Taxation & Estate Planning

Eric Posner's Advice to Law Students: Do Not Take International Law

Posted on September 06, 2009
Duncan Hollis (Temple) asks: When Should American Law Students Take International Law? Eric Posner (Chicago) answers: never: There is no reason to take international law in any year unless you want to work as a lawyer in the State Department or certain obscure precincts of the Justice Department, hope to...

WSJ: Convert Remainder of Stimulus Package to Corporate Tax Repeal

Posted on September 06, 2009
Editorial in the Weekend Wall Street Journal: The Jobless Stimulus: It's Still Not Too Late to Redirect $400 Billion to Business Tax Cuts: [A] tax-cutting stimulus would have provided much more job and economic growth for the buck, and it could even now too...

The Student Debt Crisis, Part I

Posted on September 06, 2009
The Wall Street Journal, Students Borrow More Than Ever for College; Heavy Debt Loads Mean Many Young People Can't Live Life They Expected, by Anne Marie Chaker: Students are borrowing dramatically more to pay for college, accelerating a trend that has wide-ranging implications for a generation of young people...

U.S. News Law School Rankings: Judicial Clerkships

Posted on September 05, 2009
U.S. News & World Report yesterday published its first ranking of law schools by the percentage of the 2007 J.D. graduating class with clerkships with Article III federal judges. Here are the Top 50 law schools by this measure, along with the percentage of all federal and state judicial clerkships...

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The Effect of the EITC on Earnings Growth

Posted on September 05, 2009
Molly Dahl (Congressional Budget Office), Thomas DeLeire (University of Wisconsin, Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs) & Jonathan Schwabish (Congressional Budget Office) have published Stepping Stone or Dead End? The Effect of the EITC on Earnings Growth, 62 Nat'l Tax J...

NYSBA Releases Tax Reports

Posted on September 05, 2009
The New York State Bar Association Tax Section has issued tax reports on: Residency Rules for Student Housing (No. 1187) Application of Anti-Conduit Regulations to Hybrid Entities and Instruments (No. 1188)

Income Mobility in the U.S.

Posted on September 04, 2009
Gerald Auten & Geoffrey Gee (both of the Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury Department) have published Income Mobility in the United States: New Evidence from Income Tax Data, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 301 (2009). Here is the abstract: While many studies have documented the long?term trend of increasing income...

Lawsky & Cahn: Embryo Exchanges and Adoption Tax Credits

Posted on September 04, 2009
Sarah B. Lawsky (George Washington) & Naomi R. Cahn (George Washington) have published Embryo Exchanges and Adoption Tax Credits, 123 Tax Notes 1365 (June 15, 2009). Here is the abstract: The ?Option of Adoption Act,? a Georgia bill introduced by a staunchly anti-abortion Georgia state representative, establishes procedures for genetic...

The Little White Book of Baseball Law

Posted on September 04, 2009
John H. Minan (San Diego) & Kevin Cole (San Diego) have published The Little White Book of Baseball Law (ABA 2009). From the publisher's description: From free agency and scalping tickets, to the infamous Bartman Ball, this book has it all. The game of baseball has often resulted in brawls,...

IRS Is Building "Elite Division" to Audit Taxpayers With Offshore Accounts

Posted on September 04, 2009
Bloomberg Federal Tax Crimes Roth & Co. Wall Street Journal Web CPA

"Law School Is Not a Pizza Shop"

Posted on September 04, 2009
Fascinating article in this month's Washington Monthly, Pie in the Sky: What Happened When a Billionaire Pizza Mogul Tried to Build an Elite Catholic Law School, by Mariah Blake: Monaghan never lost sight of his Catholic roots. And beginning in the mid-1980s, he started delving more deeply into his faith,...

Hasen: Financial Options in the Real World

Posted on September 04, 2009
David M. Hasen (Penn State) has posted Financial Options in the Real World -- An Economic and Tax Analysis on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Many of the consequences of issuing and purchasing options on publicly traded property have been well understood since Black and Scholes developed a model for...

Keeping in Touch With Your Child at College

Posted on September 04, 2009
As I' have previously noted (here and here), I am grappling with the mixed emotions of my older child's departure to college three weeks ago. Thankfully, technology has made it quite easy to keep in touch with him: Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Are Tax Havens Good Neighbors?

Posted on September 04, 2009
Luisa R. Blanco (Pepperdine University, School of Public Policy) & Cynthia L. Rogers have posted Are Tax Havens Good Neighbors? An LDC Perspective on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Tax competition and spillover models offer ambiguous predictions concerning tax haven consequences for non-tax haven countries...

Lamest Accountant Video "Winners"

Posted on September 04, 2009
In my article, Tax Myopia, or Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Tax Lawyers, 13 Va. Tax Rev. 517, 520 n.6 (1994), I quoted James Gordon's great line: "A tax lawyer is a person who is good with numbers but who does not have enough personality to...

