Friday, January 9, 2009

New York Times:  The Dean Is on the Line, by Victoria Goldman:

"Let me be the first to congratulate you."

That’s Michael J. States’s greeting to applicants after they’ve been accepted at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Forget the thick envelope. A successful applicant to many top law and business schools can expect to learn the news via a call from the dean. The cynical explanation: applicants get more excited about enrolling when they get a call on their cellphones instead of an admittance letter, and that improves a school’s selectivity numbers. The warm and fuzzy reason: admissions offices are responding to digital depersonalization. ...

So with the rise of the Internet, deans at institutions like Harvard, Yale, Emory and the Berkeley and Los Angeles branches of the University of California have made thousands of phone calls a year just to say welcome.

(Hat Tip: Michael Solimine.)

January 9, 2009 in Law School | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Ben Alarie (Toronto) blogs on today's important tax decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, Lipson v. Canada, 2009 SCC 1 (Can. Jan. 8, 2008):

The Court was sharply divided, 4-3, in favour of dismissing the taxpayer's appeal from the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal. The Lipsons engaged in a series of transactions over two days in 1994 in which they made use of various rules, including the spousal rollover rule (section 73), the spousal attribution rule (section 74.1), and the back-to-back loans rule (subsection 20(3)), to transform what would otherwise have been non-deductible mortgage interest under paragraph 20(1)(c) into, they argue, deductible interest under paragraph 20(1)(c). ...

The majority ... held that the Lipsons had engaged in an avoidance transaction that constituted a misuse or abuse of the attribution rules under the GAAR.

• Bloomberg
• Financial Post
• Globe and Mail
• Toronto Star

January 8, 2009 in New Cases | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sarah B. Lawsky (George Washington) has published Fairly Random: On Compensating Audited Taxpayers, 41 Conn. L. Rev. 161 (2008).  Here is the abstract:

Some academics and politicians have proposed that taxpayers should be reimbursed for costs of randomly imposed tax audits, because, they argue, randomly imposing audit costs is unfair. But none of those proposing audit compensation has explained why randomly imposed audit costs are unfair, or why, if these randomly imposed costs are unfair, this unfairness necessarily means that taxpayers should be compensated. These are important questions, because explicit randomness is an essential tool for tax enforcement, and for other areas of law, but its use may be limited if randomness is equated with unfairness.

Continue reading "Lawsky: Compensating Audited Taxpayers"

January 8, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dick Morris has published an op-ed in the New York Post, Tyranny of the Tax Exempt:

It now looks like half of President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus package will take the form of "tax cuts" for 95% of all Americans. Yet this wouldn't so much boost the economy as trigger a massive, unhealthy shift in American politics.

Under Obama's plan, the majority of American voters would pay no federal income taxes, but would get money from the government instead. That is, these "refundable tax credits" are basically welfare checks - and Obama's plan would leave the most of us collecting, not paying. ...

Today, the bottom 50% of US taxpayers pays a total of $30.6 billion in federal income taxes on a combined income of about $1 trillion. So about 3% of all federal income-tax payments come from the poorest half of the country. (The top 1% pays 40%; the top 25% pay 85% of the federal income tax.)

Obama's plan -- he'd give all couples a $1,000 refundable tax credit and all single people $500 -- would funnel more than $50 billion to the lowest half of the country, thereby completely wiping out their total federal tax liability. In most cases, it would trigger a "refund" welfare check.

In one stroke, this would transform the majority of voters from taxpayers into tax eaters -- and leave an increasingly small minority to pay the bill. Whether or not this is good economics, it is very dangerous politics.

Essentially, it would put those who actually pay the taxes that fund our government into much the same situation as landlords in New York City -- hopelessly outvoted by their tenants, who use their political clout to limit rents and landlords' profits.

January 8, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Louis Kaplow (Harvard) has posted Taxing Leisure Complements on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Ever since Corlett and Hague (1953), it has been understood that it tends to be optimal on second-best grounds to (relatively) tax complements to leisure and subsidize substitutes because doing so helps to offset the distorting effect of taxation on labor supply. Yet in the context of simultaneous optimization of a nonlinear income tax and commodity taxes, Atkinson and Stiglitz (1976) claim to have demonstrated the opposite, that goods complementary with leisure should "face lower tax rates, whereas substitutes face higher tax rates." Derivations in leading texts on optimal taxation seem to yield opposing conclusions regarding the sign of optimal deviation of commodity taxes from uniformity. It is demonstrated that the optimality of relatively taxing leisure complements is indeed correct, and conflicting results are explained.

