Taxation-Federal Commons^™

The Baby And The Bathwater: Reflections On The Tcja’S International Provisions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, the author considers how the international provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could be improved.

A ‘No Exceptions’ Tax System For The 21st Century, Stephen G. Marks

Faculty Scholarship

With a new administration come new opportunities. Here I present a tax proposal that I believe could garner support on both sides of the aisle. It has elements of the negative income tax, first proposed by conservative economist Milton Friedman; the flat tax (also called the “fair tax”), supported by many conservatives; and a universal basic income, promoted by Democrat Andrew Yang, combined in a way that is of the utmost simplicity. Call it the “No Exceptions Tax” (NExT). NExT is a federal personal income tax that replaces the current one. Here’s how it works

Is Gilti Constitutional?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In this article, Avi-Yonah argues that the global intangible low-taxed income regime may be an unconstitutional attempt to tax the foreign-source income of foreign entities, and he offers an alternative.

#Audited: Social Media And Tax Enforcement, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

With limited resources and a diminished budget, it is not surprising that the Internal Revenue Service would seek new tools to maximize its enforcement efficiency. Automation and technology provide new opportunities for the IRS, and in turn, present new concerns for taxpayers. In December 2018, the IRS signaled its interest in a tool to access publicly available social media profiles of individuals in order to “expedite IRS case resolution for existing compliance cases.” This has important implications for taxpayer privacy.

Moreover, the use of social media in tax enforcement may pose a particular harm to an especially vulnerable population: low-income …

Bankruptcy, Taxes, And The Primacy Of Irs Refund Offsets: Copley V. United States, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Bankruptcy Code and the Internal Revenue Code (I.R.C.) are statutory labyrinths of federal law. Copley v. United States called on the Fourth Circuit to resolve a question that arose when respective provisions of each collided. At the heart of Copley was a married couple seeking a fresh start with an expected $3,208 income tax refund. The Copleys wished to resolve their outstanding debts in bankruptcy and maximize the relief afforded to them under the Virginia homestead exemption provision, as permitted by the Bankruptcy Code. On the other side of the proverbial table was the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) armed …

A Salt Cap Workaround That Works? Notice 2020-75, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

In November 2020, after the election was over, in form at least, the Treasury and the IRS issued Notice 2020-75, announcing that proposed regulations will be issued governing the treatment of new state laws that impose income taxes on what are passthrough entities for federal income tax purposes. Those laws are clearly intended to provide a way to circumvent the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes (SALT) included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and the Notice is very taxpayer friendly in its understanding of these arrangements. This article considers the particulars and the …

Developments Affecting Intercollegiate Athletics And Taxation, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

Developments affecting whether some college athletic teams will be subject to the unrelated business income tax (UBIT) continue and may be accelerating. This article describes the relevant events over the past decade or so, and focuses on new rules generally permitting college athletes to benefit financially from marketing their names, images, and likenesses (NILs), and on the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston. Alston wasn’t a tax case, but what the Court said about the application of the Sherman Antitrust Act to the NCAA’s limitations on providing college athletes with education-related benefits seems to call …

When Can Taxpayers Invoke The Substance-Over-Form Doctrine?, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This article considers the circumstances under which taxpayers can disavow the form of a transaction they enter in order to claim better tax consequences based on the substance of the transaction. In some situations, the disavowal is noncontroversial because the Internal Revenue Service has blessed the transactions. In a few situations where the Service resists, however, taxpayers are sometimes successful anyway. The focus of the article is on the Tax Court’s 2021 decision in Complex Media, Inc. v. Commissioner, and substantial discussion is devoted to the Third Circuit’s well-known, and sometimes controversial, 1967 decision in Commissioner v. Danielson.

News Flash: Pay Your Federal Income Taxes; The Sixteenth Amendment Was Properly Ratified, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

The idea got around years ago—and it’s still around in tax-protester circles—that the Sixteenth Amendment wasn’t properly ratified and therefore that no legal obligation exists to pay federal income taxes. Wrong! The Amendment process was sloppy, but nothing happened that calls the legitimacy of the Amendment into question, particularly since the relevant officials considered the ratification issues in 1913, when the Amendment was formally adopted.

