Taxation & Estate Planning

So You Want to Go to Law School?

Posted on October 20, 2010

Tax Cheat Sentenced to Serve ... Pizza

Posted on October 20, 2010
Buffalo News, Tax Cheat Sentenced to Serve ? Pizzas: Starting tonight and continuing every Tuesday for the next year, the more than 100 nightly diners at the Buffalo City Mission will feast on pizza -- thanks to State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia and a tax cheat...

Johnson: No Deductions for Tax Planning And Controversy Costs

Posted on October 20, 2010
Calvin H. Johnson (Texas) has published No Deductions for Tax Planning And Controversy Costs, 129 Tax Notes 333 (Oct 18, 2010). Here is the abstract: The law gives a negative tax or subsidy to tax planning and controversy work, because the costs of that work are generally deductible...

Burk & McGowan: The Future of the Law Firm in the New Economy

Posted on October 20, 2010
Bernard A. Burk (Stanford) & David McGowan (San Diego) have posted Big But Brittle: Economic Perspectives on the Future of the Law Firm in the New Economy, 2011 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. ___, on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article addresses the deceptively simple questions why, up to the...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Tax Law Review Publishes Symposium on Designing a Federal VAT (Part II)

Posted on October 20, 2010
The Tax Law Review has published a new issue (Vol. 63, No. 3 (Spring 2010)), Symposium on Designing a Federal VAT (Part II): Richard M. Bird (University of Toronto) & Joseph L. Rotman (Georgia State University), Sales Taxation in Canada: The GST-HST-QST-RST 'System', 63 Tax L...

Cut the Tax on Repatriation of Foreign Earnings to Stimulate the Economy

Posted on October 20, 2010
Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Overseas Profits Elephant in the Room, by John Chambers (Chairman & CEO, Cisco Systems) & Safra Catz (President, Oracle Corp): There's a trillion dollars waiting to be repatriated if tax policy is right. During last year's "Jobs Summit," President Obama said he was open to...

Sanchirico: Policy Uncertainty and Optimal Taxation

Posted on October 19, 2010
Chris William Sanchirico (Pennsylvania) has posted Policy Uncertainty and Optimal Taxation on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A kind of folk theorem in tax policy states that too much uncertainty about the impact of taxing (or subsidizing) a particular taxable attribute is cause for excluding that attribute from the tax...

ABA May Require Law Schools to Disclose More Employment Data

Posted on October 19, 2010
National Law Journal, ABA May Join Push for Law School Transparency, by Karen Sloan: Pleas for more transparency about the cost of law school and the odds of finding a job after graduation have not fallen on deaf ears at the American Bar Association. President Steve Zach told a gathering...

Forbes: The IRS, College Tax Credits and Congress? Plain Writing Hypocrisy

Posted on October 19, 2010
Forbes, The IRS, College Tax Credits and Congress? Plain Writing Hypocrisy, by Janey Novack: Last week, with no fanfare, President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act of 2010, requiring all federal agencies?and in particular the IRS?to translate all documents the public must deal with into ?plain writing?...

Boston College 3L Asks for a Tuition Refund

Posted on October 19, 2010
A Boston College 3L has published an open letter to Interim Dean George Brown: [T]he occasion for me writing to you is not a happy one. As a 3L, my peers and I find ourselves in the midst of one of the worst job markets in the history of our...

SSRN to Sell Hard Copies of Papers for $9.99 (With $0 Paid to Authors)

Posted on October 19, 2010
SSRN will soon start selling hard copies of papers in its database for $9.99, with no portion of this amount to be paid to authors, unless authors opt out by October 29: In response to requests from authors and readers to purchase printed and bound hard copies of papers on...

NY Times: The Unnoticed Obama Tax Cut

Posted on October 19, 2010
New York Times, From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of: What if a president cut Americans? income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed? ... In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased...

Some in GOP Seek Estate Tax Middle Ground

Posted on October 19, 2010
Sam Goldfarb, Some in GOP Look for Middle Ground on the Estate Tax, 2010 TNT 201-1 (Oct. 19, 2010): With the estate tax scheduled to return with a vengeance in January, some Senate Republicans may be open to significant compromises to arrive at a permanent estate tax "fix," according to...

Tamanaha: The Irresponsibility of Law Schools

Posted on October 19, 2010
Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.), The Irresponsibility of Law Schools: Mark Grabowski (Adelphi University), Are Law Schools Scamming Students? Michael Heise (Cornell), Law Schools, Students, and "Legal Employment": Supply and Demand Brian Leiter (Chicago), Two Trends: Law School Enrollment and Legal Employment

Christians: Historic, Comparative and Evolutionary Analysis of Tax Systems

Posted on October 19, 2010
Allison Christians (Wisconsin) has posted Historic, Comparative and Evolutionary Analysis of Tax Systems on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Tax reform is a constant process in most nations as governments continuously revisit their tax regimes in response to economic, social, and political forces...

