Taxation & Estate Planning

Don't Bogart That Deduction: IRS Says Marijuana Is a Medical Expense

Posted on August 04, 2010
Following up on yesterday's post, which noted, based on an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (and an IRS Publication and MSNBC article), that folks living in states that have legalized medical marijuana cannot use their health care flexible spending accounts to purchase the marijuana with pre-tax dollars because marijuana...

Tax Panels at SEALS

Posted on August 04, 2010
Tax and related panels at this week's Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Annual Meeting in Palm Beach, Florida: The Internal Revenue Code of 2020: What Should It Include?: This panel will address various tax reform proposals. Likely and potential topics include estate tax reform (e...

Solum: The New Realities of the Legal Academy

Posted on August 04, 2010
Lawrence B. Solum (Illinois) has posted The New Realities of the Legal Academy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This short paper is the Foreword to Brannon P. Denning, Marcia L. McCormick, and Jeffrey M. Lipshaw, Becoming a Law Professor: A Candidate's Guide, American Bar Association, Forthcoming...

ABA Tax Section Hosts Webcast Today on The Coming Regulation of Federal Tax Return Preparers

Posted on August 04, 2010
The ABA Tax Section offers a teleconference and webcast today on Be Prepared: A [Scout's] Guide to the Coming Regulation of Federal Tax Return Preparers from 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. EST: The IRS has completed its study of Federal tax return preparers and has concluded that Federal regulation is warranted...

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WSJ: The Blue State Blues -- Taxing the Rich, Except in My District

Posted on August 04, 2010
Wall Street Journal editorial, The Blue State Blues: Taxing the Rich, Except in My District: One irony of the tax increase that arrives on January 1 is that the it will hit residents of high-income, Democratic-leaning states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York the hardest...

NY Times: Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers

Posted on August 04, 2010
New York Times, Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers: India?s legal outsourcing industry has grown in recent years from an experimental endeavor to a small but mainstream part of the global business of law. Cash-conscious Wall Street banks, mining giants, insurance firms and industrial conglomerates are hiring lawyers in India...

'Six Little Words'

Posted on August 04, 2010
My May 14 post, Hemingway and Tax, got picked up in the August issue of the ABA Journal (page 12), with six-word riffs on Hemmingway's famous "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." My favorite: "For sale: JD 2009. Never used."

Prebble & Prebble: The Morality of Tax Avoidance

Posted on August 04, 2010
John Prebble (Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law) & Zoë M. Prebble (LL.M. 2010, Michigan), have posted The Morality of Tax Avoidance, 20 Creighton L. Rev. P___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: If ?tax avoidance? means ?contriving legal transactions that reduce tax in ways that are contrary...

Brooks: The Standard Deduction and the Progressivity/Simplification Conflict

Posted on August 04, 2010
John R. Brooks (Climenko Fellow, Harvard) has posted Doing Too Much: The Standard Deduction and the Conflict Between Progressivity and Simplification, 2 Colum. J. Tax L. ___ (2011), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In U.S. federal income tax, the standard deduction, along with the personal exemptions, provides taxpayers with...

Vault Law Firm Tax Rankings

Posted on August 03, 2010
Vault has released its annual ranking of the Top 100 Law Firms, based on prestige as voted on by associates. The Top Tax Practices, based on this methodology, are: Rank Firm Home City % Vote 1 Skadden New York 38.58% 2 Cleary Gottleib New York 27.03% 3 Davis Polk New...

ABA Tax Section Publishes Summer 2010 Issue of News Quarterly

Posted on August 03, 2010
The ABA Tax Section has published 29 News Quarterly No. 4 (Summer 2010): Opinion Point: The Ethereal Angel List, by Thomas Greenaway (KPMG, Boston), pp. 1, 21-22 Section Meeting Calendar, p. 2 From the Chair (Stuart M. Lewis) (Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, Washington, D...

NY Times: The Art of Tax War

Posted on August 03, 2010
New York Times, The Art of Tax War, by Nancy Folbre (University of Mssachusetts, Department of Economics): As Sun Tzu observed about 2,500 years ago, ?All warfare is based on deception.? The highly charged partisan debate over the future of the Bush tax cuts (scheduled to expire at the end...

Colleges Serve the People Who Work There, Not the Students

Posted on August 03, 2010
Wall Street Journal, Ignorance by Degrees: Colleges Serve the People Who Work There More Than the Students Who Desperately Need to Learn Something, by Mark Bauerlein (Emory University, Department of English): Higher education may be heading for a reckoning...

Catholic College Accused of Discriminating Against Fired Professor

Posted on August 03, 2010
Buffalo News, Trocaire Accused of Sexual, Age, Gender Bias: Trocaire College is being accused of discriminating against a faculty member who taught natural sciences and was fired in 2009. The state Division of Human Rights has found ?probable cause? that the Catholic college in South Buffalo discriminated against Dr...

You Can't Buy Medical Marijuana

Posted on August 03, 2010
Wall Street Journal, At Work, a Drug Dilemma: An employee recently approached Josh Ward, an executive at a Denver plumbing company, with a question he never thought he'd hear. Her husband, the employee said, is a state-registered medical marijuana patient...