The Impact Of Particular Provisions Of The 2017 Tax Cuts And Jobs Act On The United States Economy Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic, Hillary Obinna Maduka

LL.M. Essays & Theses

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the most significant overhaul of the U.S. federal tax system in the last two decades. This paper seeks to discuss some of its most significant provisions and examine their overall impact on the U.S. economy, especially throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This paper begins by undertaking an overview of the legislative history of the Act and then proceeds to discuss three provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts which have had a tremendous impact on the U.S. economy by altering some major provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1986. …

Difficulty Of Care: Aligning Tax And Health Care Policy For Family Caregiving, Christine Speidel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In the United States millions of people live with disabilities, many of whom require assistance with activities of daily life to remain in their homes and communities. However, financial support for this assistance is limited. Many caregivers forgo working outside the home in order to provide care to a family member. And while state and federal programs provide some compensation for caregiving, caregivers frequently face problems including poverty, lack of health insurance, lack of Social Security and Medicare credits, and lack of retirement savings. Our nation’s paltry support for caregiving threatens the practical ability of people with disabilities to choose …

The Spirit Is Willing: A Proposal For American Single Malt Whiskey, Raymond Cleaveland

Seattle University Law Review

Over the past twenty-five years, small, independent American distilleries have carved out a new niche in the United States liquor market: craft single malt whiskey. Inspired by the success of single malt Scotch and other single malts, American craft distillers are now fighting for their own shelf behind the bar and in the liquor store aisle. In 2018, a cadre of these distillers petitioned the U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to formally recognize a new category of whiskey in the Code of Federal Regulations: American Single Malt Whiskey. For purposes of consumer protection, the Treasury …

A Current Update Of Epcrs Through Rev. Proc. 2021-30, 49 Tax Mgmt. Comp. Plan. J. No. 8 (Aug. 6, 2021), Kathryn J. Kennedy

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tax Reform: A Missing Piece In Canada's National Housing Policy, Jinyan Li

All Papers

No abstract provided.

Why A Federal Wealth Tax Is Constitutional, Ari Glogower, David Gamage, Kitty Richards

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The 2020 Democratic presidential primaries brought national attention to a new direction for the tax system: a federal wealth tax for the wealthiest taxpayers. During their campaigns, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) both introduced proposals to tax the wealth of multimillionaires and billionaires, and to use the revenue for public investments, including in health care and education. These reforms generated broad public support—even among many Republicans—and broadened the conversation over the future of progressive tax reform.

A well-designed, high-end wealth tax can level the playing field in an unequal society and promote shared economic prosperity.

Critics have …

Valuation As A Challenge For Tax Administration, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Valuation issues have long posed challenges for the U.S. federal tax system. This is not just because of questions about what technique will most accurately value particular types of property. A key problem for tax administration is that taxpayers have a financial incentive to claim erroneous, self-serving valuations. This Essay analyzes tax valuation through this tax compliance lens. In so doing, it highlights the importance that third parties to the taxpayer-government relationship act at arm’s length from the taxpayer. It also explains why penalties are insufficient to deter erroneous self-reported valuations. The Essay also draws on the tax compliance perspective …

How To Measure And Value Wealth For A Federal Wealth Tax Reform, David Gamage, Ari Glogower, Kitty Richards

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the last several decades, wealth inequality has exploded, warping economic outcomes and limiting opportunity—for individuals and for the US at large.

Sky-high income inequality and runaway income gains for the nation’s highest earners compound that wealth inequality and are insufficiently taxed under the current tax regime.

Further, wealth in the US has always been heavily skewed by race.

Since the country’s founding, US laws and customs have prevented Black and brown people from receiving fair wages and accruing assets, thereby creating and perpetuating today’s massive racial wealth gap.

While our existing tax systems are ill-equipped to tackle these challenges, …

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric For Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions, Gabriel Weil

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a onedimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Fictitiously Overstating Taxable Income, Stanley Veliotis

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.