January 8, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Jones Day has released a report defending Notice 2008-83:

Our observations are discussed at some length below, but they may be summarized as follows:

First, we do not believe Notice 2008-83 “changes” or “overrides” existing statutory law. It simply interprets it, which is the job of the Treasury and IRS.

Second, the Notice should be viewed as just one of a series of recent IRS announcements providing clarity critical to the consolidation and recapitalization of the financial industry. Absent this clarity, the Treasury and IRS would not have been doing their job, and financial consolidation and the restoration of the industry’s capital and market stability could have been hindered.

Third, the potential “cost” of the Notice has been overstated. We earlier calculated a possible maximum “cost” from generic, industry-wide figures. Unfortunately, this “cost” has been frequently cited as authoritative, rather than extrapolative. Recent SEC filings with specific data show the likely cost of the Notice to be much smaller, and are instructive as to why this is so.

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• What Is the IRS's Authority for Expanding Bailout Tax Breaks? (10/19/08)
• Bailout Tax Break Worth $5.1 Billion to PNC Bank in Purchase of National City (10/30/08)
• Tax Lawyers Decry Financial Bailout NOL Tax Break for Banks (11/10/08)
• Financial Bailout NOL Tax Break to Cost CA $2b (11/12/08)
• Grassley Seeks Investigation of IRS's Issuance of Notice 2008-83 (11/15/08) 
• Fleischer: NOLs and the Rule of Law (11/23/08)
• Democrats Oppose Expanding Bank Loss Ruling (12/5/08)

January 8, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

AALS The AALS Tax Section meets today at 4:00 p.m. at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego on The Family and Taxation:

Tax laws affect families in many ways, not just through the joint return. The Section’s program examines a few of the many interesting ways in which family and taxation intersect. Professor Brown investigates the race, class and gender implications of the home mortgage deduction; Professor Infanti analyzes the extra burdens that the federal Defense of Marriage Act and its state counterparts impose on same-sex couples and their children as a form of tax; Professor Kahng explores the tax treatment of earned income and the implications for families; Professor Ventry discusses ownership as the basis of family taxation.

• Marjorie E. Kornhauser (Arizona State) (moderator)
• Dorothy Andrea Brown (Emory)
• Anthony C. Infanti (Pittsburgh)
• Lily Kahng (Seattle)
• Dennis Ventry (UC-Davis)

Other Tax Profs speaking today include:

• Hot Topics
  • Lloyd H. Mayer (Notre Dame) (moderator), Donald B. Tobin (Ohio State) (8:30 a.m.):  Pulpit Freedom? On Taxes, Elections, and Religious Freedom 
• Section on Institutional Advancement:  Sharing Best Practices in a Changing Field: An Opportunity for Deans, Advancement Professionals, and Faculty to Learn from Each Other
  • Michael K. Friel (Florida) (8:30 a.m.), After the LL.M.: Career Options, Building Alumni Networks, and Development Strategies  
• Section on New Law Professors
  • Dorothy Andrea Brown (Emory) (8:30 a.m.), So You're a Law Professor . . . Now What?  
• Section on Trusts and Estates
  • Melanie B. Leslie (Cardozo), Ray D. Madoff (Boston College), Robert H. Sitkoff (Harvard), Sophie Smyth (Temple), Carla Spivack (Oklahoma City), Stewart E. Sterk (Cardozo), Joshua C. Tate (SMU) (10:30 a.m.), New Voices in Trusts and Estates 
• Section on Employee Benefits
  • Maxwell G. Bloche (Georgetown), David Hyman (Illinois), Amy B. Monahan (Missouri-Columbia), Elizabeth A. Pendo (St. Thomas), Edward A. Zelinsky (Cardozo) (10:30 a.m.), The Role of Employers in Achieving Universal Health Care Coverage 
• Section on Aging and the Law
  • Carolyn L. Dessin (Akron) (4:00 p.m.), Consumer Protection Law and the Elderly: What’s New - What’s Needed

For today's complete schedule of topics and panels, see here.

