Taxation & Estate Planning

44th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning

Posted on February 09, 2010
Tax Prof speakers at the recently concluded 44th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning: Christopher R. Hoyt (Missouri-Kansas City), How to Do Your Roth IRA Conversion in 2010 and Current Issues in Charitable Planning Jeffrey N. Pennell (Emory), Recent Estate Planning Developments Randall W...

Isenbergh: The Future of Taxation

Posted on February 09, 2010
Joseph Isenbergh (Chicago) has posted The Future of Taxation on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Almost all public discussion of tax policy fails to take into account the difference between the real tax -- public spending as a percentage of GDP -- and the current (or nominal) tax, which is...

Schenk Presents Salience and Tax Design Today at Michigan

Posted on February 09, 2010
Deborah H. Schenk (NYU) presents Salience and Tax Design at Michigan today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series coordinated by Reuven S. Avi-Yonah. Here is the abstract: This paper develops an argument for taking into account the salience of taxes as a fiscal policy tool at the federal...

Clarence Thomas: If Not for the Supreme Court Gig, I'd Be ... A Tax Lawyer

Posted on February 08, 2010
Above the Law, Clarence Thomas Clarifies: His Clerks Aren?t ?TTT?: Justice Clarence Thomas went down to the Sunshine State this week, where he spent time speaking with law students at Stetson University and the University of Florida. ... One UF student asked Thomas for advice given the difficult job market...

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The Power of Half

Posted on February 08, 2010
Watch CBS News Videos Online The Power of Half: It all started when 14-year old Hannah Salwen, idealistic but troubled by a growing sense of injustice in the world, had a eureka moment when a homeless man in her neighborhood was juxtaposed against a glistening Mercedes coupe...

CRS: Business Investment and Employment Tax Incentives to Stimulate the Economy

Posted on February 08, 2010
Open CRS has posted Business Investment and Employment Tax Incentives to Stimulate the Economy (R41034). Here is the summary: According to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007...

SOI Releases Papers From 2009 IRS Research Conference

Posted on February 08, 2010
The IRS's Statistics of Income Division has released the papers from the 2009 IRS Research Conference held on July 8-9, 2009, at Georgetown: Forward and Acknowledgments Table of Contents Tax Systems and Taxpayer Behavior Leslie Robinson (Dartmouth) & Joel Slemrod (Michigan), Measuring the Impact of Tax Systems on Economic Behavior...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on February 08, 2010
Saturday: Ohio State President: It's Time to Rethink Tenure Happiness Is . . . WSJ: Pat Moynihan's Tax Lessons for the States Heritage Foundation Estate Tax Videos Redistributive Taxation and Personal Bankruptcy FIN 48 and the IRS-Taxpayer Relationship Sunday: IRS Silent Amidst Estate Tax Chaos Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads...

Hoffer Presents Direct Democracy in Non-Essential Government Spending Today at Northwestern

Posted on February 08, 2010
Stephanie Hoffer (Ohio State) presents Defining a Role for Direct Democracy in Non-Essential Government Spending at Northwestern today as part of its Advanced Topics in Taxation Series organized by Tom Brennan and Charlotte Crane. Here is the Introduction: The task of raising revenue to provide public goods such as roads,...

Is the WSJ (Finally) Embracing a VAT?

Posted on February 08, 2010
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Toward a Different Fiscal Future, by R. Glenn Hubbard (Dean, Columbia Business School): [T]he president and the Congress need to present a credible path toward lower deficits and more effective government. Such a plan should have three elements...

Smarter People Own Cats Rather Than Dogs

Posted on February 08, 2010
From the BBC: A poll of 2,524 households found that 47.2% of those with a cat had at least one person educated to degree level, compared with 38.4% of homes with dogs. The study said longer hours, possibly associated with better qualified jobs, may make owning a dog impractical...

The Atlantic: What Kind of Tax Relief Would Create the Most Jobs?

Posted on February 08, 2010
The Atlantic, What Kind of Tax Relief Would Create the Most Jobs?: As Congress wrangles over a jobs bill in the next week, the central debate is: What kind of tax cut will stimulate the most growth? The White House has gotten behind a "hiring tax credit" that would give...

Freakonomics and § 151(e)

Posted on February 08, 2010
ABA Journal, The Obvious Is Never Simple When Steven Levitt Talks About It: [Steven Levitt gave] the keynote address Saturday night at the 54th Annual Awards Banquet of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. ... Levitt, a research professor at the ABF and a professor at the University of...

CCH: FY 2011 Federal Budget ?Tax Proposals

Posted on February 07, 2010
CCH has published a 15-page special briefing, FY 2011 Federal Budget ?Tax Proposals: Individuals ? Tax Breaks Retirement Savings Individuals ? Tax Increases Business Incentives Financial/Insurance Products International Tax Reform ?Loophole Closers? Compliance/Enforcement Other Revenue Raisers Estate/ Gift Taxes Energy Taxes Other Initiatives

Heritage Foundation Issues Tax Reports

Posted on February 07, 2010
The Heritage Foundation has issued the following tax reports: Hiring Tax Credit Will Not Create Long-Term Jobs (Feb. 3, 2010) Impact of Child Care Tax Credit Increase on Families and Economy (Feb. 4, 2010) Obama's 2011 Budget Tax Hikes Contradict Focus on Job Creation (Feb...

