Taxation & Estate Planning

Johnston: MLPs -- Paying Other People's Taxes

Posted on June 21, 2010
David Cay Johnston has published Master Limited Partnerships: Paying Other People's Taxes, 127 Tax Notes 1393 (June 21, 2010): Johnston reveals how the fine print of a federal regulation forces people to pay the individual income taxes of others and how this policy could easily be expanded to siphon billions...

Yung: Judges Who Attended Lower-Ranked Law Schools Are More Conservative

Posted on June 21, 2010
Corey Yung (John Marshall), Law School Rankings and Judicial Liberalism: A common attack on elite law schools is that they are filled with with a bunch of loony liberals who hope to indoctrinate their law students with their left-wing beliefs. To my surprise, for federal appellate judges, their seems to...

Average Family Federal Tax Rate: 20.4% (4.0% for Bottom 20%; 29.5% for Top 1%)

Posted on June 21, 2010
The Congressional Budget Office last week released Average Federal Tax Rates in 2007 [click on charts to enlarge]:

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on June 21, 2010
Saturday: Toy Story 3 Tax Court Denies Charitable Deduction for $200 Cash Given to Panhandlers & $29k of Stuff Donated to Goodwill The Need for a Carbon Tax Tax Justice and Same-Sex Domestic Partner Health Benefits Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Taxpayer Has Heart Attack While on Phone With...

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ObamaCare Drives Tax Code to New (Seventh) Level of Complexity

Posted on June 21, 2010
Jim Maule (Villanova) today notes that ObamaCare has driven the Internal Revenue Code into new even more complicated terrain. Until now, each Code provision has required, at most, six levels: Section Subsection Paragraph Subparagraph Clause Subclause E...

Why Does Obama Exclude Tax Expenditures From Proposed Presidential Rescission Authority?

Posted on June 21, 2010
Sima J. Gandhi (Center for American Progress), Rescission Decision: Tax Expenditures Belong on the Cutting Block: The House Budget Committee will hold a hearing Thursday morning on a White House proposal to give the president authority to force reconsideration of items in spending bills that he concludes are not a...

Lee: Tax TARP and Executive Bonuses

Posted on June 21, 2010
John W. Lee (William & Mary) has published Tax TARP Needed for Year One and Year Two Returns of Executive Bonus to TARP Recipient: A Case Study of Year One Rescission/Exclusion from Income and Year Two Deduction Under 1341, 1 Wm. & Mary Bus. L. Rev. 323 (2010)...

Income Mobility Mitigates Income Inequality

Posted on June 21, 2010
The Tax Foundation today published Income Mobility and the Persistence of Millionaires, 1999 to 2007, by Robert Carroll: Concern over the rising gap between the rich and poor has been the primary rationale for President Obama's redistributive policies...

Information Reporting of Online Sales and the Tax Gap

Posted on June 20, 2010
Maricel P. Montano (J.D. 2010, USC) has published Note, Can Widening the Scope of Information Reporting to Include Income Derived from Online Sales Help to Narrow the Expanding Tax Gap?, 83 S. Cal. L. Rev. 379 (2010). Here is the Conclusion: Given the expansion of both the tax gap and...

McGeorge Law Review Symposium on California Tax Legislation

Posted on June 20, 2010
The McGeorge Law Review has published Review of Selected 2009 California Legislation (Vol. 41, no. 3): Bahara Hosseini, Chapter 4 to the Rescue: California Attempts to Prevent the Unjust Reallocation of Local Sales and Use Taxes, 41 McGeorge L. Rev. 600 (2010) Ashley Lavon Hines, Run Home to Hollywood! Run...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on June 20, 2010
There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper (which I highly recommend) debuting on the list at #5: 1. [573 Downloads] Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Where?, by Paul L. Caron (Cincinnati), Jennifer M...

Taxpayer Has Heart Attack While on Phone With Tax Man, Who Calls 911 and Saves Taxpayer's Life

Posted on June 20, 2010
Lexington Herald-Leader, Tax Worker Helps Save Taxpayer's Life: They say death and taxes are inevitable. But in the case of Earl Phillips, taxes may have helped save the Adair County man's life. When Phillips called the state Department of Revenue last month to get answers about his state income tax...

The Need for a Carbon Tax

Posted on June 19, 2010
Daniel E. Kwak (J.D. 2010, Oregon) has published Comment, Civilizing Society: The Need for a Carbon Tax in Light of Recent Changes to U.S. Energy Taxation Policy, 88 Or. L. Rev. 547 (2009). Here is part of the Conclusion: Providing credits to taxpayers who invest in energy property has proven...

Tax Justice and Same-Sex Domestic Partner Health Benefits

Posted on June 19, 2010
Michelle D. Layser has published Tax Justice and Same-Sex Domestic Partner Health Benefits: An Analysis of the Tax Equity For Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, 32 U. Haw. L. Rev. 73 (2009). Here is the abstract: This article analyzes the recently proposed Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act of 2009...

Toy Story 3

Posted on June 19, 2010
We saw Toy Story 3 last night -- the critics are right: it is the best movie in years, especially for anyone who has had to (or will) send a child off to college. I teased my wife for sobbing at the end (while choking up myself). Reviews: Chicago Sun-Times...

