Taxation & Estate Planning

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on February 13, 2011
There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new #1 paper and new papers debuting on the list at #2 and #5: 1. [377 Downloads] The Fundamentals of Wealth Transfer Tax Planning: 2011 and Beyond, by John...

NY Times: Could Your Senator Conquer the 1040?

Posted on February 13, 2011
Sunday New York Times, Could Your Senator Conquer the 1040?, by John Schwartz: Who is America?s funniest politician? It sounds like a question with a built-in oxymoron, like ?What?s the best-ever disco song?? or ?Do you serve jumbo shrimp?? Still, there?s a comer on the scene: Tim Pawlenty, the former...

Do Members of Congress Who Sleep in Their Offices Receive a Taxable Fringe Benefit?

Posted on February 12, 2011
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has sent this letter asking the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate whether 33 members of Congress (7 Democrats and 26 Republicans) who sleep in their offices are violating the tax law by failing to report the free lodging as a...

Critiquing the 3d & 7th Circuits' Approval of the 2-Year SOL Innocent Spouse Reg

Posted on February 12, 2011
Following up on my earlier post, 3d Cir. Joins 7th Cir. in Reversing Tax Court and Upholding Innocent Spouse Reg (Jan. 20, 2011): A. Lavar Taylor, Adjunct Professor at Chapman and Director of the Center for the Fair Administration of Taxes, passed along its motion in the Ninth Circuit for...

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ABA Tax Section Submits Comment Letters

Posted on February 12, 2011
The ABA Tax Section has submitted these comment letters: Permission For Late Filing (Jan 20, 2011) Requirements For Tax- Exempt Hospitals (Jan. 20, 2011) Codification of Economic Substance (Jan. 18, 2011) Grandfathering Rules In The HIRE Act (Jan. 10, 2011) Bond-Financed Grants (Jan...

Do Estate Planners Need to Find New Jobs?

Posted on February 12, 2011
Sam Young, Gift Tax Clawback a Myth, Practitioner Says, 2011 TNT 29-5 (Feb. 11, 2011): Under a mechanical application of the new estate tax statute, there will not be a clawback of gifts made at the current $5 million exclusion level if the exclusion level drops, according to Jerome M...

Crawford: Estate, Gift & GST Charts

Posted on February 11, 2011
Bridget J. Crawford (Pace) has posted Overview of Statutory Framework for Federal Wealth Transfer Taxation on SSRN. Here is the abstract: These three charts provide a visual overview of the statutory frameworks for the gift, estate and generation-skipping transfers taxes...

Tenured Law Prof (Former Tax Lawyer) Convicted of Failing to File Tax Returns

Posted on February 11, 2011
National Law Journal, Law professor, a Former Tax Attorney, Convicted for Failing to File Tax Returns: A Minnesota jury has found a Hamline University School of Law professor guilty of four misdemeanor counts of failing to file state tax returns. Prosecutors alleged in their criminal complaint that Robin Kimberly Magee...

Government Grants Crowd Out Fund-Raising by Charities

Posted on February 11, 2011
James Andreoni (UC-San Diego, Department of Economics) & A. Abigail Payne (McMaster University, Department of Economics) have posted Is Crowding Out Due Entirely to Fundraising? Evidence from a Panel of Charities on NBER. Here is the abstract: When the government gives a grant to a private charitable organization, do the...

Pratt: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Posted on February 11, 2011
Katherine Pratt (Loyola-L.A.), Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: A professor of tax law argues that tax reform to reduce federal spending, budget deficits and the size of government may start with axing deductions and subsidies while adding credits.

Caron Presents Estate Tax Politics, Law & Policy Today at San Diego

Posted on February 11, 2011
I am delighted to be in San Diego today to speak to Jordan Barry's Tax Policy class on The 2010 Estate & Gift Tax Changes: Politics, Law & Policy. My wife and I are looking forward to re-connecting with some of the friends we have made over the years teaching...

Publishing in Open-Access Journals Does Not Increase Citations

Posted on February 11, 2011
Inside Higher Ed, Questioning the 'Citation Advantage': What if everything you knew about the incentives for publishing in an open-access journal was wrong? That is the provocative idea put forward in a new working paper [Did Online Access to Journals Change the Economics Literature?] by two scholars of scholarly publishing:...

Lokken & Kitamura: Double Tax Relief in the U.S. and Japan

Posted on February 11, 2011
Lawrence Lokken (Florida & Miami) & Yoshimi Kitamura (Tax LL.M. 2008, Florida; Finance Ministry of Japan) have posted Credit vs. Exemption: A Comparative Study of Double Tax Relief in the United States and Japan on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In the United States and elsewhere, basic principles of international...

Call for Speakers: CALI Conference -- Unbound

Posted on February 11, 2011
The 21st Annual Conference for Law School Computing will be held Thursday, June 23 through Saturday June 25 at Marquette University Law School (and its fabulous new building). The theme of this year's conference is "Unbound": We love the idea of UNBOUND in the abstract...

Court: NY Can Tax All Income of Owner of NY Vacation Home Used 17 Days/Year

Posted on February 11, 2011
Wall Street Journal, Out-of-State Owners Could Face Tax Bill: Connecticut and New Jersey residents with a Hamptons summer cottage or a Manhattan pied-a-terre are about to get a nasty surprise: New York state wants more taxes from them. A New York court ruled last month that all income earned by...

