Taxation & Estate Planning

Gustafson Presents The Role of International Law in International Tax Today at Villanova

Posted on October 09, 2010
Charles H. Gustafson (Georgetown) presents The Role of International Law and Practice in Addressing International Tax Issues in the Global Era today at the Villanova Law Review Norman J. Shachoy Symposium.

Coercion, Taxation, and Voluntary Association

Posted on October 09, 2010
Roger D Congleton (George Mason University, Department of Economics) has posted Coercion, Taxation, and Voluntary Association on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Voluntary and coercive relationships among person play important roles in ethics, political theory, and Western law...

If You Can't Die by Dec. 31 (0% Estate Tax), Make Gifts (35% Gift Tax)

Posted on October 08, 2010
Bloomberg, Wealthy Lock In Low Gift Levy as Time Runs Out on 0% Estate Tax, by Ryan J. Donmoyer: Estates are exempt from all taxes for 2010, and the rate shoots up to 55% next year unless lawmakers act in a post-election session. That means the best tax-reduction strategy, short...

How Billionaires Are Fighting Over Taxes

Posted on October 08, 2010
Forbes, How Billionaires Are Fighting Over Taxes, by Janet Novack & Ashlea Ebeling: Has there ever been a time when so many Forbes 400 members have been involved in so many tax fights--on both sides? And not just in Washington, D.C., where epic battles rage over the future of the...

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Albany Hosts Conference Today on Taxpayer Advocacy and Revenue Collection

Posted on October 08, 2010
Albany Law School is hosting a conference today on Taxpayer Advocacy: Addressing Systemic Tensions During Tight Budget Times: Tax commissioners, advocates, academics and practitioners will explore the current tensions between revenue collection and taxpayer advocacy...

Law Schools Kill Night Programs

Posted on October 08, 2010
National Law Journal, Law School's Evening Classes Fall Prey to Recession: Pace Law School's part-time evening program has been around since 1976, but this year's fall class will be the last to complete their law degrees in four years of night classes...

More on 'GoolsbeeGate'

Posted on October 08, 2010
Mother Jones, GoolsbeeGate -- The GOP's Latest Obama "Scandal": The issue: Did White House economic aide Austan Goolsbee nefariously gain access to the confidential tax records of Koch Industries, a megafirm privately owned by the billionaire Koch brothers, who have funded much anti-Obama political activity? The short answer: Probably not...

McMahon Presents Public Choice Theory and the Joint Return Today at Kansas

Posted on October 08, 2010
Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati) presents Political Hot Potato: When No One Wanted Responsibility for the Joint Tax Return at Kansas today as part of its Faculty Workshop Series. Here is the abstract: When the cost of legislation is concentrated but the benefits are dispersed, public choice theorists expect the majority...

Planning While the Tax Law Is an Uncertain Mess

Posted on October 08, 2010
Forbes, The Federal Tax Law Is An Uncertain Mess. Here's How To Plan Anyway, by Ashlea Ebeling & Janet Novack: The tax law is maddeningly uncertain. But there's still much a rational taxpayer can do now. Congress has headed home for elections, leaving the tax code an unstable mess...

Brown Faculty Opposes Tighter Tenure Standards (to Reduce 70% Tenure Rate), Fears Reduced Commitment to Teaching

Posted on October 08, 2010
Inside Higher Ed, Standing Their Ground: For months, as Brown University professors have debated changes in tenure procedures that are designed to make tenure more difficult to earn, proponents of the changes have suggested that the critics were a vocal minority...

Borden: Residual-Risk Model for Classifying Business Arrangements

Posted on October 08, 2010
Bradley T. Borden (Brooklyn) has published Residual-Risk Model for Classifying Business Arrangements, 37 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 245 (2010). Here is the abstract: Tax law classifies business arrangements as one of three general structures: (1) disregarded arrangements, (2) tax partnerships, or (3) tax corporations...

Johnson: Don't Let Capital Accounts Go Negative

Posted on October 07, 2010
Calvin H. Johnson (Texas) has published Don't Let Capital Accounts Go Negative, 129 Tax Notes 127 (Oct. 4, 2010): Calvin H. Johnson proposes a method that would prevent negative capital accounts -- that is, when the adjusted basis in partnership assets is less than the outstanding debt of the partnership...

FTC Shuts Down American Tax Relief Scam

Posted on October 07, 2010
New York Times, FTC Says Company Promised Tax Relief but Failed to Deliver: Who wouldn?t like to settle with the IRS for pennies on the dollar? In recent years, some 20,000 people have turned to American Tax Relief of Beverly Hills, Calif., to do just that after seeing the company?s...

Shanske: A Defense of the Court?s Recent Dormant Commerce Clause Jurisprudence

Posted on October 07, 2010
Tax Prof Darien Shanske (UC-Hastings) has posted The Supreme Court and the New Old Public Finance: A New Old Defense of the Court?s Recent Dormant Commerce Clause Jurisprudence on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court?s decision in United Haulers has already earned a fair share of opprobrium...

WSJ: Delays to Tax Tables May Dent Paychecks in Jan. 2011

Posted on October 07, 2010
Wall Street Journal, Delays to Tax Tables May Dent Paychecks, by Laura Saunders: Lack of congressional action on 2011 income taxes may force the Treasury Department to make unprecedented moves to prevent U.S. workers from seeing large tax increases in their January paychecks...

