Taxation & Estate Planning

NPR on the Bush Tax Cuts

Posted on September 10, 2010
NPR, Series: Taxing Questions: Bush Tax Cuts And Beyond: Series Overview As Clock Ticks, Lawmakers Revisit Bush Tax Cuts A Closer Look at Past Tax Overhaul Attempts Mixed Reaction to Obama's Business Tax-Break Plan The Politics of a Tax Hike Renew the Tax Cuts: Good Politics, Bad Economics? Tax Code...

Schizer: Subsidizing the Press

Posted on September 10, 2010
Columbia Dean (and Tax Prof) David Schizer has posted Subsidizing the Press. Here is the abstract: Information is the lifeblood of a free society, and the professional press is a crucial source of information. For many years, the positive externalities from investigative and beat reporting were cross-subsidized by robust advertising...

Tax Papers by Austan Goolsbee

Posted on September 10, 2010
Tax papers by Austan Goolsbee, named today as President Obama's new Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Taxing Internet Commerce Evidence on the High Income Laffer Curve from Six Decades of Tax Reform How...

39% of Revenue From Expiration of Bush Tax Cuts Would Come From Business Income

Posted on September 10, 2010
The Tax Foundation today released Over One-Third of New Tax Revenue Would Come from Business Income If High-Income Personal Tax Cuts Expire: Advocates of allowing the top two federal income tax rates to expire claim that only 2 or 3 percent of businesses would be affected, but a new Tax...

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2007 Fordham Law Grad Goes From $160k BigLaw Job to Cleaning Toilets

Posted on September 10, 2010
ABA Journal, Laid Off From BigLaw, Lawyer Posts Fliers Seeking Cleaning Work Above the Law, This Week?s Sign That Lawpocalypse is Upon Us DealBreaker, Layoffs Watch ?10-?11: Capitalize On The Millions Of People Who?ve Always Wanted To See A Wall Streeter Scrub A Toilet New York Daily News, Jobless Lawyer...

Brody: All Charities are Property-Tax Exempt, But Some are More Exempt than Others

Posted on September 10, 2010
Evelyn Brody (Chicago-Kent) has published All Charities are Property-Tax Exempt, But Some are More Exempt than Others, 44 New Eng. L. Rev. 621 (2010). Here is the abstract: Attention from the media notwithstanding, the nonprofit sector continues to achieve remarkable success in state supreme courts and statehouses in defending property-tax...

Tax Panel, Papers at National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference

Posted on September 10, 2010
Here are the tax panel and paper presentations at the Third National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference on Our Country, Our World in a "Post-Racial" Era at Seton Hall: Panel: Tax Policy in a ?Post-Racial? Era. Dorothy A. Brown (Emory), Bobby Dexter (Chapman), Randle Pollard (Widener), Phyllis Smith (Florida...

DePaul Administration

Posted on September 09, 2010
Following up on my extensive coverage of DePaul's disgraceful firing of Dean Glen Weissenberger (links below): Professor Margit Livingston has resigned as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee because Dean (and former Illinois state court judge) Warren Wolfson bypassed the committee and the faculty in submitting to the ABA a...

Schenk: Exploiting the Salience Bias in Designing Taxes

Posted on September 09, 2010
Deborah H. Schenk (NYU) has posted Exploiting the Salience Bias in Designing Taxes on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In making decisions, individuals rely on certain heuristics or cognitive biases. One of these is salience, which generally refers to visibility or prominence...

IRS Jobs

Posted on September 09, 2010
Tax Law Specialist, Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Division (GS-0987-14), Salary $105,211 - $136,771 Tax Law Specialist, Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Division (GS-0987-13), Salary $89,033 - $115,742 WHAT DOES A TAX LAW SPECIALIST DO? IRS employs Tax Law Specialists (TLS) in many areas throughout the Service...

The 10 Most Intellectual Colleges

Posted on September 09, 2010
Unigo, The Ten Most Intellectual Colleges: For most college students, there?s a differentiation between life inside the classroom and out; there's a time to be cerebral and then there's the other 22 hours of the day. But these aren't most college students...

Rodrigues: The Power of the 'Warm Glow' in Tax-Exempt Organizations

Posted on September 09, 2010
Usha Rodrigues (Georgia) responds to Brian Galle (Boston College), Keep Charity Charitable, 88 Texas L. Rev. 1213 (2010), in The Power of Warm Glow, 88 Texas L. Rev. See Also 149 (2010). Here is the abstract: In this Response, Professor Rodrigues states that while she largely agrees Professor Galle's argument...

Romania Rejects Tax on Witches

Posted on September 09, 2010
Associated Press, Abracadabra! Romania Witches Win Tax Fight For Now: Abracadabra, we'll turn all of you into toads! That's what Romanian senators may have been fearing when they rejected a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers. Lawmakers Alin Popoviciu and Cristi Dugulescu of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party drafted...

WSJ: Obama's Tax Contradictions

Posted on September 09, 2010
Wall Street Journal editorial, Tax Contradictions: Obama Says the Economy Needs a Tax Cut?And a Tax Increase: After 20 months and more than $1 trillion down the Keynesian drain, President Obama is discovering the virtue of tax cuts. Pass the smelling salts, we just fainted...

