Taxation & Estate Planning

ABA Tax Section Hosts Webcast Today With Lindy Paull, Eric Solomon

Posted on February 09, 2011
The ABA Tax Section offers a teleconference and webcast today on Legislative and Tax Policy Discussion with Lindy Paull and Eric Solomon from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. EST: Please join Lindy Paull, former Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, and Eric Solomon, former Assistant Secretary for Tax...

Taxation in Comparative, Historical and Sociological Perspective

Posted on February 09, 2011
Legal History Blog, Taxation in Comparative, Historical and Sociological Perspective: [Here's an announcement for a graduate student workshop on comparative historical approaches to fiscal sociology, held in conjunction with the Social Science History Association...

Tax Lawyers and Tax Complexity

Posted on February 09, 2011
Cato Institute, Tax Lawyers, Tax Complexity, and the Broader Problem of a Self-Serving Legal Profession, by Daniel J. Mitchell: The Internal Revenue Code is nightmarishly complex, as illustrated by this video. Americans spend more than 7 billion hours each year in a hopeless effort to figure out how to deal...

Newton: How Law Profs' Preoccupation with 'Impractical Scholarship' Obstructs Legal Education Reform

Posted on February 09, 2011
Brent E. Newton (Adjunct Professor, Georgetown; Deputy Staff Director, U.S. Sentencing Commission) has published Preaching What They Don't Practice: Why Law Faculties' Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical Competencies Obstruct Reform in the Legal Academy, 62 S...

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Giertz Presents Elasticity of Taxable Income and Marginal Rates Today at Penn

Posted on February 09, 2011
Seth Giertz (University of Nebraska, Department of Economics) presents The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review (with Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley, Department of Economics) & Joel Slemrod (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business)) at Pennsylvania today as part of its Center for Tax...

5th Circuit Joins Three Other Circuits: 6-Year SOL N/A to Overstatement of Basis

Posted on February 09, 2011
The Fifth Circuit today sided with the Fourth (Home Concrete & Supply LLC v. United States, No. 09-2353 (4th Cir. Feb. 7, 2011)), Ninth (Bakersfield Energy Partners LP v. Commissioner, 568 F.3d 767 (9th Cir. 2009)), and Federal (Salman Ranch Ltd. v. United States, 573 F...

South Dakota Seeks to Hire Tax Prof

Posted on February 08, 2011
The University of South Dakota School of Law is seeking to hire a tenure-track tax professor to begin in the Fall 2011 semester: Applications must be submitted through the Board of Regents electronic employment site, including application letter, vita, and names and addresses of three current references...

AP: Taxes (as a Percentage of the Economy) Are Lowest in 60 Years

Posted on February 08, 2011
Associated Press, Taxes (as a Percentage of Economy) Drop to Lowest Level in 60 Years: Actually, as a share of the nation's economy, Uncle Sam's take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way. And for the third straight year, American...

NY Times Finds Bias Against Comservatives in the Academy

Posted on February 08, 2011
New York Times, Social Scientist Sees Bias Within, by John Tierney: Some of the world?s pre-eminent experts on bias discovered an unexpected form of it at their annual meeting. Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology?s conference, where psychologists discuss their research...

Miller & Chevalier Releases 2011 Tax Policy Forecast Survey

Posted on February 08, 2011
Miller & Chevalier (Washington, D.C.) yesterday released its 2011 Tax Policy Forecast Survey measuring the current perspectives and attitudes of leading corporate tax executives on the direction of tax policy in the coming year. Here is the Executive Summary: Respondents to the fifth annual survey anticipate a modest tax legislative...

Rules for Reducing Taxable Value

Posted on February 08, 2011
Steven M. Fast, Gregory A. Hayes, Darren M. Wallace & Susan W. Ylitalo (all of Day Pitney, Connecticut) have published Context Matters: Rules for Reducing Taxable Value, 120 Yale L.J. Online 141 (2010): In Holman v. Commissioner (Holman II), the Eighth Circuit emphasized the importance of context in determining value...

More on the Villanova Rankings Scandal

Posted on February 08, 2011
Following up on yesterday's post, Villanova Goosed its U.S. News Ranking by 'Knowingly' Submitting Inflated LSAT and GPA Data to ABA: today's Philadelphia Inquirer picks up the story and reports: [University spokesman Jonathan] Gust said that the university had determined that the inflation on the law school admissions test, or...

Fact-Checking President Obama's Claim: 'I Didn't Raise Taxes Once'

Posted on February 08, 2011
From Bill O'Reilly's interview with President Obama: O'REILLY: Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth. OBAMA: Absolutely. O'REILLY: You deny that? OBAMA: Absolutely. I didn't raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years...

Krugman & Freakonomics on Bias Against Conservatives in the Academy

Posted on February 08, 2011
Following up on this morning's post, NY Times Finds Bias Against Conservatives in the Academy: NY Times (The Conscience of a Liberal), Ideas Are Not The Same As Race, by Paul Krugman: Every once in a while you get stories like this one, about the underrepresentation of conservatives in academics,...

Brown Faculty Agrees to Tighten Tenure Standards

Posted on February 08, 2011
Following up on my prior post, Brown Faculty Opposes Tighter Tenure Standards (to Reduce 70% Tenure Rate), Fears Reduced Commitment to Teaching: 85% of the Brown faculty yesterday voted to endorse a number of changes to the tenure standards, including: Lengthening the tenure clock from 7 to 8 years Lengthening...

