Taxation-Federal Commons^™

Who Invented The Single Tax Principle?: An Essay On The History Of Us Treaty Policy, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

In 1997, I wrote an article on the international tax challenges posed by the then-nascent electronic commerce, in which I suggested that the international tax regime is based on two principles: the benefits principle and the single tax principle. The benefits principle states that active (business) income should be taxed primarily by the country of source, and passive (investment) income should be taxed primarily by the country of residence. This is the famous compromise reached by the four economists at the foundation of the regime in 1923 and is not particularly controversial. It is embodied in every one of the …

The Rise And Fall Of The Consumption Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The year 1974 was an eventful one in U.S. history. For the first time, a president resigned under threat of impeachment. Watergate and the Vietnam War shook Americans’ faith in their government. The economy was reeling from the first oil embargo, and the United States’ prospects seemed bleak. In that context, Professor William Andrews of Harvard Law School published an article that would revolutionize tax scholarship. Against the backdrop of widespread dissatisfaction with the government in general and the income tax in particular, Andrews suggested replacing the income tax with a consumption tax. That suggestion was ironic for anyone familiar …

(Elephant) Death And Taxes: Proposed Tax Treatment Of Illegal Ivory, Angela Ostrowski

Animal Law Review

African elephants are poached for their ivory at alarming rates. If the cur­rent level of poaching continues, it is projected they will be extinct from the wild in the year 2025. Preserving the African elephant species is important from an animal rights, conservation, ecological, economical, and crime pre­vention perspective. The current penalties and fines for the illegal trade in ivory are not enough of a deterrent. One method of deterrence that has not yet been explored is the imposition of tax consequences on the illegal ivory trade. This Article proposes a number of ways to use the tax system to …

Who Invented The Single Tax Principle?: An Essay On The History Of U.S. Treaty Policy, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reporting Loss Transactions: Too Much Of A Good Thing, Megan L. Brackney

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Need For Tax Reform: Schedule K-1 Document Matching Program And Effective Revenue Collection, Valeriya Avdeev

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Overtaxing The Working Family: Uncle Sam And The Childcare Squeeze, Shannon Weeks Mccormack

Articles

Today, many working parents are caught in a “childcare squeeze”: While they require two incomes just to make ends meet, they end up spending a strikingly large percentage of their income on childcare so that they can work away from the home. Worse still, some parents find themselves “squeezed out” of the market entirely, unable to earn the additional income their family requires because they cannot find jobs that pay enough to offset soaring childcare expenses. This Article argues that the tax laws have played an important role in aggravating these hardships. Currently, the Internal Revenue Code treats the childcare …

The Charitable Contributions Deduction: Federal Tax Rules, Roger Colinvaux, Harvey P. Dale

Scholarly Articles

This article provides a succinct overview of the main federal income tax law rules affecting charitable contributions. his Article covers all principal topics, including: eligibility to receive deductible contributions, eligible gifts, the amount allowed as a deduction, the specific rules for gifts of non-cash property, contributions to certain split-interest trusts, substantiation rules, and valuation. his Article also touches on the estate and gift tax charitable deduction and provides a survey of select policy issues, including the rationale and form of the tax benefit, concerns about efficiency, the ability to deduct the appreciation in value of property, a non-itemizer deduction, and …

Taxing Compensatory Stock Rights Transferred In Divorce, Gregg Polsky, Kathleen Delaney Thomas

Scholarly Works

Stock-based compensation has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. As a result, many high net worth divorces now result in the transfer of compensatory stock rights from the employee spouse to the nonemployee spouse as part of the marital settlement. Despite this growing trend, the tax consequences of these transfers have not yet been explored fully. This Article endeavors to fill this void and explain both the planning opportunities and potential pitfalls in transferring compensatory stock rights in divorce. These transfers can shift ordinary income from a high-bracket spouse to a lower-bracket spouse, creating a tax surplus that enlarges the …

Corporate Inversions And The Unbundling Of Regulatory Competition, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Several prominent public corporations have recently embraced a noteworthy (and newsworthy) type of transaction known as a "tax inversion." In a typical inversion, a U.S. multinational corporation ("MNC") merges with a foreign company. The entity that ultimately emerges from this transactional cocoon is invariably incorporated abroad, yet typically remains listed in U.S. securities markets under the erstwhile domestic issuer's name. When structured to satisfy applicable tax requirements, corporate inversions permit domestic MNCs eventually to replace U.S. with foreign tax treatment of their extraterritorial earnings – ostensibly at far lower effective rates.

