Taxation & Estate Planning

WSJ: Income Gap Shrinks in U.S.

Posted on September 10, 2009
Front page story in today's Wall Street Journal, Income Gap Shrinks in Slump at the Expense of the Wealthy, by Bob Davis & Robert Frank: The deepest downturn in the U.S. economy since the Great Depression may finally shrink the gap between the very best-off Americans and everyone else...

Burke: Revisiting the ALI's Carried Interest Proposals

Posted on September 10, 2009
Karen C. Burke (San Diego) has posted Back to the Future: Revisiting the ALI's Carried Interest Proposals on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Congress is currently considering carried-interest legislation (section 710) that would limit the ability of service partners to convert ordinary compensation income into tax-favored capital gain...

SSRN Tax Professor Rankings

Posted on September 10, 2009
SSRN has updated its monthly rankings of 609 American and international law school faculties and 1,500 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN data base. Here is the new list (through August 18, 2009) of the Top 25 U...

Tier 4 Grads Are Happier at BigLaw Jobs Than Top 10 Grads

Posted on September 09, 2009
The American Lawyer, Not That Into You, by Ronit Dinovitzer (University of Toronto, Department of Sociology) & Bryant Garth (Dean, Southwestern Law School): [W]e have been tracking the careers of a nationally representative sample of 5,000 lawyers who began practice in 2000...

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Joint Tax Committee: Description of Tax Provisions in Obama's FY 2010 Budget

Posted on September 09, 2009
The Joint Committee on Taxation yesterday released Description of Revenue Provisions Contained in the President?s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Proposal -- Part One: Individual Income Tax and Estate And Gift Tax Provisions (JCS-2-09): This document, prepared by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, provides a description and analysis...

More on the Volcker Tax Reform Panel

Posted on September 09, 2009
Following up on yesterday's post, Toward Tax Reform: Recommendations for President Obama's Task Force: Dow Jones, White House Tax Panel Stays Out Of Public Eye, by Martin Vaughan: A task force appointed by President Obama to recommend changes to the tax?code by December has held no public meetings, and the...

CTJ: Bush Tax Cuts Cost 2.5x Health Care Reform

Posted on September 09, 2009
Citizens for Tax Justice has published The Bush Tax Cuts Cost Two and a Half Times as Much as the House Democrats? Health Care Proposal: Newly revised estimates from Citizens for Tax Justice show that the Bush tax cuts cost almost $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were first...

TIGTA Releases Three Tax Reports

Posted on September 09, 2009
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released: Changing Strategies Led to the Termination of the My IRS Account Project (2009-20-102) The Office of Disclosure Continues to Improve Upon Its Responses to Taxpayers? Requests Under the Freedom of Information Act (2009-30-115) To Address Its Human Capital Challenge, the Internal...

Treasury Department Releases Analysis of Section 529 College Savings Plans

Posted on September 09, 2009
The Treasury Department and the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families today released An Analysis of Section 529 College Savings and Prepaid Tuition Plans: The report recommends five approaches to making Section 529 savings plans more attractive, effective and reliable for middle class families, and those who...

The Top 10 Law Schools for Hispanics

Posted on September 09, 2009
Hispanic Business Magazine has published its annual ranking of the Top 10 Law Schools for Hispanics: New Mexico Texas Florida State American Miami San Francisco Arizona State Florida USC UCLA (Hat Tip: Law School Headlines.)

Syracuse Seeks to Hire Tax Prof

Posted on September 09, 2009
Syracuse University College of Law seeks to fill an entry-level tenure-track faculty position to begin Fall 2010 in a variety of fields, including tax. Applications (CV and three references) are due by November 1 to Margaret M. Harding, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee.

Federal Court Orders School to Give Tenure Hearing to Fired Law Prof

Posted on September 09, 2009
Following up on my earlier post, Nepotism Allegations Dog Cooley Law School: in today's National Law Journal, Law School Professor Who Alleged Nepotism Wins Tenure Hearing, by Leigh Jones: A federal judge has ordered Thomas M. Cooley Law School to provide a tenure hearing to a professor who claims that...

CBPB: Income Concentration Is at Highest Level Since 1928

Posted on September 09, 2009
Following up on last month's post, Saez -- New Income Concentration Data: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities today released Top 1 Percent of Americans Reaped Two-Thirds of Income Gains in Last Economic Expansion; Income Concentration in 2007 Was at Highest Level Since 1928, New Analysis Shows, by Avi...

Cincinnati Needs Spring 2010 Visitor

Posted on September 08, 2009
Due to the sudden retirement of a colleague, we are looking for a 2010 Spring Semester visitor to teach Corporations I and one other business-related course at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. This is an opportunity to spend a semester at a great law school, with a great...

Yin: Corporate Tax Reform, Finally, After 100 Years

Posted on September 08, 2009
George K. Yin (Virginia) has posted Corporate Tax Reform, Finally, After 100 Years on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Future increases to individual income tax rates and reductions to the corporate tax rate will invite the widespread use of C corporations as tax shelter vehicles, an old problem that was...

