Taxation & Estate Planning

Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead

Posted on October 23, 2010
When the Yanks finally get eliminated in a given year, I feel more relief than enjoyment. It makes the rest of the post-season more relaxing and fun, but I still can't forget the astonishing terms of MLB "competition" these days.Okay, they lost to the Rangers despite having used their vast financial superiority to take away the Rangers' best two pre-Hamilton hitters (A-Rod and Teixeira)...

New publications, part 2

Posted on October 22, 2010
Also forthcoming in the December 2010 issue of the National Tax Journal, and offered here for your convenience despite the incalculable* harm to my SSRN download rating, is my solo piece, "Rethinking Foreign Tax Creditability." Available here.*Incalculable by me at any rate, though probably extremely small.

New publications, part 1

Posted on October 22, 2010
"Taxation and the Financial Sector," which I co-authored with Doug Shackelford and Joel Slemrod, will be coming out shortly in the December 2010 issue of the National Tax Journal.Though this might cost me SSRN downloads (the coin of the realm these days in legal academia), a convenient PDF version of the final article is available here.

Expansionary fiscal austerity?

Posted on October 21, 2010
I often disagree in various respects with Dean Baker. For example, I'm more of a deficit hawk under non-recessionary circumstances, and more inclined to cut entitlements growth as a part of the long-term adjustments that are needed to avoid a major fiscal disaster...

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This is going too far

Posted on October 20, 2010
I wanted to refer to the Mad Tea Party in a subchapter heading of my book in progress on U.S. international taxation. Having in mind, of course, the scene in Alice in Wonderland. But if I did this, too many readers would assume it was a contemporary political reference...

Disappointing discovery of the day

Posted on October 19, 2010
The Earl of Sandwich may have invented (or more likely popularized) the meal item named after him because he was working so hard as a Cabinet minister, rather than because he was gambling around the clock.

Forum on the Bush tax cuts: official link now posted

Posted on October 14, 2010
The NYU Law School website now has a live-action link concerning the October 27 Forum at which Diane Lim Rogers, Alan Viard, and I will be the invited speakers (though with plenty of audience discussion) on the topic "Congress Revisits the Bush Tax Cuts: Who Should Pay Taxes, and How Much?"If you're potentially interested in attending, just scroll down to October 27 and click on the event title for more information.

Invidious rhetoric directed at fellow hominoids

Posted on October 14, 2010
While at an academic tax conference last weekend, I experienced the frisson (a word I've never actually used before, either in speech or writing) of coming across a lively-sounding quote from my own past work that I had completely forgotten writing.The paper we were discussing at the conference concerned overlaps between programs designed by different Congressional committees, and it cited a paper of mine from some years back that discusses the effective marginal tax rates that can apply to poor individuals from federal and state income and other taxes plus income-based phase-outs of TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, the EITC, rental vouchers, etc...

Peter Diamond's Economics Nobel

Posted on October 12, 2010
Nice to see him get it; well-deserved; insert here all-too-predictable (shame that it has to be) snark about Senate buffoons who have placed a hold on his Fed nomination because they think he's not up to their high economics standards.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger...

Expiring tax cuts - early notice of NYU Law School event

Posted on October 12, 2010
Readers in the NYC area may be interested in an upcoming event that I've been helping to organize at NYU Law School, to take place of Wednesday, October 27, from 12:20 to 1:50 pm. Every week in this slot, we have a "Forum," aimed mainly at law students, discussing various legal topics of professional or intellectual interest...

Random book recommendation

Posted on October 06, 2010
For reasons not worth going into here, I recently recommended to a friend one of my favorite books, Saki's The Unbearable Bassington.Her review: "I thought it was great. Sad, funny, psychologically acute, and beautifully written."I'll repeat that recommendation here, if only because (a) it's such a great book that not many people know about, and (b) Saki, a...

Conflicts of interest

Posted on October 04, 2010
This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education raises important questions about the incentive structure that many economists and law profs, if writing about issues that business groups care about, face these days. To be sure, it's a matter of broad-ranging entrepeneurial choice how one directs one's academic efforts...

Still having the wrong debate

Posted on September 30, 2010
The New York Times today picks up on the ongoing debate about whether the top bracket should uniquely be left out of extending the expiring Bush tax cuts for individuals. The article refers, inter alia, to the Todd Henderson-Brad DeLong et al brouhaha on which I briefly weighed in last week...

New article available on SSRN

Posted on September 28, 2010
I have posted on SSRN my latest article, "The Rising Tax-Electivity of U.S. Corporate Residence," subject of my Tillinghast Lecture at NYU last week.Link is here. Abstract is as follows:In an increasingly integrated global economy, with rising cross-border stock listings and share ownership, U...

