Taxation & Estate Planning

AALS Goes to War Over ABA's Proposed Accreditation Standards Changes

Posted on March 29, 2011
The AALS yesterday sent this remarkable 10-page letter to the ABA opposing the Standards Review Committee's proposed changes to the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools. Here is the blistering conclusion: Those who seek to alter the fundamental assumptions underlying accreditation and its role in the system of legal...

Jon Stewart on G.E.'s 0% Tax Rate

Posted on March 29, 2011
Following up on Friday's post, NY Times: G.E.: Tax Imagination at Work: The Daily Show - I Give Up - Pay Anything... Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Duff Presents Responses to Treaty Shopping Today at Toronto

Posted on March 29, 2011
David G. Duff (University of British Columbia Faculty of Law) presents Responses to Treaty Shopping: A Comparative Evaluation at the University of Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series. Here is the Conclusion: Over the past few decades the globalization of trade and...

Lee Sheppard Speaks Today at John Marshall

Posted on March 29, 2011
Lee Sheppard (Contributing Editor, Tax Analysts) speaks today at John Marshall's Center for Tax Law & Employee Benefits on Dodd-Frank Act's Stranglehold Over Banks: Lee will speak on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and its impact on banks' capital requirements...

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Madoff: Federal Legislation Is Needed to Limit Post-Mortem Right of Publicity

Posted on March 29, 2011
New York Time sop-ed, The New Grave Robbers, by Ray D. Madoff (Boston College): Can a wild wig and a bushy mustache be packaged and called an Albert Einstein costume? According to Hebrew University of Jerusalem and its American marketing agent, the answer is no ? at least not without...

Move Over Butler, Kentucky, UConn & VCU: The Tax Final Four

Posted on March 28, 2011
Robert G. Nassau (Syracuse) has published April Madness: The Final Four, 130 Tax Notes 1613 (Mar. 28, 2011): [T]he [Tax] Final Four is set: health insurance versus standard deduction in the early game, followed by capital gains and the EITC [click on bracket to enlarge]...

Jonathan Koehler on David Van Zandt's Deanship at Northwestern

Posted on March 28, 2011
Following up on last week's post, Ron Allen on David Van Zandt's Deanship at Northwestern: Jonathan Koehler, Beatrice Kuhn Professor of Law at Northwestern, offers his his perspective on the Van Zandt years: I think it's important to correct a few potential misimpressions and to offer a different perspective on...

Chicago Man Finds $9 Million Lottery Ticket While Preparing His Taxes

Posted on March 28, 2011
A Chicago man preparing his taxes found a winning $9 million lottery ticket inside of his tax file just days before the ticket would have expired. CBS Chicago Chicago Tribune Daily Mail Huffington Post NPR

Missouri Dean Is 'Not Concerned' About 58-Point Fall in U.S. News Rankings (From 59 to 107)

Posted on March 28, 2011
Columbia Daily Tribune, University of Missouri Law School Again Drops in U.S. News? List: The University of Missouri School of Law has dropped to the 107th spot in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings, but Dean Larry Dessem isn?t taking much stock in the report...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on March 28, 2011
Saturday: WSJ: The Price of Taxing the Rich GOP Files FOIA Request to Get Wisconsin Prof's Email Tax Incentives for Movies: A Losing Proposition for the States Tax Accrual Work Paper Discovery in the 11th Circuit After Textron Sunday: meChurch Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Bogdanski: Gift Tax Fiasco Buchanan:...

Motro: Preglimony

Posted on March 28, 2011
Shari Motro (Richmond) has published Preglimony, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 647 (2011). Here is the abstract: Unmarried lovers who conceive are strangers in the eyes of the law. If the woman terminates the pregnancy, the man owes her nothing. If she takes the pregnancy to term, the man?s obligation to...

Gerzog: 9th Circuit Reverses on Indirect Gifts and Step Transaction Doctrine

Posted on March 28, 2011
Wendy C. Gerzog (Baltimore) has posted Linton Reversed: Indirect Gift and Step Transaction, 130 Tax Notes 1607 (Mar. 28, 2011), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Ninth Circuit recently reversed the district court?s summary judgment in favor of the government in Linton on the issues of indirect gift and...

Hatfield: Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation

Posted on March 28, 2011
Michael Hatfield (Texas Tech) has published Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation, 10 Fla. Tax Rev. 841 (2011). Here is the abstract: This Essay addresses the increasingly common social situation in which tax lawyers are confronted with tax protester arguments and similar anti-tax system comments...

Elkins Presents Interest-Free Loans to Shareholders at Tel Aviv University

Posted on March 28, 2011
David Elkins (Netanaya College School of Law, Israel; Visiting Professor, SMU) presents Interest-Free Loans from Corporations to Their Shareholders, in Taxation of Barter Transactions (2011), today at the Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law. The paper is based on Tax Consequences of Shareholders' Rent-Free Use of Corporate PropertTax Consequences...