Most regulators and politicians have reacted to the inversion …

Book Review. Reviving Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In recent years, numerous lawmakers, policy analysts, and scholars have been decrying the many defects of the present U.S. income tax system. Few have attempted to defend our return-based mass income tax. This essay reviews Learning to Love Form 1040, Lawrence Zelenak’s stirring and persuasive defense of a simplified version of our present federal income tax system. In contrast to the conventional economic critiques, Zelenak explores the underappreciated social, cultural, and political benefits of a return-based, mass income tax. Chief among these, he argues, is the existing regime’s potential to raise the tax consciousness of the average citizen and to …

Prompt On The King V. Burwell Case, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court will be deciding the fate of Obamacare — in the case of King v. Burwell. Also, once again, the future of American healthcare reform will turn on how the Supreme Court reviews a provision of Obamacare that was enacted through the tax code.

So far, the debates over King v. Burwell have largely focused on Constitutional law, Administrative law, and other non-tax-law considerations. Might there be unique tax law perspectives that could be brought in to better illuminate these debates? Does it matter that the provision being reviewed (I.R.C. Sec. 36B) was enacted through …

The Case For Taxing (All Of) Labor Income, Consumption, Capital Income, And Wealth, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Perhaps the most fundamental questions in tax legal scholarship concern debates about what should be the ideal tax base or tax bases. In particular, scholars have vigorously disagreed about (1) whether the United States should follow other developed countries in supplementing its income tax with a value-added consumption tax, and (2) whether governments should seek to tax capital income and wealth or should instead seek to redesign or replace income taxes with progressive consumption taxes.

The prior economics-oriented theoretical literature on these questions has largely focused on analyzing labor supply and savings behaviors. Yet the existing empirical literature does not …

When Helpers Hurt: Protecting Taxpayers From Preparers, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

In this article, Drumbl explores return preparer regulation as a policy matter and questions what would be gained by applying Circular 230 to return preparers.

Speak Up: Issue Advocacy In Increasingly Politicized Times, Sally Wagenmaker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article first provides a brief primer on current constraints affecting Section 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations' communications within the context of what has become known as “issue advocacy.” It then sets forth the problem of increasing politicization of nonprofits' issue advocacy activities. The article next evaluates related constitutional tensions for politically tinged issue advocacy, through the lens of the Supreme Court's free speech decisions. It concludes by addressing how the IRS's different content-based standards for issue advocacy are susceptible to abuse, are otherwise constitutionally suspect, and therefore warrant reform.

Reinvigorating The Reit's Neutrality And Capital Formation Purposes Through A Modernized Tax Integration Model, Simon Johnson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Efforts at reform have not spared the REIT arrangement, but have focused on objectives unrelated to its model of tax integration, despite its significant flaws. Owing to the interaction of several provisions, the model largely precludes capitalization through retained earnings. This increases the cost of REIT capital and limits its capacity to realize the neutrality and private real estate capital formation objectives Congress pursued in creating the arrangement. Accordingly, it is important to consider how to durably improve the REIT tax integration model. Ultimately, the article concludes that the shareholder allocation model, a complete integration model conceptually similar to the …

‘Coin’Ing The Tax ‘Bit’, Asmita Bedekar

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Why Section 530 Of The Revenue Act Of 1978 Applies To The States, David Randall Jenkins

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Tax Incentive For Child Support, Gary M. Fleischman, Paul Hutchison, Zafar Dad Khan

The Contemporary Tax Journal

No abstract provided.

Net Investment Income Tax Planning, Jeanne M. Sullivan

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.