TIGTA: 50% of Homebuyers Must Repay Tax Credit

Posted on September 09, 2010
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released A Comprehensive Strategy Is Being Developed to Identify Individuals With First-Time Homebuyer Credit Repayment Requirements (2010-41-086): Approximately 1.8 million taxpayers claimed a total of almost $12...

SDNY: Law Firm's Role in BDO Tax Fraud Case Presents Conflict of Interest

Posted on September 09, 2010
New York Law Journal, Law Firm's Role in BDO Tax Fraud Case Presents Conflict, Judge Finds: A federal judge has told attorneys with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal there is no way the firm can represent both an alleged tax fraud conspirator and a cooperating witness for the government...

Monroe: Too Big to Fail -- The Problem of Partnership Allocations

Posted on September 09, 2010
Andrea Monroe (Temple) has posted Too Big to Fail: The Problem of Partnership Allocations on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The partnership taxation rules of subchapter K are uniquely flawed. Designed to be flexible, subchapter K must accommodate a diverse and growing array of business organizations, from the most simple...

Wood: What Good Is a Tax Opinion, Anyway?

Posted on September 09, 2010
Robert W. Wood (Wood & Porter, San Francisco) has published What Good Is a Tax Opinion, Anyway?, 128 Tax Notes 1071 (Sept. 6, 2010): The shorthand justification for getting a tax opinion may simply be penalty protection, but that maxim sells tax opinions short...

NPR All Things Considered Series:

Posted on September 09, 2010
NPR All Things Considered Series: Taxing Questions: Bush Tax Cuts And Beyond: Series Overview As Clock Ticks, Lawmakers Revisit Bush Tax Cuts A Closer Look at Past Tax Overhaul Attempts Mixed Reaction to Obama's Business Tax-Break Plan The Politics of a Tax Hike Renew the Tax Cuts: Good Politics, Bad...

Our Empty Nest

Posted on September 08, 2010
With my daughter's departure today for college, my wife and I become official empty nesters (with our son already away in his sophomore year at college). Jayne, my heart aches that I will no longer know the daily joy of living in the same house with you...

Buchanan: Good Deficits -- Protecting the Public Interest from Deficit Hysteria

Posted on September 08, 2010
Tax Prof Neil H. Buchanan (George Washington) has posted Good Deficits: Protecting the Public Interest from Deficit Hysteria on SSRN. Here is the abstract: President Obama has come under increasingly fierce criticism for the size of the federal budget deficit, as both Democratic and Republican politicians loudly proclaim that federal...

Branding Gone Awry: Drake -- The 'D+' College

Posted on September 08, 2010
From the Drake University undergraduate admissions page: Your Passion + Our Experience Learning by doing. It's what we do best. Breaking through the box. Analyzing every angle. Serving up a different point of view. It?s what you do. It?s why you?re not just thinking ?a great education...

Orszag v. Obama on Extending the Bush Tax Cuts

Posted on September 08, 2010
New York Times op-ed, One Nation, Two Deficits, by Peter Orszag (Director, Office of Management and Budget, 2009-10): The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term...

Charitable Deduction of Parochial School Tuition

Posted on September 08, 2010
Meir Katz (J.D. 2010, Georgetown) has posted The Economics of § 170: A Case for the Charitable Deduction of Parochial School Tuition on SSRN. Here is the abstract: That payments for parochial school tuition are not deductible under § 170 is a foregone conclusion in the eyes of many tax...

Call for Tax Papers: 2011 IRS Research Conference

Posted on September 08, 2010
The IRS has issued a call for papers for the 2011 IRS Research Conference in June or July 2011 in Washington, D.C.: We invite you to propose a research paper on a tax administration topic for the 2011 Conference. General areas of interest include measuring and influencing taxpayer compliance, estimating...

Should Political Scientists Go to Law School?

Posted on September 08, 2010
Inside Higher Ed, Should Political Science Be Relevant?: Gerry Stoker shared "a wicked thought" he had when planning a session held Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. What if he called as many senior figures in political science as he could reach and asked them...

Mayer: Fee-for-Service Charity and the Limits of Autonomy

Posted on September 08, 2010
Lloyd H. Mayer (Notre Dame) has posted The ?Independent? Sector: Fee-for-Service Charity and the Limits of Autonomy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although numerous scholars have attempted to explain and justify the benefits provided to charities, none has been completely successful...

Income Equality and Local Government in the U.S., 1970-2000

Posted on September 08, 2010
Leah Platt Boustan (UCLA, Department of Economics), Fernando V. Ferreira (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School), Hernan Winkler (UCLA, Department of Economics) & Eric M. Zolt (UCLA School of Law) have posted Income Equality and Local Government in the United States, 1970-2000 on SSRN...

UCLA B-School Wants to Go Private

Posted on September 08, 2010
The UCLA Anderson School of Management has proposed to eliminate its $10 million annual state subsidy (it has a $96 million budget) in exchange for the freedom to set its own tuition rates. Briefing Sheet California Watch Chronicle of Higher Education Chronicle of Philanthropy Financial Times Inside Higher Ed Los...

NLJ: Pioneers in Law Blogging

Posted on September 07, 2010
This week's National Law Journal profiles five Pioneers in Law Blogging: Somewhere between fusty law treatises and Twitter lie law blogs, many of them written by the top legal scholars in the country. Just five years ago, the notion of law professors delivering quick and cogent commentary to the masses...

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