Taxation & Estate Planning

Pitfalls Ahead: A Manifesto for the Training of Lawyers

Posted on September 22, 2009
Anita Bernstein (Brooklyn) has posted Pitfalls Ahead: A Manifesto for the Training of Lawyers on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Entrants joining the legal profession are entitled to fair warning about what they are getting into. Accounts of lawyers' heroism, triumph, and reformist energy continue to inspire young people to...

Lawsky: More on The Tax Savings Behind the Chicago Cubs Sale

Posted on September 21, 2009
Sarah Lawsky (George Washington) expands on Friday's post, The Tax Savings Behind the Sale of the Chicago Cubs for $845m: First, the deal may not be so bullet-proof. In a Chicago Tribune story published earlier this year (which unfortunately does not appear to be available on line for free), Robert...

Tax Incentives and the Exercise of Stock Options

Posted on September 21, 2009
George Ryan Huston & Thomas Joseph Smith (both of Florida State University, Department of Accounting) have posted Do Taxes Matter: Evidence of Individual and Corporate Tax Incentives on the Choice to Hold Shares Acquired from Exercise of Employee Stock Options on SSRN...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on September 21, 2009
Saturday: Police Seize Maradona's Earrings for Back Taxes SNL on Joe Wilson's Outburst Roberts: Mitigating the Distributional Impacts of Climate Change Policy An International Tax Guide for Professors Taking Non-U.S. Sabbaticals Sunday: IRS to Audit 6,000 Companies Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads American Lawyer: Recruiting Season, 2009-10 International Tax Law:...

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Hines Presents Reconsidering the Taxation of Foreign Income Today at Loyola-L.A.

Posted on September 21, 2009
James R. Hines, Jr. (Michigan) presents Reconsidering the Taxation of Foreign Income, 62 Tax L. Rev. 269 (2009), at Loyola-L.A. today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. Heather Field (UC-Hastings) is the commentator. Here is the abstract: This paper evaluates the efficiency and distributional consequences of taxing foreign...

The Estate Tax Legislative Battle

Posted on September 21, 2009
Wall Street Journal, Estate Tax Faces Its Own Life-and-Death Struggle, by Jonathan Weisman: President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are united behind an effort to block a scheduled year-end repeal of the estate tax. But prospects are blurred by divisions between the House and Senate over the contours of a...

The Case for an Employer Tax Break

Posted on September 21, 2009
Op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal, The Case for an Employer Tax Break: Temporary Tax Relief for Businesses Who Hire New Workers Can Energize the Economy, by Blair W. Effron (Centerview partners, New York): Companies need more robust consumer spending to justify increased payrolls, but without increased payrolls, the consumer...

Borden: Taxing Shared Economies of Scale

Posted on September 21, 2009
Bradley T. Borden (Washburn) has posted Taxing Shared Economies of Scale, 61 Baylor L. Rev. ___ (2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Economies of scale exist if long-run average costs decline as output rises. All else being equal, the decline in average costs should lead to greater profitability, making...

WSJ: Obama's Nontax Tax

Posted on September 21, 2009
Wall Street Journal editorial, Obama's Nontax Tax: On a Sunday Show, the President Offers a Revealing Definition: President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows yesterday, with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he...

IRS Extends Tax Amnesty Deadline for Those With Offshore Accounts to Oct. 15

Posted on September 21, 2009
The IRS today (IR-2009-84) extended its amnesty program (see FAQ here) for individuals who have evaded U.S. taxes through offshore accounts for an additional 22 days -- to October 15. So far, more than 3,000 taxpayers have come forward and agreed to pay back taxes, interest, and penalties...

American Lawyer: Recruiting Season, 2009-10

Posted on September 20, 2009
The American Lawyer, Sullivan & Cromwell Drops Challenge to NALP Recruiting Rules After Threat of Harvard Ban, by Zach Lowe: Everyone we talk to seems to agree that this is the craziest, most stressful recruiting season in recent memory. More top law schools have moved what used to be fall...

International Tax Law: U.S., Canada & Japan

Posted on September 20, 2009
Sharon Stern Gerstman (Law Clerk, New York Supreme Court), Elinore Richardson (Borden Ladner Gervais, Toronto), Salvatore Mirandola (Borden Ladner Gervais, Toronto), Stephanie Wong (Borden Ladner Gervais, Toronto) & Pamela A. Fuller have published International Tax Law, 43 Int'l Law...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on September 20, 2009
This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list 1. [357 Downloads] Ghosts of 1932: The Lost History of Estate and Gift Taxation, by Jeffrey A. Cooper (Quinnipiac) 2. [304 Downloads] A Tale of Two Codes: An Empirical Analysis of the...

IRS to Audit 6,000 Companies

Posted on September 20, 2009
Bloomberg, IRS to Audit 6,000 Companies to Test Employment Tax Compliance, by Ryan J. Donmoyer: The IRS will audit 6,000 U.S. companies to determine whether they pay all their required employment taxes to fund Social Security and Medicare benefits. The IRS said the audits will provide data for its first...

