Taxation & Estate Planning

TEI Urges Moratorium on Taxing Employer-Provided Cell Phones

Posted on August 26, 2009
Following up on June's post, IRS Bails on Proposal to Tax Employee Cell Phone Use: the Tax Executives Institute on Monday urged the IRS to temporarily suspend enforcement of the rules requiring the inclusion of employer-provided cell phones in employees' income: In light of the Treasury Department?s and Commissioner?s support...

Court: MA Cannot Force NH Vendor to Collect Use Tax From MA Purchaser

Posted on August 26, 2009
Following up on last November's post on Town Fair Tire and the Silliness of the Physical Presence Rule for Use Tax Collection Nexus, 50 State Tax Notes 447 (Nov. 17, 2008): the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court yesterday issued its opinion in Town Fair Tire Centers v...

Tax Court Rejects Taxpayer's Attempt to Use Geithner's TurboTax Defense

Posted on August 26, 2009
The Tax Court yesterday rejected a taxpayer's attempt to use the TurboTax defense successfully employed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Hopson v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2009-130 (Aug. 25, 2009) (citations omitted): Petitioners have not met their burden of persuasion with respect to reasonable cause and good faith...

Divided Tax Court Refuses to Apply Check-the-Box Regs to Estate & Gift Tax

Posted on August 25, 2009
A deeply divided Tax Court yesterday handed the IRS a significant setback in allowing the taxpayer to claim substantial discounts for lack of marketability and control on the transfer of cash and marketable securities to a single member LLC followed by transfers from the LLC to trusts established for the...

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Patricia McClanahan Named Special Counsel to Clarissa Potter

Posted on August 25, 2009
Patricia McClanahan (Managing Director, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) has been named Special Counsel to Clarissa C. Potter, Deputy Chief Counsel (Technical) at the IRS. Ms. McClanahan previously was Tax Counsel on the Democratic staff of the Senate Finance Committee...

The Economic Cost of High Tax Rates

Posted on August 25, 2009
The Tax Foundation has calculated the economic cost of higher tax rates and the health care surtax: The Excess Burden of Taxes and the Economic Cost of High Tax Rates Towards Understanding the Full Burden of High Tax Rates

Tax Penalties and the Health-Care Bill

Posted on August 25, 2009
Op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal: Tax Penalties and the Health-Care Bill, by James M. Peaslee (Cleary Gottlieb, New York): Two tax provisions in the health-care bill voted on by the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this summer have gained significant attention...

Best Value Law Schools

Posted on August 25, 2009
The National Jurist has released its ranking of the Best Value Law Schools in the September 2009 issue: The National Jurist identified 65 law schools that carry a low price tag and are able to prepare their students incredibly well for today's competitive job market...

Felix & Hines: Union Workers Bear Greater Share of High State Corporate Taxes

Posted on August 25, 2009
R. Alison Felix (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) & James R. Hines, Jr. (Michigan) have posted Corporate Taxes and Union Wages in the United States on NBER. Here is the abstract: This paper evaluates the effect of U.S. state corporate income taxes on union wages...

Maid Owes IRS $80, Gets $122,783.51 Refund Check

Posted on August 25, 2009
Laura Schultz, a Denver house cleaner with Sunshine Maids, owed the IRS $80 but instead received a refund check for $122,783.51. She contacted the IRS and was told to void the check. "The IRS says it cannot comment on what caused the error, but Schultz still has to pay the...

The Distribution of Federal Taxes, 2009-12

Posted on August 25, 2009
The Tax Policy Center has published The Distribution of Federal Taxes, 2009-12, by Rachel M. Johnson & Jeff Rohaly: Overall, the federal tax system is progressive: on average, households with higher incomes pay taxes that are a larger share of their income...

Philadelphia Eagles

Posted on August 24, 2009
From the Philadelphia Inquirer: The Mayor's Office for the Re-entry of Ex-Offenders (MORE) offers a $10,000 tax credit for employers who hire people who have been released from prison. Michael Vick, the dogfighting-disgraced quarterback signed by the Eagles this month, spent 18 months in federal prison for his crimes against...

IRSTube & i(rs)Tunes

Posted on August 24, 2009
The IRS announced on Friday (IR-2009-76) that it has established YouTube (with twelve videos thus far) and iTunes (with six podcasts thus far; search "Artist: IRS") sites to educate taxpayers.

Tax Tip: If You're Gonna Sue the IRS for $1 Billion, Make Sure You've Filed Your Tax Returns

Posted on August 24, 2009
From the Mississippi Clarion Ledger: A Pearl man has been convicted in federal court in Jackson for failing to file income taxes for four years. Wiley Randolph ?Randy? Kuyrkendall had been accused of not filing income tax returns for 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005...

Southwestern Publishes its First Issue of Journal of Legal Education

Posted on August 24, 2009
Southwestern has announced the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Legal Education under its editorship, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Aug. 2009). From The Examiner: Previously hosted by the Georgetown University Law Center, August 2009 was the first issue of the journal hosted by Southwestern...