Another reader's response to Getting It

Posted on September 27, 2010
A lawyer who read Getting It (via a mutual friend, but without knowing the personal connection back to me) says:"A tale of avarice, greed, back-biting, debauchery, treason, and dishonesty! In other words, an accurate portrayal of the legal profession...

Watch my Tillinghast Lecture!

Posted on September 24, 2010
Why settle for just my slides, when you can watch the entire lecture via the NYU homepage here, or directly on youtube here.

Most hilarious line of the week

Posted on September 23, 2010
From the Republicans' "Pledge to America,", this year's severely marked-down sequel to the infamous 1994 "Contract with America":"With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels...

PPT slides for my Tillinghast Lecture, "The Rising Tax-Electivity of U.S. Corporate Rresidence

Posted on September 22, 2010
Available here.

Tillinghast lecture at NYU Law School

Posted on September 21, 2010
Today I gave the 15th annual Tillinghast Lecture on International Taxation, to a group of about 300 people at NYU Law School. The audience mainly consisted of NYU graduate students in the International Tax Program, other NYU students, faculty and staff from the law school, NYU Law School grads, other legal academics, a few economists, and a number of tax practitioners...

Late to the fray

Posted on September 20, 2010
Todd Henderson, a University of Chicago law prof who writes about corporations, securities law, and such from what appears to be a classic U of C pro-markets and anti-regulatory perspective, has been having a rough time over the last few days (see, for example, Paul Krugman here) because of a blog post in which he complained about being potentially subject to a tax increase if the expiring Bush tax cuts are not extended for top-bracket taxpayers...

Pavement concert

Posted on September 20, 2010
Last night in Brooklyn, I got to see a 2-hour set by Pavement from about the 4th row (an approximation, since there was no seating). All it took was getting there not long after the gates opened, and then being willing to stand near the stage for almost 2 hours before they got started, a wait that was mitigated by two warm-up acts, including one with Jenny Lewis (formerly of Rilo Kiley)...

Back from the mists of time

Posted on September 19, 2010
When I was 17 years old and had just graduated from high school, I decided I was interested in art films (mostly foreign) and spent much of the summer going to see them in now-vanished Manhattan venues such as the Carnegie Hall Cinema and Bleecker Street Cinema...

Getting ready for the Pavement concert tomorrow

Posted on September 18, 2010
To get in the right frame of mind for the Pavement concert at Williamsburg Waterfront tomorrow night (2 tix still available, BTW, for Tuesday night in Central Park), I decided to make my own version of Quarantine the Past, their recently issued greatest hits (if that's the word for it) compilation CD...

More good news for people who like bad news

Posted on September 14, 2010
Desmond Lachman at AEI is predicting that "the Euro will unravel, and soon," which he notes would have disruptive effects extending well beyond Europe itself:"From a U.S. perspective, a deepening in the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis could threaten the rather feeble U...

Getting It versus the Coen brothers

Posted on September 10, 2010
The Coen brothers? Burn After Reading came out two years ago, but I only got around to seeing it on DVD last night. I liked it, and as a family activity in a household with 2 teenagers it was a big success, as the film?s snark level proved highly age-appropriate (though it worked for the adults as well)...

Swinging for the fences

Posted on September 09, 2010
My book in progress concerning U.S. international taxation, tentatively called "Fixing the U.S. International Tax Rules," is starting to come out pretty assertive regarding how I feel I am changing and advancing the prevailing analysis. This can be risky, because people don't want to hear such claims and may be inclined to resist them, but I feel it's justified...

With apologies for the commercial solicitation

Posted on September 08, 2010
Would anyone from the NYC area like to inquire about 2 Pavement tickets, featuring uberslacker Steven Malkmus from when he was still razor-sharp and at the top of his sardonic game? Central Park, Tuesday Sept 21.I can't go because I'm giving the annual Tillinghast Lecture on international taxation at NYU on that day, though I did manage to buy tickets to the preceding Sunday show.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall ...

Posted on September 08, 2010
Doug Holtz-Eakin, in a widely-linked MSNBC interview the other day:"Let's get away from the politics of personalities. Let's not talk about a Sarah Palin all the time, and let's have, again, a debate about ideas...."There may be a wound lurking beneath this comment that all those delightedly linking to it (mainly because the interviewer compared Palin fandom to taking cocaine) have missed...

Voting paradox and the 2010 elections

Posted on September 07, 2010
The "voting paradox" is based on the observation that it's irrational to vote in a large-scale election, such as those in the U.S. for President or the members in either house of Congress, if you place any value on your time and define the benefit from voting as the gain to you from increasing the likelihood that the election result will have a favorable effect on policy outcomes, from your perspective...

Negotiating with Republicans

Posted on September 07, 2010
I was glad to hear that Peter Orszag will now be a NY Times columnist, as he addresses tax and budget issues from a sophisticated perspective that has considerable overlap with mine. And we'll see how his take on the economy compares to Krugman's, now that he is in private life and free to speak...

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