, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which explore the scope of corporate rights.

What A Long Strange Trip It’S Been For The 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax, Ausher M.B. Kofsky, Bryan P. Schmutz

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Tax Lawyers As Tax Insurance, Heather M. Field

William & Mary Law Review

Transactional tax lawyers, by rendering tax opinions, provide a version of insurance to clients. This insurance is clearly incomplete, but by providing a tax opinion, a lawyer conditionally agrees to indemnify the client for at least part of the potential loss the client incurs if the favorable tax treatment described in the opinion is successfully challenged. Although insurance is not the primary function of transactional tax lawyers, and although this Article does not argue that tax opinions should be regulated as insurance, indemnification—a key element of insurance—is an important part of the economic relationship between a client and a lawyer …

Amazon Goldcrest Project And The Relevance Of Comparability Analysis Under The Arm's Length Principle, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The arm’s length principle, which has long been the guiding rule in the area of transfer pricing, in recent years is increasingly challenged. One of the focus points of discussion is the comparability analysis of intra-group and independent transactions. Especially intangibles do not lend themselves to such analysis, because they are unique in a way that does not match with existent market equilibria. The analysis of the Amazon case in this article reflects this argument.

If Not Now, When? Us Tax Treaties With Latin America After Tcja, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Since the 1990s, the US tax treaty network has expanded to include most large developing countries. However, there remains a glaring exception: The US only has two tax treaties in Latin America (Mexico and Venezuela), and one pending tax treaty (Chile). The traditional explanation for why the US has no treaty with, for example, Argentina or Brazil is the US refusal since 1957 to grant tax sparing credits to developing countries. Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), this explanation was wrong, because the combination of deferral and cross-crediting meant that tax holidays in a source country …

Taxation In The Cyber Age: The Future Of Wayfair, Hasmik Hmayakyan

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Comment aims to act as a guiding source for potential issues that will arise from South Dakota v. Wayfair, which was decided in August 2018. The Wayfair decision changed the long-held requirement that states can only collect sales taxes from sellers that have a physical presence within the state.

Under Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, the Supreme Court put forth a test that states must meet if they wish to collect a sales tax from sellers. One of the prongs of this test allows a state to collect a sales tax from a seller if the seller has …

Does Customary International Tax Law Exist?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Customary international law is law that “results from a general and consistent practice of states followed by them from a sense of legal obligation.” “International agreements create law for states parties thereto and may lead to the creation of customary international law when such agreements are intended for adherence by states generally and are in fact widely accepted.” Does customary international law (CIL) exist in tax? There are over 3,000 bilateral tax treaties, and they are about 80% identical to each other, but do they create CIL that binds in the absence of a binding treaty, like for example the …

Investing In A Qualified Opportunity Fund: A Viable Alternative To A Section 1031 Drop-Swap Cash-Out, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Aba Rpte Conservation Easement Task Force Report: Recommendations Regarding Conservation Easements And Federal Tax Law, W. William Weeks, Turney Berry, Jonathan G. Blattmachr, Jason E. Havens, Nancy A. Mclaughlin, James Slaton, Steve Swartz, Philip Tabas

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In October 2015, the American Bar Association’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law (RPTE) section convened a Conservation Easement Task Force. The objective of the Task Force was to provide recommendations regarding federal tax law as it relates to conservation easements. This Report is the culmination of the Task Force’s work.

Part I of the Report is an Executive Summary of the Task Force’s recommendations. Part II provides the background necessary to understand the Task Force’s recommendations. Part III briefly sets forth the Task Force’s comments on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 as it relates to charitable …

Taxation And Human Rights: A Delicate Balance, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Gianluca Mazzoni

Book Chapters

This chapter assesses the appropriate balance between strengthening tax revenue collection tools to ensure states have adequate resources to meet their human rights obligations, and protecting taxpayer rights to privacy and data security. On the one hand, the ability of rich residents of developing countries and multinational corporations operating in those countries to evade or avoid taxation is directly linked to violations of human rights in those countries, especially from the perspective of social and economic rights like health and education. Providing such countries with the means to fight back and collect adequate revenues is essential in advancing such rights. …

The Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit: History And Analysis, Andrew Boardman

Senior Honors Projects

This paper offers a comprehensive political history of the Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and an analysis of Rhode Island EITC recipients. It explores the history of the Rhode Island EITC, an income subsidy available to low-income workers, from its introduction in 1975 through 2018. It details the forces behind expansions and reforms and the effects of those changes. It also analyzes microdata to construct a profile of current EITC recipients. This paper concludes that the Rhode Island EITC has historically been viewed as both a poverty alleviation program and an incentive for labor market work. The Rhode …

Investing In A Qualified Opportunity Fund: A Viable Alternative To A Section 1031 Drop-Swap Cash-Out, Bradley T. Borden

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Max's Taxes: A Tax-Based Analysis Of Pet Trusts, Gerry W. Beyer, Jonathan P. Wilkerson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Money, But Not Tax-Free: A Proposal For The Tax Treatment Of Cryptocurrency Hard Forks, Danhui Xu

Fordham Law Review

Cryptocurrency has attracted extraordinary attention as one of the greatest financial innovations in recent years. Equally noticeable are the increasingly frequent cryptocurrency events, such as hard forks. Put simply, a cryptocurrency hard fork happens when a single cryptocurrency splits in two, which results in original coin owners receiving free forked coins. Such hard forks have resulted in billions of dollars distributed to U.S. taxpayers. Despite ongoing regulatory efforts, to date, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has yet to take a clear position on the tax treatment of cryptocurrency hard forks. The lack of useful guidance when filing tax returns has …

United States Policy And The Taxation Of International Intangible Income, Stanley I. Langbein

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Data First, Tax Next: How Fiji’S Technology Can Improve New Zealand’S 'Netflix Tax' (Part 2), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This is the second in a four-part series addressing VAT/GST avoidance schemes involving remote sales of services. These schemes have been growing in importance. The IMF reports that the services component of cross-border trade has been on the rise for fifty-years or more, making the Internet a serious threat to revenue. Technology has accelerated tax avoidance.

Statutory draftsmen in New Zealand have looked at this problem directly with what has been called the Netflix Tax. Technologist in Fiji have been struggling with similar problems and have developed technology-based security systems that would seem to address remote sales of services more …

Data First, Tax Next: How Fiji’S Technology Can Improve New Zealand’S 'Netflix Tax' (Part 1), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade the VAT in the South Pacific has been changing. More change is coming. Change is needed in both the larger economies (Australia and New Zealand) and the smaller ones (the Pacific Island Countries or PICs). The changes we see currently are propelled by cross-border remote sales of services and low-value goods.

The government response in the South Pacific is not uniform. The larger economies have relied on statutory remedies; the smaller economies are turning to technology. The larger economies are crafting complex, extra-territorial compliance provisions targeting remote sellers. The smaller economies are mandating secure digital invoices, …

Reimagining Due Process: A New Approach To Regulating State Taxing Authority, Brady Plastaras

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

This Note will proceed as follows: Part I provides a brief overview of the existing Due Process and Commerce Clause restrictions on state taxing authority; Part II provides an in-depth discussion of Maryland v. Wynne and the ineffectiveness of the internal consistency test; Part III discusses existing criticisms of the internal consistency test; and Part IV outlines the proposed modified due process standard.

Trying Times: Conservation Easements And Federal Tax Law (April 2019), Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Since 2006, the Tax Court, District Courts, and Circuit Courts have collectively issued more than one-hundred decisions relating to the federal charitable income tax deduction for the donation of perpetual conservation easements. This outline discusses these court decisions and other developments in the conservation easement donation context. The outline was prepared for a May 3rd, 2019, program of the same name at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Presenters at the program were Nancy A. McLaughlin, Professor of Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law; Stephen J. Small, Attorney at Law, Law Office of Stephen …