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Taxation & Estate Planning

Start Making Sense

Unfair but balanced commentary on tax and budget policy, contemporary U.S. politics and culture.

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Last Entry: November 04, 2020 at 16:18:00

Fun math problem for 8th graders who are baseball fans

Posted on September 06, 2010
My kids are both in high school now, hence too advanced in math for this, but here goes for anyone else whose kids are at the right level (and possibly starting the new school year this week). The other day Nyjer Morgan of the Washington Nationals charged the mound after the pitcher threw behind his head...

I guess I must have written some books other than Getting It

Posted on September 06, 2010
Bill Barnhart, an author (with a recent book about John Paul Stevens) and journalist who will be interviewing me on corporate taxation later this month, recently was kind enough to mention some other book I've written in the last couple of years:"As New York University law professor Daniel Shaviro remarks in his terrific book, Decoding the U...

Another favorable Amazon customer review for Getting It

Posted on September 03, 2010
"Hooked on books" says the following about Getting It:"I believe that if any book actually makes me laugh out loud at any point, it's worth bringing to others' attention, which is why I'm recommending Dan Shaviro's "Getting It", a satiric look at life among cut-throat young associates (and oblivious pompous partners) at a Washington D...

Upcoming talks this semester

Posted on September 02, 2010
I'll be traveling less far afield than usual in the fall semester, scheduled so far to give talks at St. John's, Rutgers-Camden, Harvard (tax group not general faculty), an ABA meeting in Chicago, and NYU's Tillinghast Lecture on September 21. At least one more talk is potentially in the works, however...

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New semester at NYU Law School

Posted on September 02, 2010
I'm on sabbatical (though agreeing to supervise a couple of student papers), but it appears we have a pretty strong incoming LLM class this year. Presumably courtesy of the terrible job market.

Personal milestone?

Posted on August 29, 2010
Some time between 1978 and 1981, I bought a box of staples in the Yale Co-op for $1.25 (or so it says on the box). Today, my wife took the last staples from the box to refill her stapler. I guess it's finally time for another box.

Volcker Commission Report

Posted on August 27, 2010
Today the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by Paul Volcker, released a 126-page report on tax reform options, designed to achieve tax simplification, improved compliance, and corporate tax reform without raising taxes for families that earn less than $250,000 per year...

Depressing reading?

Posted on August 26, 2010
Susan Morse's newly posted short piece, How Australia Got a VAT, makes depressing reading if you keep the U.S. in the back of your mind while going through it. She offers a nice description of how Australia ended up adding a VAT in 2000, absent any of the usual causal elements (severe fiscal crisis, World Bank or IMF pressure, etc...

And another article

Posted on August 25, 2010
I've almost finished my new article, "The Rising Tax-Electivity of U.S. Corporate Residence," though I probably won't post it on SSRN until after I deliver it at NYU on September 21 as the Tillinghast Lecture. Some good stuff in it, including (a) what we know about such electivity today, (b) state of the play on the distributional (pertaining to individuals) as well as efficiency issues raised by residence-based entity-level worldwide taxation, and (c) a proposed $200 billion (!) transition tax if the U...

Tom Tomorrow on the supposed "ground zero mosque"

Posted on August 24, 2010
From his latest cartoon, available here:"A visitor to that hallowed ground might wander several blocks north past the neighborhood strip clubs, off track betting parlor, and fast food joints - and stumble across an Islamic cultural center!"I'm offended just thinking about it!"But not to worry, sleazy pols are coming to the rescue...

Another day, another paper posted on SSRN

Posted on August 24, 2010
Kim Clausing and I have just posted on SSRN our recently completed paper draft, "A Burden-Neutral Shift from Foreign Tax Creditability to Deductibility?"You can download it here. The abstract is as follows:Observers of international tax rules have long conflated two distinct effects of the foreign tax credit on multinational firms: the effect on the incentive to invest abroad and the effect on foreign tax sensitivity...

Keeping one's composure

Posted on August 23, 2010
I've been struggling with a blog post that keeps coming out a bit too strong. The gist of it is that, for reasons such as those discussed here, people like Gingrich and Palin are guilty, not only of odious bigotry against the members of a faith with one billion members worldwide, but of deliberately hurting the United States and, in particular, placing New Yorkers (such as me and my loved ones) at greater risk of becoming victims of terrorism...

Deep thought for the day

Posted on August 21, 2010
Our furniture's bete noire is a bete brune (Buddy).

NYU Tax Policy Colloquium, spring 2011 schedule

Posted on August 19, 2010
I'll be co-teaching the colloquium with Mihir Desai again. Here is our schedule for next winter, a.k.a. the spring semester. 1. January 20 ? Joseph Bankman, Stanford Law School 2. January 27 ? Yair Listoken, Yale Law School 3. February 3 ? David Miller, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP 4...

