Taxation & Estate Planning

Joulfaian: Estate Tax Repeal and Charitable Bequests

Posted on June 30, 2009
David Joulfaian (Office of Tax Analysis, Treasury Department) has posted On Estate Tax Repeal and Charitable Bequests, 123 Tax Notes 1221 (June 8, 2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This note reviews trends in charitable bequests over the past two decades...

Buckles: Should Yale Lose its Tax Exemption Because of its Opposition to the Solomon Amendment?

Posted on June 30, 2009
Johnny Rex Buckles (Houston) has published Do Law Schools Forfeit Federal Income Tax Exemption When They Deny Military Recruiters Full Access to Career Services Programs? The Hypothetical Case of Yale University v. Commissioner, 41 Ariz. St. L.J. 1 (2009)...

Law Prof Plutocrats

Posted on June 30, 2009
Daniel Gordon (St. Thomas University School of Law) has posted Hiring Law Professors: Breaking the Back of an American Plutocratic Oligarchy, 19 Widener L. Rev. ___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Law students and the consumers of legal services like to think that professors are hired by law...

National Taxpayer Advocate Releases Mid-Year Report to Congress

Posted on June 30, 2009
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson submitted her Mid-Year Report to Congress that identifies the priority issues the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate will address in the coming fiscal year. From the IRS press release: Among the key areas of focus will be working with the IRS to improve taxpayer...

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The Coming Demise of the TaxProf Email Discussion List?

Posted on June 30, 2009
As most of you know, I also manage the 14-year old TaxProf Email Discussion List, which currently has over 300 subscibers. This week's suggests that its days may be numbered: Change or Die: Scholarly E-Mail Lists, Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance, by Jeffrey R...

Brunson: Taxing Investors on a Mark-to-Market Basis

Posted on June 30, 2009
Samuel D. Brunson (Loyola-Chicago) has posted Taxing Investors on a Mark-to-Market Basis on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although the U.S. tax system generally only taxes income on a realization basis (that is, when payment changes hands), mark-to-market accounting better reflects economic income...

Death of Tom Levebre

Posted on June 30, 2009
Thomas V. Lefevre, former tax lawyer and Chair of Morgan, Lewis, has died at the age of 90. From the firm's press release (via Blog of Legal Times): Tom?s history at Morgan Lewis began in 1955, when he joined the firm as a tax law associate. He made partner a...

DOJ Asks Court to Order UBS to Release Names of 52,000 U.S. Offshore Account Holders in Tax Evasion Case

Posted on June 30, 2009
DOJ Memo Associated Press Bloomberg Reuters Wall Street Journal

Altman: We Need to Raise Taxes, Soon

Posted on June 30, 2009
Op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal: We'll Need to Raise Taxes Soon; Expect Congress to Seriously Consider a Value-Added Tax, by Roger Altman: Today, the U.S. ranks next to last among the 28 OECD nations in total federal revenue as a share of GDP. Our federal revenues represent 18% of...

Michael Jackson's Looming "Estate Tax Disaster"

Posted on June 29, 2009
In a previous article, Estate Planning Implications of the Right of Publicity, 68 Tax Notes 95 (1995), I warned that celebrities (and their counsel) must carefully plan their estates in light of the inclusion of the value of rights of publicity for estate tax purposes under § 2033...

Judge Sotomayor's Tax Opinions

Posted on June 29, 2009
The Congressional Research Service has released Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Analysis of Selected Opinions (R40649). Here is the discussion of Judge Sotomayor's tax opinions: Judge Sotomayor has not written extensively in the area of taxation, and it is not possible to draw conclusions about her judicial philosophy from the tax cases...

Update on Former Florida Law Prof's Racial and Sexual Discrimination Lawsuit Against School

Posted on June 29, 2009
I previously blogged (here, here, and here) the racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit filed against the University of Florida Levin College of Law and its dean,lawsuit by Sherrie L. Russell-Brown, a law professor at UF from 2001-2007, who alleges that she was forced out of her faculty position and denied...

Law School 4.0

Posted on June 29, 2009
The American Lawyer: Time for Law School 4.0, by Paul Lippe: If I need some insight into the future of medicine, I might head over to Stanford Medical School. If I wanted to learn about likely directions in finance and hedge funds, I might visit Penn's Wharton...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on June 29, 2009
Saturday: Tax Court Disallows Deductions for Unsubstantiated Expenses of Thomson-West Sales Rep Income Redistribution Under Obama's Budget Hanlon & Maydew: Book?Tax Conformity: Implications for Multinational Firms Sunday: 11th Circuit Grants Wesley Snipes Oral Argument in Appeal of His Tax Fraud Conviction More on DePaul's Firing of Dean Weissenberger Top 5...

Zelenak Responds to Raskolnikov's Revealing Choices

Posted on June 29, 2009
I previously blogged the new article by Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), published Revealing Choices: Using Taxpayer Choice to Target Tax Enforcement, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 689 (2009). Lawrence Zelenak (Duke) has published a response, Tax Enforcement for Gamers: High Penalties or Strict Disclosure Rules?, 109 Colum...

Federal Income Tax, Brought To You By . . .