Former California Tax Official Indicted for Improperly Accessing IRS Information on 21 Taxpayers

Posted on August 24, 2009
From the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration: Andrea Schreindl was charged in California with Unauthorized Access to a Computer and Unauthorized Inspection of Return or Return Information. Ms. Schreindl, while an employee of the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB), accessed and inspected, without authorization, the Federal tax information of...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on August 24, 2009
Saturday: NY Times: Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall Shooting Blanks in the War on Tax Havens Symposium: The House That Taxpayers Built Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Unsuccessful Law Faculty Applicant Sues Iowa for Age Discrimination Deducting Gift Cards Donated to Charity

Death of Susan Kalinka

Posted on August 24, 2009
Tax Prof Susan Kalinka, the Harriet S. Daggett-Frances Leggio Landry Professor of Law at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, died this morning. She was 60 years old. From LSU Chancellor Jack M. Weiss: Professor Kalinka was an exceptional teacher and scholar of tax law...

What's Wrong With Law School

Posted on August 24, 2009
In a L.A. Times article on the opening of the new UC-Irvine Law School, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky pinpoints a problem afflicting many law schools: When he graduated from law school in 1978, Chemerinsky was confident that his diploma would open the door to nearly any opportunity...

Philadelphia Eagles Pass on $10k Tax Credit for Hiring Ex-Convict Michael Vick

Posted on August 24, 2009
From the Philadelphia Inquirer: The Mayor's Office for the Re-entry of Ex-Offenders (MORE) offers a $10,000 tax credit for employers who hire people who have been released from prison. Michael Vick, the dogfighting-disgraced quarterback signed by the Eagles this month, spent 18 months in federal prison for his crimes against...

Charitable Life Insurance Gift Program Blows Up on University, Donors

Posted on August 24, 2009
Joe Kristan (Roth & Co.) blogs a tax fiasco reported in the Des Moines Sunday Register: Nearly 1,700 contributors to a University of Northern Iowa athletic scholarship fund lost an estimated $6.8 million in accumulated insurance this year when school officials determined the benefit violated federal tax law, according to...

Great Law School Class Comic

Posted on August 24, 2009
From Legally Drawn: (Hat Tip: Ann Murphy.)

Barry Wins ABA's VITA Award

Posted on August 24, 2009
For the fourth consecutive year, Barry University School of Law has received the ABA Tax Section's National Law Student Division Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program Award. From the Barry press release: Barry Law School?s VITA program has provided more than 2,000 hours of free tax preparation services to the...

Deducting Gift Cards Donated to Charity

Posted on August 23, 2009
New York Times: An Easy Way to Donate Unwanted Gift Cards to Schools, by Jenna Wortham: Ever wonder what to do with that lingering $11.86 left on a gift card for Lowe?s or Bloomingdale?s? What about donating it to charity? On average, each household in the United States has around...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on August 23, 2009
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 #4: 1. [371 Downloads] The Obama International Tax Plan: A Major Step Forward, by Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan) 2. [298 Downloads] Recent Developments...

Unsuccessful Law Faculty Applicant Sues Iowa for Age Discrimination

Posted on August 23, 2009
Donald Dobkin, 56, a professor at Central Michigan University and a partner in a Troy Michigan immigration law boutique law firm, has sued the University of Iowa College of Law for age discrimination for refusing to even interview him after he responded to an ad in the AALS placement bulletin...

Shooting Blanks in the War on Tax Havens

Posted on August 22, 2009
Timothy V. Addison (J.D 2009, Indiana) has published Note, Shooting Blanks: The War on Tax Havens, 16 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 703 (2009). Here is the abstract: The U.S. Treasury conservatively estimates that tax havens cost the United States over $100 billion annually in lost tax revenue...

Symposium: The House That Taxpayers Built

Posted on August 22, 2009
Symposium, The House That Taxpayers Built: Stadiums, Speech and Public Funding, 16 Vill. Sports & Ent. L.J. 255-89 (2009) (webcast here): John C. Fuller, Introduction, 16 Vill. Sports & Ent. L.J. 255 (2009) Marc Edelman, The House That Taxpayers Built: Exploring the Rise in Publicly Funded Baseball Stadiums From 1953...

NY Times: Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall

Posted on August 22, 2009
New York Times: Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall, by David Leonhardt & Geraldine Fabrikant: The rich have been getting richer for so long that the trend has come to seem almost permanent. They began to pull away from everyone else in the 1970s...

Peer Reputation & Overhead Expenditures Drive the U.S. News Law School Rankings

Posted on August 21, 2009
Tom Bell (Chapman) has a great post, How Top-Ranked Law Schools Got That Way, Pt. 1: How do law schools make it to the top of the U.S. News & World Report rankings? ... The items on the left of the graph count for more of each school's overall score,...

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