Taxation & Estate Planning

NTA Conference on Taxation

Posted on November 18, 2010
The National Tax Association's 103rd Annual Conference on Taxation kicks off today in Chicago. Tax Profs with speaking roles today include: Psychology and Taxation David Gamage (UC-Berkeley) (Organizer & Moderator) James Alm (Tulane), Kim Bloomquist (IRS) & Michael McKee (IRS), On the External Validity of Tax Compliance Experiments David Gamage...

Law School Transparency Project Update

Posted on November 18, 2010
The Law School Transparency Project has released this report on its initital request to law schools to disclose more employment data: The purpose of this report is to analyze the current interest among U.S. law schools in reforming how they disclose employment information...

How Some Law Schools Game Employment Data

Posted on November 18, 2010
Above the Law, The Secret To Inflating Employment Rates? Only Survey Law Grads Who Are Employed: The following will shock no one who has been paying attention to how law schools are trying to openly game the U.S. News law school rankings and mislead prospective law students...

IRS's Wrongful Imprisonment Ruling Stirs Controversy

Posted on November 18, 2010
Following up on last month's post, Why Do We Tax Recoveries by Prisoners Freed From Wrongful Imprisonment? (Oct. 28, 2010): Forbes, Wrongful Imprisonment Tax Ruling Stirs Controversy, by Robert W. Wood (Wood & Porter, San Francisco): [P]eople have been gleefully emailing me ...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Unsuccessful Law Faculty Applicant Sues Baltimore for Age Discrimination

Posted on November 18, 2010
Donald Dobkin, 56, a professor at Central Michigan University and a partner in a Troy Michigan immigration law boutique law firm, has sued his second law school in two years for age discrimination for refusing to interview him for a teaching position: National Law Journal, Job Applicant Accuses University of...

Fundamental Tax Reform and U.S. Economic Growth

Posted on November 18, 2010
Dale W. Jorgenson (Harvard University, Department of Economics) & Kun-Young Yun (Yonsei University (Korea), Department of Economics) have posted Lifting the Burden: Fundamental Tax Reform and U.S. Economic Growth on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive treatment of the cost-of-capital approach for analyzing the economic impact...

Motro Presents Preglimony Today at Illinois

Posted on November 18, 2010
Shari Motro (Richmond) presents Preglimony, 63 Stan. L. Rev. ___ (2011), at Illinois today as part of its Faculty Workshop Series. Here is the abstract: Unmarried lovers who conceive are strangers in the eyes of the law. If the woman terminates the pregnancy, the man owes her nothing...

Gergen Presents A Case for Fault-Based Tax Penalties Today at Columbia

Posted on November 18, 2010
Mark Gergen (UC-Berkeley) presents Uncertainty and Tax Enforcement: A Case for Modest Fault-Based Penalties at Columbia today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. Here is the part of the Conclusion: The major conclusions of this article are as follows...

Foundation Press Publishes Statutory Interpretation Stories

Posted on November 17, 2010
Foundation Press has published Statutory Interpretation Stories, by William N. Eskridge, Jr. (Yale), Philip P. Frickey (UC-Berkeley) & Elizabeth Garrett (USC): Statutory Interpretation Stories tackles the leading cases in the emerging statutory interpretation canon, as reflected in the casebooks...

Applicants Say Rankings (Not Cost or Job Prospects) Is Most Important Criteria in Choosing a Law School

Posted on November 17, 2010
Kaplan Test Prep Survey: Aspiring Law School Students Place Rankings Above All Else: In deciding where to apply, pre-law students consider a law school?s place in the rankings more important than affordability, geographic location, its academic program ? and even more important than its job placement statistics...

Call for Tax Papers and Panels: Law & Society Annual Meeting

Posted on November 17, 2010
Neil H. Buchanan (George Washington) has issued his annual call for tax papers and panels for next year's annual meeting of the Law & Society Association in Chicago (June 2-5, 2011): I have been organizing tax sessions at the Law & Society Association's annual meetings for the past several years...

NY Times Endorses Clickers in the Classroom

Posted on November 17, 2010
Long-time readers of this blog know that I am an enthusiastic advocate of the use of clickers (Taking Back the Law School Classroom: Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning, 54 J. Legal Educ. 311 (2004)). The New York Times agrees: More Professors Give Out Hand-Held Devices to Monitor Students...

2d Cir.: Attorney Who Pevails in Personal Tax Case Cannot Recover Attorneys' Fees From IRS

Posted on November 17, 2010
The Second Circuit has held that an attorney who prevails in his presonal tax case cannot recover attorneys' fees under § 7430. United States v. Hudson, No. 09-3600 (2d Cir. Nov. 10, 2010): In other statutory contexts, this Court has ruled that a lawyer appearing pro se is not entitled...

Bipartisan Group Issues Budget Plan Calling for 6.5% National Sales Tax

Posted on November 17, 2010
The Bipartisan Policy Center, formed in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, today released a 140-page report by its Debt Reduction Task Force co-chaired by Pete Dominici and Alice Rivlin, Restoring America's Future (Executive Summary)...

IRS Tries to Find 111,893 Taxpayers Who Are Owed $1,471 Tax Refund Checks

Posted on November 17, 2010
The IRS announced today (IR-2010-113) that it is seeking to find 111,893 taxpayers to whom $164.6 million in refund checks (an average of $1,471) were mailed, but the checks were returned as undeliverable by the post office. Taxpayers can check the status of their tax refunds and update their addresses...