January 8, 2009 in Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

William A. Drennan (Southern Illinois) has published Einstein’s Theory of Taxation Explains the Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Rules!, 40 U. Tol. L. Rev. 53 (2008).  Here is the abstract:

"The opera reminded me of my tax audit. It was in a language I didn’t understand, and it ended in tragedy."

Albert Einstein said "the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." The new nonqualified deferred compensation rules are a testament to Einstein's brilliance. The new rules will fail to achieve their statutory purpose, will create traps for the unwary, and should be repealed retroactively.

January 8, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The three-day ABA Tax Section Midyear Meeting kicks off today in New Orleans.

January 8, 2009 in ABA Tax Section, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson today released her 2008 Annual Report to Congress, which lists the twenty most serious problems encountered by taxpayers (as required by § 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(III)). The report urges Congress to greatly simplify the tax code and recommends measures to reduce the burden on taxpayers:  "It is imperative for the IRS to consider the circumstances of taxpayers facing economic hardship before initiating enforcement actions."

• Volume One:
  • Section 1:  Preface, Table of Contents and the Most Serious Problems Encountered by Taxpayers
  • Section 2:  Legislative Recommendations
  • Section 3:  The Most Litigated Issues
  • Section 4:  Case and Systemic Advocacy
  • Section 5:  Appendices
• Volume Two:  TAS Research Studies and Reports
• Executive Summary
• IRS News Release

Press coverage:

• CNNMoney
• Forbes

January 7, 2009 in IRS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Andrea Monroe (Temple) has posted Saving Subchapter K: Substance, Shattered Ceilings and the Problem of Contributed Property, 47 Brook. L. Rev. ___ (2009), on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Partnership taxation is in crisis, with Congress struggling to reconcile the foundational ideals of flexibility and substance. In instances where reconciliation has proven impossible, Congress has remained steadfast in its commitment to flexibility and sacrificed substance. The cost of Congress's preference has been extraordinarily high, resulting in matchless complexity and numerous tax sheltering opportunities, the costs of which are ultimately borne by the public.

Continue reading "Monroe: Contributed Property Allocations"

January 7, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

LSSSE2008AR The Law School Survey of Student Engagement today released its annual report, Student Engagement in Law Schools: Preparing 21st Century Lawyers.  Among the findings:

Laptop computer use and its educational implications have sometimes generated heated debate among legal educators. LSSSE findings show that student use of laptops for keeping and reviewing notes and calling up previously briefed cases goes together with high levels of engagement in courses. So when used effectively, laptops may well enhance learning, rather than being a substitute for other kinds of course engagement or simply a distraction.

In the crucial area of legal writing, the 2008 findings are more complex and unsettling. Nearly half of responding students reported that they have not had enough practice in developing their legal writing skills in situations matching or approximating real-world legal practice. At the same time, students reported that such practice-oriented writing assignments were particularly effective in enhancing their legal research and communication skills. So, while in aspiration much of legal education is starting to move beyond an exclusive focus upon “thinking like a lawyer,” in practice the schools generally have a long way to go to make those aspirations real achievements.

The questions about how schools foster professionalism resulted in perhaps the most intriguing finding. The size of the student body as well as mission of the school turns out to matter significantly for the formation of ethically cognizant and publicoriented lawyers. Students at smaller schools and those with religious affiliation do best in these important areas. In this as in the case of legal writing, this year’s LSSSE findings are important feedback for legal educators bent on improvement.

• Indiana Press Release, Law School Study Links Laptop Computer Use, Student Engagement
• Inside Higher Ed, Writing Lags in Law Schools, by David Moltz.