WSJ: Death Tax Ambush

Posted on February 08, 2011
Wall Street Journal editorial, Death Tax Ambush: Many States Now Have Crushing Burdens: The new law applies a top federal death tax rate of 35% with a $5 million exemption for 2011 and 2012. But it also changed a federal credit for state death tax rates into a federal deduction...

Brooks Presents The Case for Progressive Taxes Today at Toronto

Posted on February 08, 2011
Neil Brooks (Osgoode Hall Law School) presents The Case for Progressive Taxes: One More Time, with Feeling at the University of Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series. Here is the abstract: This presentation will review the central arguments made in a book...

If the ObamaCare Insurance Mandate Goes, Will Economic Substance Codification Go As Well?

Posted on February 07, 2011
James M. Peaslee (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, New York) has published The Honorable Roger Vinson Deep-Sixes ESC, 130 Tax Notes 715 (Feb. 7, 2011): Much attention has been paid this week to the decision of Judge Vinson, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, holding...

Villanova Goosed its U.S. News Ranking by 'Knowingly' Submitting Inflated LSAT and GPA Data to ABA

Posted on February 07, 2011
New Villanova Dean John Y. Gotanda has sent a remarkable letter to students and alumni reporting (after an investigation by Ropes & Gray) that the law school knowingly reported inflated LSAT scores and GPAs to the ABA for years prior to 2010: ABA Journal, Villanova Says Inaccurate LSAT and GPA...

Al Sharpton Faces New $360k IRS Tax Lien

Posted on February 07, 2011
Following up on my prior posts (links below): New York Post, New Tax Tab for Rev. Al: The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has vowed to clean up his fiscal house, has a new tax lien to pay. Sharpton owes $359,973 to the IRS for 2009 personal income tax, according to...

Where Have All the Student Tax Notes and Comments Gone?

Posted on February 07, 2011
Andrew Yaphe (J.D. 2010, Stanford) has posted Taking Note of Notes: Student Legal Scholarship in Theory and Practice on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In recent decades, an inconclusive (even by the standards of academia!) debate has intermittently flared up within the legal academy, as professors, judges, and practitioners have...

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Posted on February 07, 2011
Saturday: WSJ: Is 1099 Repeal a Controlled Burn of ObamaCare or Uncontrollable Wildfire? 2L-CPA, on Leave Managing Hedge Fund, Denied Readmission to Law School for Not Adequately Disclosing Drug Conviction in Application University of Georgia Coach Sentenced for Not Reporting Income From Camps Municipal Bonds and the Erosion of Dormant...

Stephen Mazza Named Dean Finalist at South Carolina

Posted on February 07, 2011
Tax Prof Stephen Mazza (Kansas) is one of the five finalists for the South Carolina deanship. (The other finalists are David Caudill (Villanova), Susan Richey (New Hampshire), Scott Schools (U.S. Department of Justice), and Robert Wilcox (South Carolina))...

Lower Federal Courts Uphold the IRS's Position in 76% of Cases

Posted on February 07, 2011
Richard J. Pierce Jr. (George Washington) & Joshua A. Weiss (J.D. 2011, George Washington) have posted An Empirical Study of Judicial Review of Agency Interpretations of Agency Rules on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this essay, Pierce and Weiss report the results of a study of judicial review of...

Mason Presents What Is Tax Discrimination? Today at Yale

Posted on February 07, 2011
Ruth Mason (Connecticut) presents What Is Tax Discrimination? (with Michael Knoll (Pennsylvania)) at Yale today as part of its Faculty Workshop Series: Prohibitions of tax discrimination have long appeared in constitutions, tax treaties, trade treaties and other sources, but despite their ubiquity, little agreement exists as to how tax discrimination...

4th Circuit Joins 9th & Fed. Circuits: 6-Year SOL N/A to Overstatement of Basis

Posted on February 07, 2011
The Fourth Circuit today reversed the district court and sided with the Ninth (Bakersfield Energy Partners LP v. Commissioner, 568 F.3d 767 (9th Cir. 2009)) and Federal (Salman Ranch Ltd. v. United States, 573 F.3d 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2009)) Circuits and the taxpayer, holding that the extended six-year statute of...

The Best Super Bowl Ad

Posted on February 07, 2011

Baker Presents Taxation and Human Rights Today at Northwestern

Posted on February 07, 2011
Philip Baker (Barrister, Gray's Inn, London) presents Taxation and Human Rights--as Seen Through the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights at Northwestern today as part of its Advanced Topics in Taxation Series hosted by Charlotte Crane and Tom Brennan.

More on the 'John Edwards Sub S Tax Shelter'

Posted on February 06, 2011
Following up on my prior post, Court Gives IRS Rare Win in 'John Edwards Sub S Tax Shelter' Case (Jan. 24, 2011): Weekend Wall Street Journal, The Unforeseen Risks of Underplaying Your Income, by Laura Saunders: The most recent Tax Report, on executive pay and payroll taxes, ...

NYSBA Releases Tax Reports

Posted on February 06, 2011
The New York State Bar Association Tax Section has issued tax reports on: Nonresident Audit Guidelines of the State of New York (No. 1233) The International Tax Competitiveness Act of 2011 (No. 1232) Section 901(m) (No. 1231) Claiming Worthlessness for a Failed Subsidiary Within a Condolidated Group (No...

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