Avi-Yonah: Taxation as Regulation -- Carbon Tax, Health Care Tax, and Bank Tax

Posted on October 07, 2010
Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan) has posted Taxation as Regulation: Carbon Tax, Health Care Tax, Bank Tax and Other Regulatory Taxes on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper addresses three questions: 1. Is regulation a legitimate goal for taxation? 2...

Tax Analysts Conference on Tax Reform

Posted on October 07, 2010
An audio cast is available from yesterday's Tax Analysts roundtable, Tax Reform: Why Do We Need It? What Should We Do? Christopher Bergin (President, Tax Analysts) (moderator) William Gale (Co-Director, Tax Policy Center) Michael Graetz (Professor, Columbia Law School) Pamela Olson (Partner, Skadden; Former Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy)...

Bondi: The IRS, UBS, and Swiss Bank Secrecy Law

Posted on October 07, 2010
Bradley J. Bondi (SEC) has published Don?t Tread on Me: Has the United States Government?s Quest for Customer Records from UBS Sounded the Death Knell for Swiss Bank Secrecy Laws?, 30 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 1 (2010). Here is part of the abstract: This brief Article discusses the...

Court Denies Tax Lawyer's $100,000 Medical Expense Deduction for Prostitutes and Porn

Posted on October 07, 2010
New York Law Journal, Tax Panel Rejects Lawyer's Bid to Deduct Spending for Sex: A state tax appeals board has denied a retired Brooklyn lawyer's attempts to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent on prostitutes, massages, pornography and other sex-related activities as deductions for "medical expenses...

Oregon Gubernatorial Race Roiled by Candidate's Charitable Deduction for Donation of Home to Fire Department

Posted on October 07, 2010
Tax Prof Jack Bogdanski notes that a personal tax issue has emerged in the Oregon gubernatorial campaign -- Republican candidate (and former NBA player) Chris Dudley took a $350,000 charitable deduction for for the donation of his 4,500-square-foot home to be burned down by a local fire department for a...

Sexual Health College Rankings

Posted on October 07, 2010
Trojan® brand condoms has released its annual ranking of sexual health at 141 American colleges and universities: Methodology: To develop this year's rankings, researchers at Sperling's BestPlaces analyzed data from campus health centers and student opinion polls across 12 separate categories...

TIGTA to Investigate White House Disclosure of Confidential Taxpayer Data of Political Opponent

Posted on October 06, 2010
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration announced yesterday that it would investigate whether Obama Administration officials illegally accessed and disclosed confidential taxpayer information involving Koch Industries, a prominent critic of the Obama Adminstration...

Tobin: 501(c)(4) Groups Funding Political Ads Are Violating the Tax Law

Posted on October 06, 2010
Donald B. Tobin (Ohio State), The Rise of 501(c)(4)s in Campaign Activity: Are They as Clever as They Think?: Even before Citizen?s United we saw a significant increase in the use of 501(c)(4) tax-exempt ?Social Welfare Organizations? [e.g., Crossroads Grassroots Political Strategies, Americans for Prosperity, MoveOn...

WSJ: Shift in Life Insurance From Middle Class Safety Net to Estate Planning Tool for the Rich Puts Tax Benefits at Political Risk

Posted on October 06, 2010
Wall Street Journal, Shift to Wealthier Clientele Puts Life Insurers in a Bind: The life-insurance industry has enjoyed beneficial tax treatment for its products for nearly a century. Whenever Congress tried to change that, insurers always had a mantra at the ready: We protect widows and orphans...

ABA Tax Section Hosts Webcast Today on The Implications of Citizens United on Exempt Organizations

Posted on October 06, 2010
The ABA Tax Section offers a teleconference and webcast today on Citizens United -- Implications of Corporate Political Free Speech for the EO Sector from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. EST: Earlier this year, in the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court held that corporations (and, by extension, unions) cannot constitutionally...

Two Political Ads: 'No Pressure,' 'I'm You'

Posted on October 06, 2010
Here are two political ads generating a lot of media and blogosphere buzz: From the anti-global warming group 10:10 -- "No Pressure": From Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell -- "I'm You":

UConn Hosts Panel Discussion Today on Sunsetting Legislation

Posted on October 06, 2010
The University of Connecticut School of Law hosts a panel discussion today on Sunsetting Legislation with: Rebecca Kysar (Brooklyn) Ruth Mason (UConn) George Yin (Virginia)

The IRS Has Bed Bugs

Posted on October 06, 2010
(Hat Tip: Gordon E. Hartwig.)

ABA Tax Section Solicits Nominations for Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award

Posted on October 06, 2010
The ABA Tax Section is accepting nominations for the Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award to be presented at the Midyear Meeting in San Antonio on January 21-23, 2011. The award is given to one or more individuals or law firms that have provided meritorious pro bono service in the representation...

NLJ: The Unequal Tax Treatment of Litigation Expenses

Posted on October 06, 2010
National Law Journal, Equal Tax Treatment, by Brian Kabateck & Karen Liao (both of Kabateck Brown Kellner, Los Angeles): Why are plaintiffs' contingent-fee lawyers treated differently than other businesses in America when it comes to tax deduction of ordinary business expenses? ...

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