Deferred Like-Kind Exchanges and Ltr. Rul. 201048025

Posted on March 28, 2011
Kelly E. Alton (Nationwide Exchange Services), Bradley T. Borden (Brooklyn Law School) & Alan S. Lederman (Akerman, Senterfitt) have posted Do Serial Exchangers Get Cash, with Extra Time to Boot, Under New Letter Ruling?, 114 J. Tax'n ___ (Mar. 2011), on SSRN...

Bogdanski: Gift Tax Fiasco

Posted on March 27, 2011
Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark), If You Did Stuff Like This, You'd Go to Jail: When Congress jerks around with the tax laws, bad things happen. Generous wealthy people who have to deal with federal gift taxes for 2010 are supposed to file their gift tax returns by April 18...

Buchanan: Taxes, Information, and Democracy

Posted on March 27, 2011
Neil H. Buchanan (George Washington), Taxes, Information, and Democracy: Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Scott Brown (R-MA) have seized upon such logic, recently proposing the Taxpayer Receipt Act, which would require the IRS to send everyone who files an income tax return an "itemized receipt ...

meChurch

Posted on March 27, 2011
During our stint in Malibu this semester, my wife and I have visited several local churches. This one was definitely the most interesting:

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on March 27, 2011
There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #5. The #1 paper is now #87 in all-time downloads among 7,357 tax papers : 1. [868 Downloads] The Fundamentals of Wealth Transfer...

GOP Seeks Wisconsin Prof's Emails

Posted on March 26, 2011
The Wisconsin GOP has filed a FOIA request seeking private e-mails sent by University of Wisconsin history professor William Cronon, a vocal critic of Governor Scott Walker who recently published a New York Times op-ed comparing Gov. Walker to Sen. Joe McCarthy: The Atlantic, 'Have You No Sense of Decency?'...

Tax Incentives for Movies: A Losing Proposition for the States

Posted on March 26, 2011
Alexander Malyshev (J.D. 2009, New York Law School) has published Note, Financing Film Through Aggressive Tax Incentives ? A Losing Proposition for the States?, 19 Cardozo Pub. L. Pol?y & Ethics J. 229 (2010): Because the interests of the producers and the states are diametrically opposed?the former vying for bigger...

Tax Accrual Work Paper Discovery in the 11th Circuit After Textron

Posted on March 26, 2011
Tracy Hamilton (J.D. 2011, Georgia State) has published Note, Work Product Privilege: The Future of Tax Accrual Work Paper Discovery in the Eleventh Circuit After Textron, 27 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 729 (2011). Here is part of the Introduction: Part I of this Note discusses the various tests adopted...

WSJ: The Price of Taxing the Rich

Posted on March 26, 2011
Wall Street Journal, The Price of Taxing the Rich, by Robert Frank: Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes?their earnings fell by more...

U.S. News Law School Rankings: Number of Applications

Posted on March 25, 2011
U.S. News & World Report has released a list of the law schools that received the most applications for the Fall 2010 entering class: Applications to law schools rose in 2010, as more people turned to a legal education for a potential career path or a temporary buffer against the...

Forbes: IRS Gift Tax Hunt Targets State Family Real Estate Transfer Data

Posted on March 25, 2011
Forbes, IRS Targets Family Real Estate Transfers, by William P. Barrett: As part of a new national hunt for gift tax evaders, the IRS has asked a federal court for permission to order a California state tax agency to hand over its computer database of everyone who transferred real estate...

Tax Analysts Hosts Conference Today on Corporate Tax Reform

Posted on March 25, 2011
Tax Analysts hosts a roundtable discussion today on Corporate Tax Reform: Christopher E. Bergin (President and Publisher, Tax Analysts) (moderator) Martin A. Regalia (Senior Vice-President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce) Martin Sullivan (Contributing Editor, Tax Analysts) Eric Toder (Co-director, Tax Policy Center) David Wessel (Economics Editor, Wall Street Journal)

How to Securely Send Sensitive Tax Documents to Your CPA

Posted on March 25, 2011
Lifehacker, How Can I Securely Send Sensitive Tax Docs to My Tax Preparer?: The In-Person Handoff. For the sake of security, it's hard to beat the old-school, in-person hand off. ... [T]here are no transmission methods more secure than physically placing your documents in the hand of your tax preparer...

Influence of Perceived Distributive Fairness on EU Tax Compliance

Posted on March 25, 2011
Martina Hartner (University of Vienna), et al. have published Perceived Distributive Fairness of EU Transfer Payments, Outcome Favorability, Identity, and EU-Tax Compliance, 33 Law & Pol'y 60 (2011). Here is the abstract: In a representative UK study (N = 1000) the link between distributive fairness perceptions, outcome favorability, identity, and...

CBO Evaluates VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) Tax

Posted on March 25, 2011
The Hill, CBO: Taxing Mileage a 'Practical Option' for Revenue Enhancement: The CBO this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway...

1.5% Tax on Stock Options May Drive High Tech Firms Out of San Francisco

Posted on March 25, 2011
Following up on my prior posts (links below): New York Times, A Business Tax Charged When Employees Cash in Stock Options Is Scrutinized: A rare provision in San Francisco?s business tax code that taxes companies when employees cash in their stock options has caused a stir in this hotbed of...

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