Posted on June 29, 2009
In today's Inside Higher Ed: Study on Idea of Letting Donors Sponsor Courses: Trustees of City College of San Francisco have agreed to consider a formal plan to let donors sponsor classes that would otherwise be eliminated, The San Francisco Chronicle reported...

IRS Updates FAQ For Individuals With Offshore Accounts

Posted on June 29, 2009
The IRS has updated its 30-question FAQ by adding 21 new questions for Individuals with unreported income relating to offshore transactions who want to voluntarily disclose the information to the IRS. (Hat Tip: Peter Lagonowicz.)

Henderson: The End of an Era -- The Law School Class of 2008

Posted on June 29, 2009
Bill Henderson (Indiana) today blogs The End of an Era: the Bi-Modal Distribution for the Class of 2008, with this just-released chart from NALP on entry-level starting salaries for the class of 2008 [click on chart to enlarge]: Bill notes: Of the 22,305 law school graduates, a remarkable 23% (5,130...

Desai & Dharmapala: Earnings Management, Corporate Tax Shelters, and Book?Tax Alignment

Posted on June 29, 2009
Mihir A. Desai (Harvard Business School) & Dhammika Dharmapala (Illinois) have published Earnings Management, Corporate Tax Shelters, and Book?Tax Alignment, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 169 (2009). Here is the abstract: This paper reviews recent evidence analyzing the link between earnings management and corporate tax avoidance and considers the implications for...

Shaviro: Internationalization of Income Measures and the U.S. Book?Tax Relationship

Posted on June 28, 2009
Daniel N. Shaviro (NYU) has published Internationalization of Income Measures and the U.S. Book?Tax Relationship, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 155 (2009). Here is the abstract: Taxable income and financial accounting income are measures that use the same name but serve different purposes, leading to some differences in how they might...

11th Circuit Grants Wesley Snipes Oral Argument in Appeal of His Tax Fraud Conviction

Posted on June 28, 2009
Ellen Podgor (Stetson) of our sister White Collar Crime Blog reports that the 11th Circuit has granted actor Wesley Snipes oral argument in the appeal of his conviction on three misdemeanor tax fraud counts. Oral argument is scheduled for November 2009, so Mr...

More on DePaul's Firing of Dean Weissenberger

Posted on June 28, 2009
Following up on my previous coverage of DePaul's firing of Dean Glen Weissenberger: DePaul Fires Dean in Dispute Over Tuition to be Retained by Law School (6/19/09) DePaul's Firing of Dean Glen Weissenberger Is Universally Condemned (6/21/09) DePaul Names Illinois Judge as Interim Dean Over Unanimous Opposition of Faculty (6/22/09)...

Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads

Posted on June 28, 2009
There is a lot of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with three new papers debuting on the list at #3, #4, and #5: 1. [384 Downloads] Now You See it, Now You Don't: Exiting a Partnership and Making Gain Disappear, by Howard...

Cap-and-Trade: The Song

Posted on June 28, 2009
The House on Friday approved the cap-and-trade bill, 219-212 . Here is the Tax Foundation's perspective on the legislation:

Hanlon & Maydew: Book?Tax Conformity: Implications for Multinational Firms

Posted on June 27, 2009
Michelle Hanlon (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business) & Edward L. Maydew (University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School) have published Book?Tax Conformity: Implications for Multinational Firms, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 127 (2009). Here is the abstract: This paper examines the implications for multinational firms of recent proposals to...

Income Redistribution Under Obama's Budget

Posted on June 27, 2009
The Tax Foundation has published How Much Does President Obama?s Budget Redistribute Income?: New analysis of President Obama's Budget finds that he is targeting the nation's highest earners for greater income redistributions. By 2012, the federal government is scheduled to be redistributing an extra $79 billion from the top-earning 5%...

Tax Court Disallows Deductions for Unsubstantiated Expenses of Thomson-West Sales Rep

Posted on June 27, 2009
In Kyne v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2009-98 (June 25, 2009), the Tax Court upheld the IRS's disallowance of a Thomson-West sales rep's deductions for medical expenses, charitable contributions, and miscellaneous itemized deductions (including car expenses, parking fees and tolls, home office expenses, meals and entertainment expenses, and cell phone...

Walker: Improving the Long-Term Focus of Executive Pay

Posted on June 26, 2009
David I. Walker (Boston University) has posted The Challenge of Improving the Long-Term Focus of Executive Pay on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A consensus is developing that executive compensation in the U.S. is inadequately linked to long-term company performance, resulting in reckless, short-term decision making...

Taxes as a Cause of Small Business Bankruptcies

Posted on June 26, 2009
Rafael Efrat (California State University-Northridge, College of Business and Economics) has published The Tax Burden and the Propensity of Small-Business Entrepreneurs to File For Bankruptcy, 4 Hastings Bus. L.J. 175 (2008). Here is the Conclusion: Consistent with the growing tax burden on small-business owners, as well as the growing body...

Alm & Yunus: Spatiality and Persistence in U.S. Individual Income Tax Compliance

Posted on June 26, 2009
James Alm (Georgia State University, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies) & Mohammad Yunus have published Spatiality and Persistence in U.S. Individual Income Tax Compliance, 62 Nat'l Tax J. 101 (2009). Here is the abstract: This paper examines the twin issues of spatiality and persistence in the...

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