IRS Silent Amidst Estate Tax Chaos

Posted on February 07, 2010
Wall Street Journal, IRS Silent So Far On New US Tax Rules For Inherited Wealth, by Martin Vaughan: The IRS is taking a wait-and-see approach on issuing guidance dealing with taxes on inherited wealth, unsure whether Congress will act in the next several months to change the rules again...

UMass, UC-San Diego, UNH Law Schools to Join Michigan State, Penn State?

Posted on February 07, 2010
Inside Higher Ed, Law Partners: It may not seem like the best time for public universities to go shopping for private law schools, but at prices like these -- ?free? to taxpayers -- who can resist? Such was the argument this week from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, which...

PBS Newshour: Economics Comedy

Posted on February 07, 2010
(Hat Tip: Greg Mankiw.)

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on February 07, 2010
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: 1. [315 Downloads] The Regulatory Systems for Employee Benefits, by Brian A. Benko (McDermott Will & Emery, Washington, D...

Wood & Karachale

Posted on February 07, 2010
Robert W. Wood & Christopher A. Karachale (both of Wood & Porter, San Francisco) have posted Home Workers: Employee Status Hidden in Plain Sight, 126 Tax Notes 531 (Jan. 25, 2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

FIN 48 and the IRS-Taxpayer Relationship

Posted on February 06, 2010
Andrew W. Jones (Andrew W. Jones PC, Marietta, GA) has published Note, FASB--The IRS's New Best Friend: How FIN 48 Affects the Taxpayer-IRS Relationship and Potential Taxpayer Challenges, 25 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 767 (2009). Here is the part of the Conclusion: Why is FIN 48 so problematic? After...

Redistributive Taxation and Personal Bankruptcy

Posted on February 06, 2010
Charles Grant (University of Reading, Department of Economics) & Winfried Koeniger (Queen Mary University of London, Department of Economics) have published Redistributive Taxation and Personal Bankruptcy in U.S. States, 52 J.L. & Econ. 445 (2009). Here is the abstract: Personal bankruptcy regulation and redistributive taxes and transfers vary considerably across...

Ohio State President: It's Time to Rethink Tenure

Posted on February 06, 2010
Associated Press, OSU's President Gordon Gee Challenging Faculty Tenure at Nation's Biggest Campus: The leader of the country's largest university thinks it's time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia...

Happiness Is . . .

Posted on February 06, 2010
A snowstorm cancelling your 17 year-old daughter's winter formal dance ... A day spent shoveling snow and working out together ... Capped off with her playing this song on the car ride home: I don't know who I'm gonna talk to now at school But I know I'm laughing on...

WSJ: Pat Moynihan's Tax Lessons for the States

Posted on February 06, 2010
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Pat Moynihan's Tax Lessons for the States: 'Anything That Grows the Size of the Federal Government Will Grow the Deficit of New York', by E.J. McMahon (Director, Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for New York State Policy): The late Democratic Sen...

Heritage Foundation Estate Tax Videos

Posted on February 06, 2010

Obama's Budget Would Increase Penalties Five-Fold on Tax Protesters

Posted on February 05, 2010
Government Bytes (Official Blog of the National Taxpayers), Raising the Penalty for Tax Protesters/Deniers: Under current law, the willful failure to pay taxes is a misdemeanor. You could go to jail for up to a year and pay a maximum fine of $25K (for individuals, $100K for corporations) for each...

IRS Debunks Tax Protester Arguments

Posted on February 05, 2010
The IRS today released (IR-2010-80) an 80-page memorandum, The Truth about Frivolous Tax Arguments, which debunks many of the frivolous arguments made by individuals and groups that oppose compliance with federal tax laws. Among the frivolous arguments the IRS rebuts are: The Voluntary Nature of the Federal Income Tax System...

Yin: Publicly Traded Partnerships, Closely Held Corporations, and Entity Classification for Tax Purposes

Posted on February 05, 2010
George K. Yin (Virginia) has posted Publicly Traded Partnerships, Closely Held Corporations, and Entity Classification for Tax Purposes on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This comment, presented as part of a November, 2009, tax program on publicly traded partnerships, argues for the adoption of two classification lines to facilitate the...

Seattle Hosts International Tax Workshop Today

Posted on February 05, 2010
Seattle University School of Law hosts an International Tax Workshop today: Karen Brown (George Washington), Promoting Gender-Aware International Tax Policy Michael Knoll (Pennsylvania) & Ruth Mason (Connecticut), What Is Tax Discrimination? Incubator Sessions: Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan) Yariv Brauner (Florida) Kim Brooks (McGill) Karen Brown (George Washington) David Duff (British Columbia)...

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