Director of Duquesne Tax Clinic Sues Dean for Sexual Harassment

Posted on August 03, 2010
Last week, Alice Stewart, Director of the Low-Income Tax Practicum at Duquesne, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the law school alleging that she was the victim of sexual harassment and retaliation by Dean Kenneth Gormley (video here). Among the allegations are that the Dean interfered with her obtaining...

More on the Expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts

Posted on August 03, 2010
The Atlantic, What to Do About the Bush Tax Cuts Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Extension of High-Income Tax Cuts Would Benefit Few Small Businesses; Jobs Tax Credit Would Be Better Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Letting High-Income Tax Cuts Expire Is Proper Response to Nation?s Short- and...

Houston Business & Tax Law Journal Publishes New Issue

Posted on August 03, 2010
The Houston Business & Tax Law Journal has published Vol. 10, Part 1 (2010): William M. Funk, On and Over the Horizon: Emerging Issues in U.S. Taxation of Investments, 10 Hous. Bus. & Tax J. 1 (2010) Glenn Walberg, Reconsidering the Treatment of Investigory Costs for Taxpayers with Existing Businesses,...

Brauner: Cost Sharing and the Acrobatics of Arm?s Length Taxation

Posted on August 03, 2010
Yariv Brauner (Florida) has posted Cost Sharing and the Acrobatics of Arm?s Length Taxation on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The United States? cost sharing regime enables multinational enterprises to export United States intangible property to low or no tax jurisdictions, essentially tax-free...

Johnston: Anschutz Will Cost Taxpayers More Than the Billionaire

Posted on August 02, 2010
David Cay Johnston has published Anschutz Will Cost Taxpayers More Than the Billionaire, 128 Tax Notes 557 (Aug. 2, 2010): In this article, Johnston examines the costly implications of the Tax Court finding against Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz and his wife and calls for new rules to protect the fisc...

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

Posted on August 02, 2010
We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email": RSS Feeds: You can subscribe to one of...

More on the Crackdown on the Anschutz Tax Shelter

Posted on August 02, 2010
Following up on my prior post, Tax Court Rejects Billionaire Anschutz's Use of Variable Prepaid Forward Contracts to Avoid $144m Capital Gain (July 23, 2010): Forbes, Six Ways To Avoid Capital Gains Tax Wall Street Journal, When a Popular Tax Shelter Springs a Leak Web CPA, IRS Clamps Down on...

Law School Curriculum, 1908-12

Posted on August 02, 2010
Marquette?s Original Law School Curriculum, by J. Gordon Hylton: 1L (Fall) Common Law Pleading (1) Contracts (2) Torts (2) Real Property (1) Criminal Law & Procedure (1) Agency (2) Domestics Relations (2) 1L (Spring) Common Law Pleading (1) Contracts (3) Torts (2) Real Property (1) Criminal Law & Procedure (1)...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on August 02, 2010
Saturday: WSJ: Court Decision Returns IRS to Chief Victor in Son-of-BOSS Cases N.Y. Judge Calls Husband's Pre-Divorce Filing of Back Taxes 'Despicable' Sander & Yakowitz: Grades, Not Law School Rank, Determine Future Salary Dems, GOP Vie to be First to Repeal ObamaCare's 1099 Small Business Reporting Rule Sunday: Top 5...

Henderson: What Would it Take for Stanford to be #1 in the U.S. News Rankings? $350 Million (or $1.8 Billion)

Posted on August 02, 2010
An article in the San Jose Mercury News last week quoted Dean Larry Kramer's goal of making Stanford the #1 law school in the country, which the reporter framed in terms of the U.S. News rankings (in which Stanford is #3 behind Yale and Harvard). The article generated quite of...

Camp: Lantz, § 6015, and Statutory Silence

Posted on August 02, 2010
Bryan T. Camp (Texas Tech) has posted Interpreting Statutory Silence, 128 Tax Notes 501 (Aug. 2, 2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Like fences, the statutes in subtitle F of the Tax Code define the operational area in which the IRS administers the tax laws...

2011 Princeton Review's Best 373 Colleges

Posted on August 02, 2010
The Princeton Review today released The Best 373 Colleges ? 2011 Edition. According to the press release, the book contains 62 rankings based on surveys completed by 122,000 students at the 373 schools (325 per school), including these categories: Best (Mt...

NY Times: Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age

Posted on August 02, 2010
New York Times, Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age, by Trip Gabriel: Professors used to deal with plagiarism by admonishing students to give credit to others and to follow the style guide for citations, and pretty much left it at that. But ...

Laffer: The Soak-the-Rich Catch-22

Posted on August 02, 2010
Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Soak-the-Rich Catch-22, by Arthur B. Laffer: Sadly, in the debate over whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and if so whether the cuts should be extended to those people who are in the highest tax bracket, there is a false presumption that...

5th Circuit to Hear Andrew Beal's Appeal of $1.1b DAD Tax Shelter Loss

Posted on August 01, 2010
Following up on my prior post, Court Rejects $1.1b Tax Losses Claimed by Andrew Beal in DAD Tax Shelter (Southgate Masters Fund v. United States, No. 3:06-CV-2335-K (N.D. TX Aug. 18, 2009)): here are the briefs filed in the appeal to the Fifth Circuit: Taxpayer's Opening Brief (Mar...

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