Would Your Law School Hire Brian Tamanaha as its Dean to Cut Faculty Pay and Increase Teaching Loads?

Posted on November 17, 2010
Brian Tamanaha (Washington University), My "Dean's Vision" Speech: If I am given the privilege to be your dean, I assure you that our law school has a bright future ahead. But the path to that future will not be an easy one. In the past decade, dean candidates typically have...

Walker: The Law and Economics of Executive Compensation

Posted on November 17, 2010
David I. Walker (Boston University) has posted The Law and Economics of Executive Compensation: Theory and Evidence on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This chapter from the forthcoming Research Handbook on the Economics of Corporate Law (Claire Hill & Brett McDonnell, eds...

IRS Advisory Group Releases 2010 Briefing Book

Posted on November 17, 2010
???The IRS Advisory Council yesterday released its 2010 Public Meeting Briefing Book, with 24 recommendations on a variety of tax administration issues.

Staudt Presents How Courts Fund Defense in Times of Crisis at Columbia

Posted on November 16, 2010
Tax Prof Nancy Staudt (Northwestern) presented The Judicial Power of the Purse: How Courts Fund National Defense in Times of Crisis at Columbia yesterday as part of its Law and Economics Workshop Series. Here is the abstract: This introduction to a forthcoming book (University of Chicago Press, 2011) briefly describes...

63rd Annual University of Chicago Federal Tax Conference

Posted on November 16, 2010
Here are the papers from the University of Chicago Law School's 63rd Annual Federal Tax Conference (Nov. 12-13, 2010): Nicholas J. DeNovio (Latham & Watkins, Washington, D.C.), U.S. Tax Policy and Repatriation of Foreign Earnings: Do We Care About the "Lock-Out Effect" on Earnings or Not? (PowerPoint) Commentators: Barbara Angus...

IRS Throws in Towel on Closely Watched International Tax Case

Posted on November 16, 2010
The Recorder, IRS Throws in Towel on Closely Watched International Tax Case: Attorneys from Baker & McKenzie in Palo Alto and Chicago are celebrating after beating the IRS in a complicated transfer pricing case that's been closely watched by tech companies and international tax lawyers...

30 College Presidents Made $1 Million in 2008

Posted on November 16, 2010
Following up on my previous post, 100 Colleges Charge $50k/Year -- Up from 58 in 2009-10 and 5 in 2008-09: 30 college presidents earned more than $1 million in compensation in 2008 (up from 23 in 2007), topped by Touro President Bernard Lander's $4,786,830 compensation...

Pollack: Revenge of the 80th Congress

Posted on November 16, 2010
Sheldon D. Pollack (University of Delaware, Lerner College of Business) has published Revenge of the 80th Congress, 129 Tax Notes 819 (Nov. 15, 2010): Prof. Pollack puts the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts in a broader historical context. The current battle over marginal income tax rates is the...

Senate Finance Committee Seeks to Hire Three Democratic Tax Staffers

Posted on November 16, 2010
The Senate Finance Committee Democratic staff is looking to fill three tax positions: The Democratic staff tax team of 10 advises Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and the eleven other Democratic Senators on the Finance Committee regarding tax matters. We welcome professionals with different skill sets and from many disciplines...

Cornell Prof Goes Nuts After Student Yawns in Class

Posted on November 16, 2010
Cornell Insider, Hotel Prof. Erupts: 'YAWN OUTSIDE!': Most kids know from a young age not to sleep in class. But if you?re in Professor Mark Talbert?s lecture hall, you better not even yawn. A video has surfaced this past week of the Hotel Administration professor yelling at an unknown student...

IRS Withdraws John Doe Summons After Receiving Taxpayer Names From UBS

Posted on November 16, 2010
Statement of IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman ABC News Bloomberg Dow Jones Wall Street Journal

Walker: Business Deductions in a Net Income Tax System

Posted on November 16, 2010
David I. Walker (Boston University) has posted Suitable for Framing: Business Deductions in a Net Income Tax System, 52 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. ___ (2011), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The federal income tax code includes numerous provisions disallowing or curtailing income tax deductions related to such disparate...

CNBC: Before Raising Taxes, Collect $3.3b Taxes Owed by Federal Workers

Posted on November 16, 2010
Following up on my prior post, Over 280,000 Federal Workers Owe $3.3 Billion in Back Taxes (up from $3.0 billion in 2008 and $2.7 billion in 2007): CNBC, Government Employees Owe Billions in Delinquent Taxes: Need a quick three billion dollars, Uncle Sam? How about looking in your own pockets?...

Jackel: Regulatory Antiabuse Rules and the Supreme Court

Posted on November 15, 2010
Monte A. Jackel (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Washington, D.C.) has published Regulatory Antiabuse Rules and U.S. Supreme Court Precedent, 129 Tax Notes 835 (Nov. 15, 2010): This column examines a recent application by the IRS [ILM 201044003] of a regulatory antiabuse rule that is seemingly contrary to binding U...

NY Times: You Fix the Budget

Posted on November 15, 2010
The New York Times has a cool interactive graphic, Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget (printable version here): Today, you?re in charge of the nation?s finances. Some of your options have more short-term savings and some have more long-term savings. When you have closed the budget gaps for both 2015...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.