Is the Economic Substance Doctrine: Unconstitutionally Vague?

Posted on February 10, 2011
Thomas A. Cullinan & Shane A. Lord (both of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, Atlanta) have published Economic Substance Doctrine: Unconstitutionally Vague?, 130 Tax Notes 700 (Feb. 7, 2011): Cullinan and Lord discuss the uncertainty regarding when the IRS would apply the codified economic substance doctrine and whether it should be...

Virginia Tax Review Publishes New Issue

Posted on February 10, 2011
The Virginia Tax Review has published Vol. 30, No. 2 (Fall 2010): James S. Halpern, Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Determining Economic Substance Independent of the Language of the Code, 30 Va. Tax Rev. 327 (2010) Jerome B. Libin, Congress Should Address Tax Avoidance Head-On: The Internal Revenue Code...

Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Decide Definition of 'Public Charity'

Posted on February 10, 2011
Howard Bashman reports that the Pennsylvania has agreed to hear an interesting case on the meaning of the phrase "purely public charity" in the Pennsylvania constitution: The specific question that the court has granted review to consider and resolve is: Whether the Pennsylvania Legislature's enactment of criteria in Act 55...

The Ten Principles of Economics (10th Anniversary Edition)

Posted on February 10, 2011

McLaughlin: § 170 -- National Perpetuity Standards for Federally Subsidized Conservation Easements (Part 1)

Posted on February 10, 2011
Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) has published Internal Revenue Code Section 170(h): National Perpetuity Standards for Federally Subsidized Conservation Easements -- Part 1: The Standards, 45 Real Prop., Prob. & Tr. J. 473 (2010). Here is the abstract: This Article is the first of two companion articles that (i) analyze the...

Oei Presents Reforming the Offer-in-Compromise Procedure at Indiana

Posted on February 10, 2011
Shu-Yi Oei (Tulane) presents Modeling the Forgiveness of Tax Debts: Towards Effective Reform of Tax Law's Offer in Compromise Procedure at Indiana-Bloomington today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. Here is the abstract: The Offer-in-Compromise (?OIC?) procedure is a procedure by which the IRS deals with taxpayers who...

TIGTA: The IRS Continues to Pay $12 Billion/Year in Phony EITC Claims -- A 25% Error Rate

Posted on February 10, 2011
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Reduction Targets and Strategies Have Not Been Established to Reduce the Billions of Dollars in Improper Earned Income Tax Credit Payments Each Year (2011-40-023): The GAO has listed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Program as having the second highest dollar...

Keen Presents The Taxation and Regulation of Financial Institutions Today at NYU

Posted on February 10, 2011
Michael Keen (International Monetary Fund) presents The Taxation and Regulation of Financial Institutions at NYU today as part of its Colloquium Series on Tax Policy and Public Finance. Here is the abstract: The crisis has prompted many countries to rethink, and several already to reform, the taxation of financial institutions...

IRS: Breastfeeding Is a Deductible Medical Expense

Posted on February 10, 2011
Following up on my prior post, Lawmakers Ask IRS to Treat Breastfeeding as a Medical Expense (No. 10, 2010): the IRS today issued an advance copy of Announcement 2011-14, 2011-9 I.R.B. ___ (Feb. 28, 2011): The IRS has concluded that breast pumps and supplies that assist lactation are medical care...

New Markets Tax Credit Program Intended for Poor Neighborhoods Instead Funds Upscale Development

Posted on February 10, 2011
CBS News, Fancy Hotel Renovated with Your Tax Dollars; Hotel Renovation Subsidized by a Federal Program Aimed at Helping Poor Communities Bloomberg, Rich Take From Poor as U.S. Subsidy Law Funds Luxury Hotels: The landmark Blackstone Hotel in downtown Chicago, which has hosted 12 U...

Deanell Reece Tacha Named Dean at Pepperdine

Posted on February 10, 2011
Judge Deanell Reece Tacha of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, former Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at Kansas, has been named Dean at Pepperdine, effective June 1. From the Pepperdine press release: ?Devoting more than a quarter century of work to both...

Stephen Shay Named Professor of Practice at Harvard

Posted on February 09, 2011
Stephen Shay, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs in the Treasury Department, has accepted a position as Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. From the Harvard press release: Since joining the Treasury Department in 2009, Shay has worked to develop and oversee implementation of U...

Size Matters: Thomas Cooley's 2011 Law School Rankings

Posted on February 09, 2011
Thomas Cooley Law School has released the 12th annual edition of its law school rankings, Judging the Law Schools. The ranking is based on equal (2.5%) weights assigned to 40 objective variables from the Official ABA Guide to Approved Law Schools. Many of these variables favor large law schools: J...

IRS Announces Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative 2.0

Posted on February 09, 2011
The IRS yesterday announced a second special voluntary disclosure initiative (available through Aug. 31, 2011) designed to bring offshore money back into the U.S. tax system and to help people with undisclosed income from hidden offshore accounts get current with their taxes...

More on the Villanova Rankings Scandal

Posted on February 09, 2011
Following up on Monday's post, Villanova Goosed its U.S. News Ranking by 'Knowingly' Submitting Inflated LSAT and GPA Data to ABA: Legal Ethics Forum, Details on Villanova's Reporting of Inaccurate Statistics Philadelphia Business Journal, Villanova Law Says It Reported Bad Data Philadelphia Inquirer, Villanova Says its Pre-2010 Admissions Data Was...

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