Taxation & Estate Planning

Law School Diversity Rankings

Posted on March 17, 2011
U.S. News: "U.S. News has created an index based on the total proportion of full- and part-time minority J.D. students?not including international students?and the mix of racial and ethnic groups on campus during the 2010-2011 academic year." 1. Hawaii 2...

Abortion and Taxes

Posted on March 17, 2011
House Ways & Means Committee, Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, Hearing Announcement House Ways & Means Committee, Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, Testimony of Thomas A. Barthold Chief of Staff, Joint Committee on Taxation Accounting Today, Congress Deliberates on Taxes and Abortions Bloomberg, Abortion Foes Collide With Tax Obstacle in...

EU Proposes Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base

Posted on March 17, 2011
The European Commission yesterday proposed a common system for calculating the tax base of businesses operating in the European Union: The aim of this proposal is to significantly reduce the administrative burden, compliance costs and legal uncertainties that businesses in the EU currently face in having to comply with up...

Harvey: Schedule UTP -- An Insider's Summary

Posted on March 17, 2011
J. Richard ?Dick? Harvey, Jr. (Villanova) has posted Schedule UTP: An Insider's Summary of the Background, Key Concepts, and Major Issues, 10 DePaul Bus. & Com. L.J. ___ (2011), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A former IRS Commissioner has called Schedule UTP "the biggest change in tax administration in...

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Law School Applications Fall 11.5%, to 10-Year Low

Posted on March 17, 2011
ABA Journal Truth on the Market Wall Street Journal WSJ Law Blog

'Soft Bounce' in Entry-Level Associate Hiring

Posted on March 17, 2011
NALP has released Perspectives on Fall 2010 Law Student Recruiting: Entry-Level Recruiting Experiences Small Bounce. From NALP's press release: Most of the markers that measure the strength of the legal employment market for new lawyers, such as law firm recruiting levels for summer programs and summer program outcomes, rose slightly...

Students File Disciplinary Charges Against Law Prof for Classroom Hypos

Posted on March 17, 2011
Despite a faculty committee's recommendation that Widener discontinue tenure revocation proceedings against Lawrence Connell, two students have filed complaints alleging that he used violent, racist classroom hypos involving the shooting of Dean Linda L...

What Should Be America's Top Tax Rate: 25% or 49%?

Posted on March 17, 2011
A 25% Top Rate: Bloomberg, Camp Suggests Lowering Top Individual, Corporate Tax Rates to 25% Future of Capitalism, A 25% Top Tax Rate Wall Street Journal, Tax Plan Aims for 25% Cap A 49% Top Rate: The Fairness in Taxation Act enacts new tax brackets for income starting at $1...

The Bucket List: The Tax Prof to Take Before You Die

Posted on March 17, 2011
The Bucket List: 23 Law Profs to Take Before You Die, The National Jurist (March 2011): What if you could bring together the most intereesting law profs from around the nation? Not necessarily the professors who would teach you the best. But the faculty that would entertain, inspire and intrique...

New 2012 U.S. News Tax Rankings

Posted on March 16, 2011
Here are the new 2012 U.S. News Tax Rankings, along with last year's rankings: 2012 Rank Tax Program 2011 Rank 1 NYU 1 2 Florida 3 3 Georgetown 2 4 Northwestern 4 5 Miami 5 6 Harvard 8 7 UCLA 11 8 Virginia 10 9 Boston University 6 10 Columbia...

IRS Pays

Posted on March 16, 2011
The IRS yesterday announced that it has paid a $1.1 million reward to a whistleblower for information that exposed an alleged tax fraud scheme by Enron. The reward represents the maximum 15% permitted under the statite. From the whistleblower lawyer's press release: "Enron was able to inflate its book earnings...

National Jurist: How Rankings Are Destroying Law Schools

Posted on March 16, 2011
The National Jurist (March 2011): How Rankings Are Destroying Law Schools: U.S. News & World's Report's annual rankings have fueled a moral tragedy -- with law schools gaming, doctoring and now even lying about their numbers in an effort to improve their rankings...

Tax Appreciation Day

Posted on March 16, 2011
Houston Chronicle, 'Lucky Winner' at Astros Game Learns Nothing Is Free: Bob Choate has sold restaurant equipment for years, so he already knew there was no such thing as a free lunch. Now, much to his chagrin, Choate has found there's no such thing as a free doughnut, either...

Death of Bill Stuntz

Posted on March 16, 2011
William J. Stuntz, Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a 52-year old father of three who lived with intense chronic pain for eleven years, died of colon cancer on Monday. I reprint below last year's post on Bill's gripping interview and testimony: Many people wonder...

Henderson & Morriss: It's Time to Restore Morality to Law School Rankings

Posted on March 16, 2011
William D. Henderson (Indiana-Bloomington) & Andrew P. Morriss (Alabama), How the Rankings Arms Race Has Undercut Morality, The National Jurist (March 2011): Each year the rankings arms race seems to produce a new low in law school conduct. Although all the law schools are run by lawyers, our reliance on...