NY Times: § 501(c)(6) Groups Push Tax Code Limits in Political Ads

Posted on October 18, 2010
New York Times, Groups Push Legal Limits in Advertising, by Michael Luo: The basic rule of thumb for nonprofit groups organized under Section 501(c) of the tax code is that more than 50% of their annual activities cannot be political. Although it is a matter of debate how spending on...

Sullivan: Microsoft Moving Profits, Not Jobs, Out of the U.S.

Posted on October 18, 2010
Martin A. Sullivan (Tax Analysts) has published Microsoft Moving Profits, Not Jobs, Out of the U.S., 129 Tax Notes 271 (Oct. 18, 2010): Figure 4 shows that from 2002 through 2007, the profitability (measured as a percentage of sales) of foreign and U...

Frank: Rising Income Inequality Increases Financial Distress

Posted on October 18, 2010
New York Times, Income Inequality -- Too Big to Ignore, by Robert H. Frank (Cornell University, Johnson School of Mannagement): People often remember the past with exaggerated fondness. Sometimes, however, important aspects of life really were better in the old days...

AICPA National Tax Conference

Posted on October 18, 2010
The two-day AICPA 35th Annual National Tax Conference kicks off today at the JW Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C.: Sweeping tax reforms are on the horizon. How will you navigate the shifting landscape? For the full program, see here.

TaxProf Weekend Roundup

Posted on October 18, 2010
Saturday: Obama Attacks Republicans on Tax Policy Northeastern Seeks to Hire Faculty for Online Tax Program Tax Consequences of Georgetown?s Public Interest Stipend 85% of College Grads Move Back Into Their Parents' Home Sunday: Dancing Tax Collectors Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Memorial Service for Meade Emory Zelinsky: Citizenship and...

Fleischer Presents Taxing Founders' Stock Today at NYU

Posted on October 18, 2010
Victor Fleischer (Colorado) presents Taxing Founders' Stock at NYU today as part of its Faculty Workshop Series. Here is the abstract: Founders of a start-up usually take common stock as a large portion of their compensation for current and future labor efforts...

Gov. Christie Releases 2009 Tax Returns

Posted on October 18, 2010
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his wife have released their 2009 federal and state tax returns. Newark Star-Ledger, Gov. Christie's Tax Returns Show Nearly $100K Increase in Income Federal Return Federal Return Summary California Return Connecticut Return Illinois Return Massachusetts Return New Jersey Return New York Return North Carolina...

How Prince Charles Will Avoid the Inheritance Tax

Posted on October 18, 2010
Herald Scotland, How Charles Will Bypass Inheritance Tax: While more and more families face 40% inheritance tax bills when they are left their parents? houses, Prince Charles will not pay a penny when he inherits Balmoral Castle. The Crown Private Estates Act was then passed in 1862 to enable Victoria...

TIGTA: IRS Needs to Do More to Catch Return Preparers Who Abet $14 Billion in Annual EITC Fraud

Posted on October 18, 2010
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released Actions Can Be Taken to Improve the Identification of Tax Return Preparers Who Submit Improper Earned Income Tax Credit Claims (2010-40-116): Although the IRS has increased its efforts to improve compliance with the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), it also needs...

Law Schools Try to Address the Happiness Issue

Posted on October 18, 2010
American Lawyer, Law Schools Try to Address the Happiness Issue: The second- and third-year students who signed up for "Well-Being and the Practice of Law" at Duke University School of Law this fall may be getting more than they bargained for. Four weeks in, they've already tackled Aristotle (as part...

Sturm Presents Taxing Soft Drinks to Curb Child Obesity Today at Loyola-L.A.

Posted on October 18, 2010
Roland Sturm (RAND Corp.) presents Taxing Soft Drinks and Restricting Access to Vending Machines to Curb Child Obesity, 29 Health Affairs 1052 (May 2010), at Loyola-L.A. today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. The commentator is Katherine Pratt (Loyola-L...

Memorial Service for Meade Emory

Posted on October 17, 2010
Following up on my prior posts (here and here) on the death of Meade Emory, founding director of the Graduate Tax Program and Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Washington School of Law: Sam Donaldson (Washington) shares this report on Friday's memorial service for Meade: The cathedral was...

Zelinsky: Citizenship and Worldwide Taxation

Posted on October 17, 2010
Edward A. Zelinsky (Cardoza) has posted Citizenship and Worldwide Taxation: Citizenship as an Administrable Proxy for Domicile, 95 Iowa L. Rev. ___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The United States? worldwide taxation of its citizens is less different from international, residence-based norms than is widely believed and is...

Dancing Tax Collectors

Posted on October 17, 2010
Fox News, Dancing Tax Collectors: Tax collectors in the Philippines trying to make paying your taxes a little less taxing. So they get up and dance! A spokesperson says they wanted to see happy rather than sad faces on the taxpayers, so they took to the floor, and it's working!...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on October 17, 2010
This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list: 1. [371 Downloads] The Ethics of Tax Lawyering: An Introduction, by Michael Hatfield (Texas Tech) 2. [248 Downloads] Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation, by Michael Hatfield (Texas...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.