Tax Prof Moves, 2009-2010

Posted on September 03, 2009
Entry Level Hires Ilan Benshalom (Northwestern VAP) to Hebrew University, Israel Sam Brunson (Willkie Farr, New York) to Loyola-Chicago Mirit Eyal-Cohen (UCLA SJD) to Pittsburgh Benjamin Leff (Harvard VAP) to American Sagit Leviner (Tel Aviv University, Israel, VAP) to Ono Academic College, Faculty of Law, Israel Shuyi Oei (Bingham McCutchen,...

Testimony at IRS Forum on Tax Return Preparers

Posted on September 03, 2009
Here are the statements from yesterday's IRS Public Forum on Tax Return Preparer Review: Government Accountability Office, by Michael Brostek (Director, Strategic Issues) Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, by Mike McKenney (Assistant Inspector General for Audit) Oregon State Board of Tax Practitioners, by Ron A...

NY Times: Lock the Law School Doors

Posted on September 03, 2009
New York Times DealBook, Lock the Law School Doors, by Dan Slater: [A]s job opportunities abate, law school matriculation rates rise unchecked. Each year, the number of students who enroll at one of 200 law schools approved by the ABA inches closer to 50,000...

The Twix Tax Test Brings Twisted Results

Posted on September 03, 2009
Chicago Sun-Times, The Twix Tax Test Brings Twisted Results: A quick check of how retailers are applying Illinois' new sales tax law that took effect Tuesday shows that knowing what to count as candy vs. food will be a bit of a challenge. Candy used to be considered food and...

Minnesota's EITC Program

Posted on September 03, 2009
Donald P. Hirasuna (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) & Thomas F. Stinson (University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics) have published Minnesota?s Earned Income Credit Program: Utilization by Current and Former Welfare Households and the Impact of Policy Parameters, 62 Nat'l Tax J...

Tracking Law Firm Client Advisories

Posted on September 03, 2009
Tax Prof Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark) passed along this great site -- myCorporateResource.com: myCorporateResource.com is designed to empower corporate professionals with the latest in legal and commercial information from the world?s top law firms and industry insiders...

Georgetown Baseball Program Placed on NCAA Probation

Posted on September 03, 2009
Yesterday, in blogging about attending my son's first college soccer game, I mentioned my underwhelming college baseball career at Georgetown. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found this picture from the student newspaper recording one of my few highlights -- scoring in a rare win against Navy...

WaPo Calls on Rangel to Resign

Posted on September 03, 2009
Editorial in today's Washington Post, Sorry, Charlie; Rep. Rangel Must Step Aside as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee: His belated revelation of previously unreported income, property and bank accounts demands that he step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee...

Tax Court Denies IRS Worker's Claimed $49k Loss From Side Business

Posted on September 03, 2009
The Tax Court yesterday denied an IRS worker's claimed $48,778 in losses over a three-year period from side "business" that earned $400. Morrissey v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2009-135 (Sept. 2, 2009) (citation omitted): Joseph E. Morrissey (hereafter petitioner) worked full time for the IRS from 1998 to 2006, initially...

How Nebraska, Others Hide Adjuncts From U.S. News Rankings

Posted on September 03, 2009
In today's Inside Higher Ed, Hiding Adjuncts From "U.S. News": The American Federation of Teachers on Wednesday posted a blog item asking how it is, given those well documented trends, that magazine rankings give parents the sense that most of the teaching at large universities is done by full-time faculty...

'Make Sure Your Balls Aren?t Too Big'

Posted on September 03, 2009
Advice from Feminist Law Professors: Make Sure Your Balls Aren?t Too Big.

The Downside of an iPhone

Posted on September 03, 2009
One of the things I love about my iPhone is the ability to multitask my way through the day. I pound out email whenever and wherever I can -- waiting in line at the grocery store, before and during breaks in my kids' games, while watching Jon Stewart and Steven...

Tax Court Rejects NYU Prof's Request to "Just Google It"

Posted on September 02, 2009
Cunningham v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2009-194 (Aug. 31, 2009): The issues for decision are whether petitioners' reported losses from horse activities are limited by § 469 and whether petitioners have shown reasonable cause for the late filing of their return...

The Reach of the Blogosphere

Posted on September 02, 2009
Yet another example of the reach of the blogosphere: I went to my son's first college soccer game yesterday, and seized the opportunity to have lunch with my favorite accountant-tax blogger: Joe Kristan: Joe beat me to the punch by blogging our lunch here...

Revenue Effects of State Corporate Income Tax Policies

Posted on September 02, 2009
Sanjay Gupta (Michigan State University, Broad College of Business), Jared Moore (Oregon State University, College of Business), Jeffrey Gramlich (University of Southern Maine, School of Business) & Mary Ann Hofmann (Appalachian State University, Walker College of Business) have published Empirical Evidence on the Revenue Effects of State Corporate Income Tax...

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