January 7, 2009 in Law School | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

AALS The AALS Committee on Curriculum is presenting a three-hour workshop today beginning at 2:00 p.m. at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego on Redesigning Legal Education:

This three hour series of demonstrations, panels and discussions is a follow-up to the 2007 plenary session on "Rethinking Legal Education for the 21st Century." Getting down to specifics this year, we will address some of the most promising and most troublesome possibilities in legal education: the integration of academic and skills training, the use of technology in the classroom and beyond, the assessment of student learning, the lessons that pedagogic theory offers about standard, often unexamined legal teaching methods, and the appropriate level of formality or informality between the classroom teacher and the students. At the core of these various issues, which will be presented through suitably varied formats, is a central question: What should law professors do to be effective teachers? Should they incorporate simulations into lecture classes, ask students to answer classroom questions en masse over the Internet, employ evaluation devices during the course of the semester, alter their approach in light of contemporary psychological theories, sing a song at the beginning of class? This program will offer a (necessarily brief) overview of path-breaking developments on these topics, and provide resources for further exploration.

I am speaking on a panel on Using Technology in the Law School Classroom,.beginning at 3:45 p.m.  My talk is on Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning.

Other Tax Prof speakers today are:

• Progress? The Academy, Profession, Race and Gender: Empirical Findings, Research Issues, Potential Projects and Funding Opportunities: 
• • Bevery Moran (Vanderbilt), Daniel M. Schneider (Northern Illinois) (3:45 p.m.), What Funding Is Available; How to Get It; Databases
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Across the Curriculum: The Challenges of Keeping Law Schools Current with Recent Developments in LGBT Issues
• • Patricia A. Cain, Anthony M. Infanti (Pittsburgh), Barry Kozak (John Marshall), Janice McClendon (Stetson) (2:00 p.m.), Property, Conflict of Laws, Income Tax, and Employee Benefits  
  • David A. Brennen (Georgia; AALS Deputy Director), José M. Gabilondo (Florida International), Solomon Amendment and Beyond: Does Amelioration Ameliorate?

For today's complete schedule of topics and panels, see here. 

January 7, 2009 in Conferences, Teaching | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Dennis Ventry (UC-Davis) comments on the settlement announced by Regions Bank in Regions Fin. Corp. v. United States, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41940, No. 2:06-CV-00895-RDP (N.D. Ala. May 8, 2008) ( here):

The 11th Circuit has dismissed the government’s appeal (No. 08-13866-C). According to the Stipulation filed with the Court, Regions provided the Government in mid-December 2008 all of the documents that it sought, and that production mooted the appeal. The Court subsequently dismissed on Dec. 30, 2008. Oral arguments were set, I think, for January 5 (or at least some time in early January).

Recall that Regions was one of two cases on appeal where the district court held that tax accrual workpapers were protected under the work product doctrine. The other case, Textron, was argued on Sept. 5, 2008. We are still awaiting the court’s decision on Textron. Some of us are more anxious than others: at oral argument in Textron, as well as in the Regions appeal briefs, the Government relied at several points on my article, Protecting Abusive Tax Avoidance, 120 Tax Notes 857 (Sept. 1, 2008).

January 7, 2009 in New Cases | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

IRS Logo The IRS Office of Chief Counsel's Division Counsel (Small Business & Self-Employed) is looking to hire experienced attorneys in the following offices:

• Baltimore, MD 
• Dallas, TX 
• Jacksonville, FL 
• Kansas City, MO 
• Philadelphia, PA
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Washington, D.C.

Small Business/Self-Employed is the largest Chief Counsel division, with attorneys assigned to 49 field offices. These attorneys work directly with IRS field agents providing legal advice on tax cases involving individuals and small businesses, and on all cases involving collection and bankruptcy issues. When these cases go to trial, SB/SE attorneys are the IRS litigators, with direct responsibility for identifying the desired legal theories, developing the trial strategies and representing the IRS in court.

SB/SE attorneys typically spend most of their time handling Tax Court and bankruptcy cases. Over 90 percent of the 25,000 Tax Court cases filed each year are assigned to SB/SE attorneys. In most field offices, bankruptcy cases are assigned to attorneys who are designated as Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Attorneys may also be assigned to assist the Department of Justices in the handling of collection, refund, and other cases in the U.S. District Courts. Through client support and litigation, SB/SE attorneys have an opportunity to further their knowledge of tax law and to develop expertise on a wide variety of complex technical, procedural and tax issues.

Appointments under the regular program are at the GS-12/13/14 level.