The Portia Effect: Women Lawyers With Masculine Names Have Better Shot at Judgeships

Posted on September 08, 2009
Bentley Coffey (Clemson University, Department of Economics) & Patrick McLaughlin (George Mason University, Mercatus Center) have published From Lawyer to Judge: Advancement, Sex, and Name-Calling, 11 Am. L. & Econ. Rev. 112 (2009). Here is the abstract: This paper provides the first empirical test of the Portia Hypothesis: females with...

Legal Rebels: Tom Bruce, Bill Henderson

Posted on September 08, 2009
Following up my post, ABA Journal Launches Legal Rebels Project, which discussed the ABA Journal's plan to profile fifty of the legal profession's leading innovators over the next three months: the ABA Journal has announced three new "legal rebels" (bringing the total thus far to ten)...

The Student Debt Crisis, Part III

Posted on September 08, 2009
William D. Henderson (Indiana-Bloomington), Drawing the Right Lessions from the Bleak Entry-Level Legal Job Market: Since the last major legal recession of the early 1990s, elite law schools adapted their business model to the seeming certainty of virtually guaranteed high paying jobs for their graduates...

TaxProf Blog Holiday Weekend Roundup

Posted on September 08, 2009
Saturday: U.S. News Law School Rankings: Judicial Clerkships The Effect of the EITC on Earnings Growth NYSBA Releases Tax Reports Sunday: Eric Posner's Advice to Law Students: Do Not Take International Law WSJ: Convert Remainder of Stimulus Package to Corporate Tax Repeal The Student Debt Crisis, Part I Earnings Volatility...

Undergraduate Degree Ranking by Starting Salary

Posted on September 08, 2009
PayScale has issued its College Salary Report, which ranks 75 undergraduate degrees by the median starting and mid-career salaries. Here are the Top and Bottom 10: Undergraduate Degree Median Starting Salary Median Mid-Career Salary 1 Aerospace Engineering $59,600 $109,000 2 Chemical Engineering $65,700 $107,000 3 Computer Engineering $61,700 $105,000 4...

NY Times: US-UBS Deal Lets Tax Cheats Off the Hook

Posted on September 08, 2009
New York Times, Swiss Deal With I.R.S. May Hide Some Tax Cheats, by Lynnley Browning: When the IRS announced a deal last month that would force Switzerland to reveal the names of thousands of Americans suspected of offshore tax evasion, the agency called it a major step forward...

Obama to Let Taxpayers Convert Tax Refunds Into IOUs

Posted on September 08, 2009
In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Obama announced: [W]e?ll make it easier for people to save their federal tax refunds, which 100 million families receive. Today, if you have a retirement account, you can have your refund deposited directly into your account...

NLJ: Recession Forces Law Schools to Bow to Reality

Posted on September 08, 2009
In this week's National Law Journal, Reality's Knocking: The Recession Is Forcing Schools to Bow to Reality, by Karen Sloan: The movement to incorporate practical skills into legal education isn't new, but legal educators and researchers report that the floundering economy is increasing incentives for law schools to revamp their...

Toward Tax Reform: Recommendations for President Obama's Task Force

Posted on September 08, 2009
Tax Analysts today published Toward Tax Reform: Recommendations for President Obama's Task Force: This book of advice for the President?s tax reform panel includes essays by 32 prominent tax experts ? lawyers, economists, and academics from across the political spectrum...

ABA Releases Law Student Tax Challenge Problem

Posted on September 08, 2009
The ABA Section of Taxation Young Lawyers Forum has released the problem (J.D.; LL.M.) and updated rules (J.D.; LL.M.) for the 9th Annual Law Student Tax Challenge: An alternative to traditional moot court competitions, the Law Student Tax Challenge asks two-person teams of students to solve a cutting-edge and complex...

Book Review: Institutional Foundations of Public Finance: Economic and Legal Perspectives

Posted on September 07, 2009
Alan D. Viard (American Enterprise Institute) has published Book Review: Institutional Foundations of Public Finance: Economic and Legal Perspectives (Harvard University Press, 2009) (Alan J. Auerbach & Daniel N. Shaviro, eds.), 62 Nat'l Tax J. 367 (2009)...

Bernie Madoff Gets $13,800 Tax Refund

Posted on September 07, 2009
Palm Beach Post, Madoffs Get $13,800 Property Tax Rebate: Palm Beach County wrote the couple a $13,800 check -- a rebate, handing back taxes the Madoffs paid on their Palm Beach mansion. The county had little choice, experts say: The Madoffs' property had been overvalued, so they'd paid too much...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on September 07, 2009
This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's, with the #4 and #5 papers switching positions: 1. [314 Downloads] Ghosts of 1932: The Lost History of Estate and Gift Taxation, by Jeffrey A. Cooper (Quinnipiac) 2. [260 Downloads] A Tale of...

The Student Debt Crisis, Part II

Posted on September 07, 2009
New York Times, Why College Costs Rise, Even in a Recession, by Ron Lieber: If you have paid a college tuition bill recently ... [you may want] to ask some pointed questions of the people who are doing the educating. Where does all that money go? And why can?t the...

Earnings Volatility Across Groups and Time

Posted on September 06, 2009
John Sabelhaus (University of Maryland) & Jae Song (U.S. Social Security Administration) have published Earnings Volatility Across Groups and Time, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 347 (2009). Here is the abstract: Inferences about earnings volatility across groups and time depend on the underlying models of earnings dynamics, data sources, earnings concepts,...

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