Tax Court Denies Charitable Deduction for $200 Cash Given to Panhandlers & $29k of Stuff Donated to Goodwill

Posted on June 19, 2010
The Tax Court on Thursday denied a taxpayer's claimed charitable deductions for $200 cash given to panhandlers and $28,655 of household items donated to Goodwill. Roberts v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2010-76 (June 17, 2010): For 2005 petitioner claimed, on Schedule A, Itemized Deductions, a $200 cash charitable contribution, which...

NYU Hosts 2nd Annual Tax Controversy Forum Today

Posted on June 18, 2010
NYU hosts its 2nd Annual Tax Controversy Forum today at the Westin New York at Times Square: The Tax Controversy Forum features interactive presentations by expert practitioners covering a broad range of issues and concerns arising in tax audits and tax litigation at all levels...

Houston to Raise 1L Tuition 26.5%

Posted on June 18, 2010
Above the Law, New Tuition Trend: Will 1Ls be Willing to Subsidize 3Ls?: The Houston Chronicle reports that UH Law wants to charge like the University of Texas ? despite the fact that it can?t produce jobs like the Austin powerhouse: [Regents approved a 16...

Sartori: Tax Dynamics of U.S. Corporate Expatriations

Posted on June 18, 2010
Nicola Sartori (S.J.D. candidate, University of Michigan) has posted Tax Dynamics of (U.S.) Corporate Expatriations on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article addresses the main issues that corporate inversion transactions (or expatriations) raise both from the perspective of the corporations as well as from that of the policy makers...

IRS Releases Tax Whistleblower Guidelines

Posted on June 18, 2010
The IRS yesterday released on its website guidelines for handling tax whistleblower claims: 25.2.2.1 Overview: Authority and Policy 25.2.2.2 General 25.2.2.3 Submission of Information for Award under Sections 7623(a) or (b) 25.2.2.4 Initial Review of the Form 211 by the Whistleblower Office 25...

Eason: Motive, Duty, and the Management of Restricted Charitable Gifts

Posted on June 18, 2010
John K. Eason (Seattle) has published Motive, Duty, and the Management of Restricted Charitable Gifts, 45 Wake Forest L. Rev. 123 (2010). Here is part of the Conclusion: By abandoning the notion of slavish adherence to a given donor?s subjective intentions, the analysis proposed in this Article provides a more...

Do Law Students Want Curricular Reform?

Posted on June 18, 2010
Dan Filler (Drexel), Do Law Students Want Curricular Reform? Howard Wasserman (Florida International), Best Practices v. Student-Centeredness Emily Zimmerman (Drexel), What Do Law Students Want?

ETAAC Releases 2010 Annual Report to Congress

Posted on June 18, 2010
The IRS announced today (IR-2010-75) that the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC) has released its 2010 Annual Report to Congress: We hope that our observations, assessments and recommendations will enable Congress and IRS to make the best decisions possible in service to American taxpayers and our nation...

Americans Have 'Mere Hours' to Report UBS Accounts to IRS After Swiss Approval of Tax Deal

Posted on June 18, 2010
Bloomberg, Americans May Have ?Mere Hours? to Disclose UBS Accounts to IRS New York Times, Swiss Approve Deal for UBS to Reveal U.S. Clients Suspected of Tax Evasion New York Times DealBook, After Swiss Vote, ?Panicked Calls? From UBS Clients New York Times editorial, Still Waiting for Those Names Wall...

Companies Deducted $52b More for Stock Options in 2008 Than They Reported on Their Books

Posted on June 18, 2010
On Wednesday, Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Carl Levin released new 2008 IRS data showing that corporations claimed $52 billion more in tax deductions for stick options issued to their executives than they reported as expenses on the company books: ?Current stock option accounting and tax rules are out...

Brown: BP Right to Stop Paying Dividends

Posted on June 17, 2010
Tax Prof Dorothy Brown (Emory) has published an op-ed on CNN, BP Right to Stop Paying Dividends: BP, which is responsible for the greatest oil spill in American history, has made the right call in deciding to suspend dividend payments this year. ... Some have argued that BP should pay...

Galle: Keep Charity Charitable

Posted on June 17, 2010
Brian Galle (Florida State; moving to Boston College) has published Keep Charity Charitable, 88 Texas L. Rev. 1213 (2010). Here is the abstract: In this Article, Professor Brian Galle responds to recent claims, most prominently by Anup Malani and Eric Posner, that much of the work of the charitable sector...

McMahon: The Development of the Federal Income Tax Through World War I

Posted on June 17, 2010
Stephanie Hunter McMahon (Cincinnati) has published A Law with a Life of Its Own: The Development of the Federal Income Tax Statutes through World War I, 7 Ptt. Tax Rev. 1 (2009). Here is the abstract: This manuscript examines the development of the federal income tax within the United States...

Ralph Lauren's Tax-Motivated Sale

Posted on June 17, 2010
Future of Capitlism: Ralph Lauren's Stock Sale and Taxes, by Ira Stoll: Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post all have coverage of Ralph Lauren's plan to sell a quarter of his stake in his publicly traded Polo Ralph Lauren apparel/fashion/retail empire, with proceeds estimated at between...

Mistreated as Student, Alum Donates $10m for $30k Annual Prizes to 'Nice' Professors

Posted on June 17, 2010
Chronicle of Higher Education, Mistreated as a Student, an Alum Establishes Cash Prizes for Nice Professors at Israel's Technion: What?s an alumnus to do when the university that was the gateway to his entrepreneurial millions was a place of "suffering" where professors "didn?t give a damn about the students"? Moshe...

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