• GS-12: Possess a J.D. plus one year of professional legal experience which is comparable to the GS-11 level; or J.D. plus an LL.M. degree, relevant to the position for which applicant is being considered, such as tax law.
• GS-13: Possess a J.D. plus 2 years of professional tax legal experience (one year must have been comparable to the GS-12 level) or an LL.M. plus 1 year of professional tax legal experience comparable to the GS-12 level.
• GS-14: Possess a J.D. plus 3 years of professional tax legal experience (one year must have been comparable to the GS-13 level) or an LL.M. plus 2 years of professional tax legal experience (one year must have been comparable to the GS-13 level).

January 7, 2009 in IRS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ellen Moule & Nicholas Weller (both of the University of California, San Diego, Department of Political Science) have posted The Spread of the Tax Revolt: The Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits.  Here is the abstract:

This paper develops a new empirical strategy to explain the mechanisms of policy diffusion. We look at proposal and passage of tax and expenditure limits (TELs) in the U.S. states to untangle the determinants of exposure to and adoption of a policy. Our research design accounts for the fact that the diffusion process has multiple stages, and external influences do not affect each stage identically. To augment geographic explanations of diffusion, we also look at how states are influenced by similarity in per-capita income. Our results suggest that economic similarity is a strong predictor of both passage and proposal of TELs, while geographic explanations have mixed effects on the two diffusion stages.

January 7, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

New York Times:  Panetta Is Chosen as C.I.A. Chief, in a Surprise Step, by Mark Mazzetti & Carl  Hulse:

[S]ome intelligence experts called the selection underwhelming, given the important role the C.I.A. plays in disrupting terrorist attacks against the United States. “It’s a puzzling choice and a high-risk choice,” said Amy Zegart, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written extensively on intelligence matters.

“The best way to change intelligence policies from the Bush administration responsibly is to pick someone intimately familiar with them,” Ms. Zegart said.  “This is intelligence, not tax or transportation policy. You can’t hit the ground running by reading briefing books and asking smart questions.”

January 6, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tax Analysts   David Cay Johnston has published Taxing the Sick Is Sick 122 Tax Notes 145 (Jan. 5, 2009):

President-elect Barack Obama calls his transition Web site  a symbol of his promise to bring real change to Washington. Changing Washington is a daunting task, but he can start with a quick and easy victory by calling in his inaugural address for repeal of the most reprehensible tax law in America.

The provision raises income taxes on sick and injured people who fall under the AMT. While most Americans can deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of their AGI, under the AMT that threshold is raised to 10% under § 56(b)(1)(B).

Winning repeal should be a quick, slam-dunk victory for the new president. Presented as a single-measure bill, repeal should sail through both houses with unanimous votes. Can you imagine anyone defending a law that raises taxes on the sick and injured? And if someone does, isn't that just the kind of fight the Obama White House would relish?

More importantly, demanding this repeal would provide an opportunity for Obama to further his cause by opening eyes to how callous Washington has become to the needs of ordinary Americans. The corporate rich, and their lobbyists and campaign donation bundlers, surround lawmakers. That distorts their view, making the problems of these politically connected supplicants loom large while those of most Americans look distant. Lawmakers in both parties denounced the provision when I examined it 10 years ago in a Sunday New York Times article headlined Funny, They Don't Look Like Fat Cats (Jan. 10, 1999).

The human faces of this situation are David and Margaret Klaassen of Marquette, Kansas. They were hit with the AMT because they had 13 children, and one of them, Aaron, ran up big medical bills fighting leukemia. ...  The Klaassens went to Tax Court, where they lost, although Judge Robert N. Armen Jr. expressed sympathy with their plight. ( Klaassen v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1998-241) Ultimately the penalties were abated, but the rest of the bill stuck. Over the years the AMT has cost the Klaassens a small fortune relative to their income. ...

Five years ago the House Ways and Means Committee asked David Klaassen to testify -- provided he paid his own way. Because of a health problem, he did not appear, but asking him to pay his own way shows how much our lawmakers favor those with the resources to work Capitol Hill. This makes it hard for lawmakers to hear the voices of those without such means.

Had he testified -- or were Congress to fly him in to testify now -- Klaassen could ask a simple question: "What kind of policy taxes you for spending money to save your child's life?"