Betting on your own grades: incentive effects vs. distributional effects

Posted on August 19, 2010
As noted by the Tax Prof blog, the Wall Street Journal has an article today discussing a new on-line service that would permit students to bet regarding their own grades. Supposedly, this would provide incentives for bettors to work harder, as in the case where you wager $50 on getting at least an A-, and thus engage in extra studying to make sure you get there...

Getting It sales (first quarter, post-release)

Posted on August 17, 2010
Fewer second quarter sales of Getting It than I had expected, not quite 300 for March through June. I am hoping for 2,000 or so, and feel that it deserves more (including a film), but that remains a long way off.

Death of Dan Rostenkowski

Posted on August 11, 2010
Chicago news outlets are apparently reporting that former House Ways and Means Chair Rostenkowski has died. I was on the Joint Committee of Taxation staff for the 1986 Tax Reform Act, during Rosty's tenure. Whatever else one says about him at any other point in his career, at that time I observed him to be a true statesman and leader...

Down with the home mortgage interest deduction

Posted on August 09, 2010
The 2008 financial crisis made it clear that the home mortgage interest deduction is even worse, and perhaps I should say much worse, than experts had previously thought. The long-obvious (to tax policy types) points against it were that it inefficiently encourages both home consumption relative to other consumption, and home ownership relative to home rental (unless the tax breaks for the latter are commensurately big, as they may have been, say, in the mid-1980s)...

Krugman's Paul Ryan takedown

Posted on August 06, 2010
Highlights include "charlatan ... The Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America?s fiscal future."The short version that is clearly correct: It is utterly impossible to propose an even remotely credible plan for restoring long-term fiscal sustainability that involves massive tax cuts, as Ryan's plan does...

What am I currently working on?

Posted on August 05, 2010
Despite all my frivolous posts in recent days on such burning issues as adolescent Triceratops, the supposed U.N. plot against Colorado, and possibly bombastic indie rockers, I actually am reasonably hard at work writing on international tax issues.My foreign tax credit paper is pretty much final for two publications (long version in the Journal of Legal Analysis, short version in the National Tax Journal), and I am also working with an economist co-author on a follow-up piece with empirical content...

Science shocker

Posted on August 05, 2010
First they took away Brontosaurus, renaming it Apatosaurus, and no one said anything.Then they came and took away Pluto, and again no one tried to stop them.Now they are taking away Triceratops ...Though just for the record, I am actually fine with the latter two developments...

Dastardly U.N. plot to take over Colorado

Posted on August 04, 2010
Fear not, however. The Republican gubernatorial candidate who is actually leading in the primary polling is all over it like a cheap suit.

Grim reminder

Posted on August 02, 2010
David Stockman reminds us that Republicans, or at least important elements in their leadership, used to be sane and responsible, rather than reckless know-nothings.

Musical note

Posted on August 02, 2010
I tried to like Arcade Fire's first album but found it too bombastic. Am I missing something?

Greatest fictional lawyers - vote for Bill Doberman!!

Posted on July 29, 2010
The latest issue of the ABA Journal has, as its cover story, "The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)." These are not necessarily the fictional lawyers described as being the most able, but rather the best characters who are lawyers...

Unjust $10 Billion Tax Credit for BP??

Posted on July 28, 2010
Far be it from me to say anything nice about BP after the horrendous mess they created in the Gulf of Mexico. Accidents happen, but everything I've read suggests that the company had a reckless culture that made a mockery of prudent and safe practice...

The expiring tax cuts

Posted on July 26, 2010
Political attention is beginning to focus on the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, so perhaps I should weigh in. The Obama Administration, presumably for reasons of political cowardice (or to put it more kindly, prudence), purports to favor generally extending them except for the top bracket...

More on the same theme of approaching U.S. default

Posted on July 26, 2010
More on the same theme as Bruce Bartlett from Martin Wolf.I have been arguing this for several years - in particular, in my recent book Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Toward Bankruptcy. The U.S. government is going to default in some way (including implicit or quasi-default of some kind), with a high degree of certainty - not because the economic or demographic trends are so dire, but because our political system is irretrievably broken...

Bruce Bartlett interview in the Economist

Posted on July 25, 2010
This makes enormous sense and is well worth reading.

Crazy stuff

Posted on July 23, 2010
Tennessee Republican Congressman (and gubernatorial candidate in the state's Republican primary) Zack Wamp lauds Texas governor Rick Perry as a "patriot" for urging secession if healthcare reform isn't repealed by 2012. Certainly an interesting and innovative use of the word...

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