Roberts: Mitigating the Distributional Impacts of Climate Change Policy

Posted on September 19, 2009
Tracey M. Roberts (Research Affiliate, Vanderbilt University, Climate Change Research Network) has posted Mitigating the Distributional Impacts of Climate Change Policy, 67 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. ___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Under both a cap-and-trade system and a greenhouse gas tax the statutory incidence of the...

An International Tax Guide for Professors Taking Non-U.S. Sabbaticals

Posted on September 19, 2009
Michelle Dhanda (J.D. 2010, Suffolk) has published Note, International Taxation: A Guide for Academics Abroad, 32 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 701 (2009). Here is part of the Introduction: Academics are one group who consistently travel to other nations, and their tax burden is relatively heavy...

Police Seize Maradona's Earrings for Back Taxes

Posted on September 19, 2009
While former soccer star and current Argentina national team coach Diego Maradona was visiting a fat farm in Italy, local authorities seized his earrings to help pay off a $54 million tax liability from his playing days for the Napoli soccer team (1984-1991)...

SNL on Joe Wilson's Outburst

Posted on September 19, 2009

The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective

Posted on September 18, 2009
Cambridge University Press has published The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective, edited by Isaac William Martin (University of California-San Diego, Department of Sociology), Ajay K. Mehrotra (Indiana University-Bloomington, School of Law) & Monica Prasad (Northwestern University, Department of Sociology): The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative...

Cleveland-Marshall Seeks to Hire Tax Prof

Posted on September 18, 2009
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law seeks to hire seeks to fill two tenure-track faculty positions in a variety of fields, including tax and trusts & estates. One of the positions is at the Assistant Professor level; the other position may be at the Assistant, Associate or Professor level...

Top 5 Ways Students Use Technology to Cheat

Posted on September 18, 2009
Higher Ed Morning, The Top 5 Ways Students Use Technology to Cheat: 26% store info on their phone and look at it while taking a test 25% send text messages to friends, asking for answers 17% take pictures of a test ? and then send it to their friends 20%...

Lawsky: The Tax Savings Behind the Sale of the Chicago Cubs for $845m

Posted on September 18, 2009
Sarah Lawsky (George Washington) shares her thoughts on the tax savings driving the sale of the Chicago Cubs: Yesterday, Paul linked to an article about the acquisition of the Chicago Cubs. The article said "tax breaks" would allow Tribune Company (the seller) and Tom Ricketts (the buyer) to "save hundreds...

Holcomb Presents Taxing Gestational Surrogacy Today at Samford

Posted on September 18, 2009
Morgan L. Holcomb (Hamline) presents When Your Body is Your Business: Taxing Gestational Surrogacy today at Samford as part of its Works-in-Progress Series: Our thesis is that the fees gestational surrogates receive are part of the surrogate's gross income...

Donor's Suicide After $30m Gift to Harvard Law School and Tax Evasion Investigation Raises Issues of IRS Clawback, Enforceability of Pledge

Posted on September 18, 2009
In today's Harvard Crimson, Caspersen Taxes May Be Suspect: Harvard Law School?s biggest donor, who died last week in an apparent suicide, may have owed up to $100 million in back taxes and fines, the New York Times reported this week. Finn M.W. Caspersen, who gave over $30 million to...

Christians: Global Trends and Constraints on Tax Policy in the Least Developed Countries

Posted on September 18, 2009
Allison Christians (Wisconsin) has posted Global Trends and Constraints on Tax Policy in the Least Developed Countries, 40 U. Brit. Colum. L. Rev. ___ (2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Through decades of tax reform and cross-border collaboration, the world's wealthiest countries have adopted domestic tax policy norms that...

Emily McMahon Named Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy

Posted on September 18, 2009
Following up on this week's post on President Obama's nomination of Michael Mundaca to be Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy: Mr. Mundaca has selected Emily S. McMahon to be Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, effective Monday, September 21. Here is Ms...

SSRN Tax Faculty Metropolitan Area Rankings

Posted on September 17, 2009
Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his rankings of the Top 10 Tax Faculties by Metropolitan Region, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 8/19/09): All-Time Downloads Recent Downloads 1 Los Angeles 38,967 Los Angeles 8351 2 Boston 37...

Obama Nominates Michael Mundaca to be Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy

Posted on September 17, 2009
President Obama yesterday nominated Michael Mundaca, Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy and Senior Advisor for Policy, Office of Tax Policy, to be Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. From the White House press release: Mr. Mundaca served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration and returned to the Treasury...

ATPI Hosts Conference Today on Tax Reform and the Low-Income Taxpayer

Posted on September 17, 2009
The American Tax Policy Institute hosts a conference today on Tax Reform and the Low-Income Taxpayer: Organized by Joseph Bankman of Stanford Law School and Leslie Book of Villanova Law School, the half-day conference will take place from 8:00 a.m. ? 1:00 p...

Hein Adds Tax Resources

Posted on September 17, 2009
Hein has announced two new tax resources: The Alternative Minimum Tax: A Legislative History, with more than 160 documents in three volumes, including congressional hearings on the AMT dating back to 1986. The Tax Archive, with more than 900 volumes and nearly one million pages of tax legislative history materials...

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