Fennell Presents Willpower Taxes Today at Penn

Posted on March 16, 2011
Lee Anne Fennell (Chicago) presents Willpower Taxes, 100 Geo. L.J. ___ (2011), at Pennsylvania today as part of its Center for Tax Law and Policy Seminar Series hosted by Chris William Sanchirico and Reed Shuldiner. Here is the abstract: Self-control and related concepts appear regularly in tax discussions, but often...

Congress Requests Joint Tax Committee Reports on Debt v. Equity, Taxation of Financial Products

Posted on March 16, 2011
House Ways & Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee press release: In a bipartisan and bicameral effort to bring job creation to the forefront of the tax reform debate for American businesses and families, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI)...

GAO: IRS's Lack of Internal Controls Puts Confidential Taxpayer Info at Risk

Posted on March 16, 2011
The Government Accountability Office yesterday released IRS Needs to Enhance Internal Control over Financial Reporting and Taxpayer Data (GAO-11-308): Although IRS made progress in correcting previously reported information security weaknesses, control weaknesses over key financial and tax processing systems continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of financial and...

Gustafson: An 'Outside Limit' on Refund Suits

Posted on March 16, 2011
Adam R. F. Gustafson has posted An "Outside Limit" on Refund Suits: The Case Against the Tax Exception to the Six-Year Bar on Claims Against the Government on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Longstanding judicial precedent and the official position of the I...

2012 U.S. News Peer Reputation Rankings (v. Overall Rankings)

Posted on March 15, 2011
Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition, here is the full list of the 190 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2012 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Academic Peer Rank Academic Peer Score School Overall Rank 1 4...

TIGTA:

Posted on March 15, 2011
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Existing Practices Allowed IRS Contractors to Receive Payments While Owing Delinquent Taxes (2011-30-013): IRS contractors received more than $356 million in payments from the IRS in 2009 despite owing a combined $3...

Benshalom & Stead: A Critique of the Endowment Tax Consensus

Posted on March 15, 2011
Ilan Benshalom (Hebrew University) & Kendra Stead (J.D. 2011, Northwestern) have published Values and (Market) Valuations: A Critique of the Endowment Tax Consensus, 104 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1511 (2010). Here is the Conclusion: By arguing that the endowment tax may be somewhat observable but, with regard to earning capacity,...

Simplifying the Home Office Deduction

Posted on March 15, 2011
Lauren Marini (J.D. 2011, Baltimore) has published Comment, "Simplification" is Not Enough: An Analysis of the Home Office Tax Deduction and the Home Office Simplification Act of 2009, 40 U. Balt. L. Rev. 107 (2010). Here is part of the Introduction: This comment will explain why Congress should address the...

More on the 2012 U.S. News Law School Rankings

Posted on March 15, 2011
Following up on this morning's post, 2012 U.S. News Peer Reputation Rankings (v. Overall Rankings): ABA Journal, Yale Law School Tops US News Rankings; University of Texas Makes Top 14 Above the Law, The 2012 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Out! Constitutional Daily, US News: Hello Unemployment, Goodbye TTT...

Loomer Presents Treaties and the Castigation of Tax Havens Today at Toronto

Posted on March 15, 2011
Geoffrey Loomer (Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law) presents Tax Treaties, Investment Treaties, and the Castigation of Tax Havens at the University of Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series: Policy statements issued in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008,...

Ohio Promises Woman $200m Tax Refund (Albeit via Check, Not Direct-Deposit)

Posted on March 15, 2011
The Sandusky Register reports that a taxpayer received a latter from the Ohio Department of Taxation explaining that her $200 million refund could not be paid by direct deposit but that she would be sent a check: 9,700 other Ohio taxpayers also received letters promising inflated tax refunds The Department...

How Much Money Do the Rich Have?

Posted on March 15, 2011
National Review, How Much Money Do the Rich Have?, by Robert VerBruggen: My colleague Kevin D. Williamson has a piece today about how hard it would be to close the $1.1 trillion budget gap by taxing ?the rich.? I spent some time this weekend going through more detailed IRS data,...

Zelenak: Tax Scholarship -- Useful and Useless

Posted on March 15, 2011
Lawrence Zelenak (Duke) has published Tax Scholarship: Useful and Useless, 130 Tax Notes 1337 (Mar. 14, 2011): In his article Academic Articles on Tax, 130 Tax Notes 1189 (Mar. 7, 2011), Jasper L. Cummings, Jr. claims that "from the viewpoint of the [tax] practitioners, judges and government lawyers ...

Tax Homage to the Big Dance: Fill Out Your Tax Code Bracket

Posted on March 14, 2011
Robert G. Nassau (Syracuse) has published April Madness, 130 Tax Notes 1351 (Mar. 14, 2011): [T]here has never been a bracket of IRS sections, at least not until now. In an effort to remedy that glaring bracketology lacuna, I have taken it upon myself to select 64 (no play-in games...

World University Rankings by Reputation (For Research and Teaching)

Posted on March 14, 2011
London-based Times Higher Education has released a new world university ranking based exclusively on reputation for research (66.7%) and teaching (33.3%) from surveys of 13,000 academics from 131 countries (methodology). Top 25 -- Overall Reputation: Harvard University (United States) (100...

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