Taxation & Estate Planning

Mass. Congressman's Wife Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud

Posted on October 06, 2010
Boston Globe, Congressman Tierney?s Wife to Admit to Tax Fraud: The wife of US Representative John F. Tierney is poised to plead guilty today to federal tax charges for managing a bank account that her brother allegedly used to deposit millions of dollars in illegal gambling profits raked in from...

Burch: National Funding for the Arts and § 501(c)(3)

Posted on October 06, 2010
Micah Burch (University of Sydney, Faculty of Law) has posted National Funding for the Arts and Internal Revenue Code § 501(c)(3), 37 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 303 (2010). Here is the abstract: For the large number of U.S. arts organizations whose existence depends on private charitable donations, qualification for...

Cavanugh: Targeted Allocations Hit the Spot

Posted on October 05, 2010
William G. Cavanugh (Chadbourne & Parke, New York) has published Targeted Allocations Hit the Spot, 129 Tax Notes 89 (Oct. 4, 2010). Here is the abstract: Cavanagh analyzes the economic effect prong of the substantial economic effect test applicable to partnership allocations and discusses traditional allocations as well as targeted...

BBA Hosts Program Today on The Codified Economic Substance Doctrine

Posted on October 05, 2010
The Boston Bar Association Tax Section hosts a program today on The Codified Economic Substance Doctrine: In March 2010, Congress codified the economic substance doctrine. To pass muster, a transaction must meaningfully change the taxpayer?s economic position, and the taxpayer must have a substantial non-Federal income tax purpose for the...

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Moin: The De Minimis OID Safe Harbor

Posted on October 05, 2010
Andrew D. Moin (Sullivan & Cromwell, New York) has posted De Minimis Original Issue Discount -- Thoughts on a Seemingly Generous Safe Harbor on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A bond that is issued for a price below its principal amount provides its holder with the economic equivalent of interest,...

The Effect of Peer Salaries on Faculty Job Satisfaction

Posted on October 05, 2010
Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA) blogs a new paper, Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction, by David Card (UC-Berkeley), Alexandre Mas (Princeton), Enrico Moretti (UC-Berkeley) & Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley). Here is the abstract: Economists have long speculated that individuals care about both their absolute income and their...

Symposium on the Law of Philanthropy in the Twenty-First Century, Part II: Tax and Donor Intent

Posted on October 05, 2010
The Chicago-Kent Law Review has published Symposium on the Law of Philanthropy in the Twenty-First Century, Parts II & III: Tax and Donor Intent, 85 Chi.-Kent. L. Rev. 849-1072 (2010): II. Tax Wendy C. Gerzog (Baltimore), The Times They Are Not A-Changin?: Reforming the Charitable Split Interest Rules (Again), 85...

Jensen: The Individual Mandate and the Taxing Power

Posted on October 05, 2010
Erik M. Jensen (Case Western) has posted The Individual Mandate and the Taxing Power, 37 N. Ky. L. Rev. ___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article, prepared for a symposium at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Northern Kentucky University, considers whether the Taxing Clause provides...

Soled: Discovering Unreported Income, Improper Deductions, and Hidden Assets After a Taxpayer Dies

Posted on October 05, 2010
Jay A. Soled (Rutgers Business School) has published Implications of Discovering Unreported Income, Improper Deductions, and Hidden Assets Upon a Taxpayer's Death, 44 Ga. L. Rev. 697 (2010). Here is part of the Introduction: This Article addresses the legal and ethical challenges engendered when wayward taxpayers die owing income and...

How America Saves for College

Posted on October 05, 2010
Sallie Mae and Gallup today released How America Saves for College. From the press release: 60% of parents have saved for their child?s college education, about the same as last year despite the difficult economic environment, and are on track to save $48,367 on average by the time their child...

Laffer: The Bill Gates Income Tax

Posted on October 05, 2010
Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Bill Gates Income Tax, by Arthur B. Laffer: Mr. Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington's November ballot that would impose a brand new 5% tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per...

The U.S. Is Not Ready for ReadyReturn

Posted on October 04, 2010
The Technology Policy Institute has published Should the Government Prepare Individual Income Tax Returns?, by Joseph Cordes & Arlene Holen. Here is the Executive Summary: Simplifying the complex U.S. tax code is the most direct way to reduce both the public and private costs of complying with the federal income...

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

Posted on October 04, 2010
We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email": RSS Feeds: You can subscribe to one of...

IRS Answered Only 136 of 352,758 Telephone Calls From Deaf Taxpayers

Posted on October 04, 2010
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has released Toll-Free Telephone Access Exceeded Expectations, but Access for Hearing- and Speech-Impaired Taxpayers Could Be Improved (2010-40-108): During the 2010 Filing Season, the IRS exceeded its key toll-free telephone assistance performance measurement goals...

USD-Procopia International Tax Institute

Posted on October 04, 2010
The sixth annual University of San Diego School of Law - Procopio International Tax Institute kicks off today. For a list of the speakers and their topics, see here.