January 6, 2009 in Scholarship, Tax Analysts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The IRS today issued a four-page news release ( IR-2009-2) on the opening of the 2009 filing season, announcing several new ways for taxpayers who are struggling financially to maximize their refunds and meet their tax obligations.  The IRS also issued seven new fact sheets:

• FS-2009-1, Tax Law Changes
• FS-2009-2, Tax Credits
• FS-2009-3, Rebate Recovery Credit
• FS-2009-4, The IRS Web Site
• FS-2009-5, eFile
• FS-2009-6, Free Tax Help
• FS-2009-7 Tax Return Preparer Fraud

January 6, 2009 in IRS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wall Street Journal:  Write-Offs a Boon to Builders, Bankers, by Jesse Drucker:

The main business tax cuts proposed by President-elect Barack Obama are likely to be a windfall for two industries particularly tied to the current economic meltdown: Wall Street investment banks and home builders.

Under the proposal being crafted by the incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats, companies would be able to use their so-called tax losses to offset taxable U.S. profits earned in the past five years.

Typically, companies can carry back such losses only two years. The Obama proposals likely would mean that companies with enormous losses from last year and this year could use the losses to help wipe out tax obligations from the previous five years and receive sizable tax-refund checks from the Treasury Department. For some firms, that would mean cash payments of billions of dollars.

That tax cut would be particularly helpful to industries that were flying high for the past several years, but now aren't expected to report much profit for the foreseeable future -- such as Wall Street firms, home builders and construction companies. ...

"I think it's ridiculous," said Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It's rewarding the people who messed up."

• Associated Press
• Bloomberg
• TaxVox

January 6, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

AccountingWeb: A Look Back at Famous Tax Cheaters of 2008:

• Wesley Snpes
• Joe Francis
• Nicolas Cage
• Helio Castroneves
• Paul Hogan
• Raffaello Follieri
• Melissa Etheridge

January 6, 2009 in Celebrity Tax Lore | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Washington & Lee has updated its law review rankings, which are based on citations to articles published in the past eight years (2001-2008):

• Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
• Citations in Law Reviews
• Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
• Combined (weighted combination of the above rankings)

In the 2006 ranking of tax journals (1998-2005), the Florida Tax Review was #1 in the combined rankings, followed by the Virginia Tax Review and the Tax Lawyer.

In the 2007 ranking of tax journals (1999-2006), the Tax Law Review rose to #1 (from #5) in the combined rankings, followed by the Florida Tax Review (slipping from #1) and the Virginia Tax Review (slipping from #2).

In the 2008 ranking of tax journals (2000-2007), the Tax Law Review remained #1, with Tax Notes vaulting to #2 (from #6) and the Florida Tax Review slipping to #3 (from #2).

In the 2009 ranking of tax journals (2001-2008), the Tax Law Review and Tax Notes remain #1 and #2, respectively, with the Virginia Tax Review rising to #3 (from #4), and the Florida Tax Review slipping for the third consecutive year to #4 (from #3).  Here are the Top 25 tax journals (out of 44 ranked tax journals):

Tax Journal Rankings (2009)

Some observations:

• Tax Notes is #1 by a wide margin in citations in law reviews (1254 v. #2's Journal of Taxation's 471), but fairs relatively poorly (.001, ranked #22) in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published).  My guess is that W&L counted as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes.
• The Pittsburgh Tax Review made a dramatic climb in the combined rankings to #6, from #22 last year.

(Hat Tip: Law Librarian Blog.)

January 6, 2009 in W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

IRS Logo   Job Opportunities at the IRS Chief Counsel:

• Honors Program
• Summer Legal Intern Program
• Volunteer Legal Externship Program
• Hiring of Experienced Attorneys
• Benefits of Employment with the Office of Chief Counsel
• The IRS Office of Chief Counsel -- A Great Place to Start Your Tax Career

January 6, 2009 in IRS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Alan Schenk (Wayne State) has published The Credit Crisis and the VAT Administrative Rules, 19 Int'l Tax Monitor 428 (2008).  Here is the abstract:

While not exhaustive, this column focuses on the importance of the administrative provisions of a VAT during a serious economic recession both to VAT-registered businesses and to the tax authorities.