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on October 04, 2010
Saturday: Tax Foundation Releases Property Tax Data American Lawyer (Student Edition) Corporate Tax Avoidance and Stock Price Crash Risk Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication Sunday: 2,840 Millionaires Claimed Jobless Benefits in 2008 Should the IRS Give Taxpayers an Itemized Receipt? Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads Former NFL Player...

Sugin Presents The New Normal in Tax Expenditure Analysis Today at Loyola-L.A

Posted on October 04, 2010
Linda Sugin (Fordham) presents What's the New Normal in Tax Expenditure Analysis? at Loyola-L.A. today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. The commentator is Edward Kleinbard (USC). Here is the abstract: The original designers of tax expenditure analysis used a normal tax, modeled on an administrable income tax,...

Chenchinski & Avi-Yonah: The Case for Dividend Deduction

Posted on October 04, 2010
Amir C. Chenchinski (Ernst & Young, Israel) & Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan) have posted The Case for Dividend Deduction on SSRN. Here is the abstract: There have been various proposals made in the past two decades to integrate the corporate and shareholder tax, including dividend exemption, imputation, and the Comprehensive...

Only 23% of Courses at Harvard Have a Final Exam

Posted on October 04, 2010
Boston Globe: The Test Has Been Canceled: Final Exams Are Quietly Vanishing From College: Across the country, there is growing evidence that final exams ? once considered so important that universities named a week after them ? are being abandoned or diminished, replaced by take-home tests, papers, projects, or group...

NY Times: Politicians in the Pulpit

Posted on October 04, 2010
New York Times, Election Season Puts Politicians in the Pews: [T]his is the electoral playoff season of October, when aspiring statesmen show up on doorsteps more often than jack-o?-lanterns. That means politicians are descending on the pews. ... ?God is good,? Andrew M...

Should the IRS Give Taxpayers an Itemized Receipt?

Posted on October 03, 2010
Third Way has published A Taxpayer Receipt, by David Kendall & Jim Kessler: Corn syrup, milk chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, coconut, almond, soy lecithin? any consumer can read these ingredients and their nutritional value on every package of a 75-cent Almond Joy...

Top 5

Posted on October 03, 2010
There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with new papers debuting on the list at #4 and #5: 1. [301 Downloads] The Ethics of Tax Lawyering: An Introduction, by Michael Hatfield (Texas Tech) 2. [234 Downloads] Fifty Years...

Former NFL Player Jailed for Punching CPA for Not Getting Him a Bigger Tax Refund

Posted on October 03, 2010
Web CPA, Ex-Football Player Jailed for Punching His Accountant: Former Kansas City Chiefs pro football player Joe Bruner was sentenced to nearly a year in prison for assaulting a CPA whom he blamed for his troubles with the IRS. ... His accountant, Wayne Montgomery, accused him of striking him several...

2,840 Millionaires Claimed Jobless Benefits in 2008

Posted on October 03, 2010
Bloomberg, Some 3,000 Millionaires Claim Jobless Benefits, IRS Data Show, by Ryan J. Donmoyer: After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires...

American Lawyer (Student Edition)

Posted on October 02, 2010
The Fall 2010 American Lawyer Student Edition is now available online, with these articles: The Summer Associates Survey The Minority Law Journal's Midlevel Associates Survey Happiness Is... (how some law schools are attempting to bring to their students a dose of reality to the idealized visions of what a lawyer's...

Corporate Tax Avoidance and Stock Price Crash Risk

Posted on October 02, 2010
Jeong-Bon Kim V (City University of Hong Kong), Yinghua Li (Purdue University) & Liandong Zhang (City University of Hong Kong) have posted Corporate Tax Avoidance and Stock Price Crash Risk: Firm-Level Analysis, 66 J. Fin. Econ. ___ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Using a large sample of U...

Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication

Posted on October 02, 2010
Nancy Levit, Lawrence Duncan MacLachlan & Allen Rostron (all of UMKC) have posted Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Each year law students collectively write a large number of papers that could become law review articles but that are never published...

Tax Foundation Releases Property Tax Data

Posted on October 02, 2010
The Tax Foundation has published New Census Data on Property Taxes on Homeowners, as well as a property tax lookup tool. Here are links to specific charts: Property taxes paid on owner-occupied housing for each of the 792 high-population counties (65,000 or greater) for 2009 (ranked by taxes as a...

NYLS (Not NYU)

Posted on October 01, 2010
The New York Law Journal has released its first annual New York Law Journal Rankings, including a ranking of New York-based LL.M. programs. New York Law School was named the best tax LL.M. program. (NYU has been #1 in each year of the U.S. News & World Report tax rankings,...

IRS Provides Relief for Homeowners With Chinese Drywall

Posted on October 01, 2010
The IRS yesterday (IR-2010-102) released Rev. Proc. 2010-36, 2010-42 I.R.B. ___ (Oct. 18, 2010), which provides a safe harbor that allows homeowners to treat damages from corrosive drywall as a casualty loss and provides a formula for determining the amount of the loss...

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