January 6, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, January 5, 2009

The ABA Tax Section today announced the recipients of its 2009 Nolan Fellowships:

• Niles A. Elber (Caplin & Drysdale, Washington, D.C.)
• Michelle A. Garcia (Davis & Harman, Washington, D.C.)
• Todd D. Keator (Thompson & Knight, Dallas)
• Alexey Manasuev (KPMG, Washington, D.C.)
• Anne M. Meyer (Snell & Wilmer, Phoenix)
• Kathryn Morrison Sneade (Miller & Chevalier, Washington, D.C.)

Named for the late Jack Nolan, the fellowship is awarded to young lawyers who are actively involved in the Section and have shown leadership qualities. Each one-year fellowship includes waived Meeting registration fees and assistance with travel to some Section meetings.  For a list of prior winners, see here.

January 5, 2009 in ABA Tax Section | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Blawg 100 I am thrilled that TaxProf Blog has been named to the ABA Journal's list of "the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal" -- the 2008 Blawg 100.  TaxProf Blog was one of fifteen blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category, and came in third place with 231 votes from ABA Journal readers, behind Jonathan Turley (670 votes) and Mirror of Justice (256 votes). Here is the ABA Journal's description of TaxProf Blog:

The University of Cincinnati’s Paul Caron covers all the tax law bases—what’s coming from the headlines, the law journals and the think tanks. Caron is also editor and publisher of the , reflected in his extensive coverage of law schools and legal blogging generally.

I am thrilled that four other members of our Law Professor Blogs Network also were named to the Blawg 100:

• Brian Leiter's Law School Reports (9th of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Law School Innovation (14th of 15 blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category)
• Legal Profession Blog (14th of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Sentencing Law and Policy (3rd of 5 blogs nominated in the Crime Time category)

January 5, 2009 in About This Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The New York State Bar Association has issued tax reports on:

• Proposed § 336(e) Regs (1174)
• International Provisions of H.R. 3970 and Effects of Reduction in Corporate Tax Rate (1173)
• Investor-Owned Life Insurance (1172)

January 5, 2009 in NYSBA Tax Section | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

David Joulfaian (Office of Tax Analysis, Treasury Department) has posted The Estate Tax and the Demise of the Family Business: A Comment on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

A recent paper by Brunetti (2006) examines whether the US estate tax forces heirs with insufficient liquid assets to sell inherited businesses in order to pay the estate tax. It concludes that the estate tax has a positive effect on such sales. This note highlights features of the estate tax and succession planning by entrepreneurs that have been overlooked which could explain the observed pattern of business sales. These omissions, along with measurement errors, cast doubt on the reported findings.

January 5, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

WebCPA:  Tax Attorney's Family Removed from Airplane:

The families of tax attorney Atif Irfan and his brother Kashif were removed from an AirTran Airways flight [from Washington, D.C. to Orlando] after other passengers complained of suspicious comments they overheard.

Kashif accused the airline of discriminating against the group because some of them were wearing traditional Muslim garb. He said they had merely been discussing the safest place to sit on an airplane and not making any threatening comments

(Hat Tip: Elie Mystal.)

January 5, 2009 in Celebrity Tax Lore | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

• Bloomberg
• New York Times
• Reuters
• Wall Street Journal

January 5, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Mann   Roberta Mann (Widener) has accepted a tenured position at Oregon, effective January 1, 2009.  From the Oregon press release:

Dean Margie Paris announced Monday that the university granted Professor Mann indefinite tenure at the rank of full professor. ...  "This means that we will be able to enjoy Roberta's brilliance, energy, enthusiasm, and expertise on a permanent basis," remarked Dean Paris in her announcement to the law school's faculty and staff.

Professor Mann expressed her delight at joining the law school community in an e-mail message to faculty and staff. "I am thrilled and excited to become a permanent part of this terrific group of scholars and teachers," she said.

January 5, 2009 in Tax Prof Moves | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

For a list of 29 currently open IRS attorney jobs, see here.

January 5, 2009 in IRS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ruth Mason (UConn) has posted three tax papers on SSRN:

• What Is Tax Discrimination?
• 2006 ECJ Direct Tax Cases
• 2005 ECJ Direct Tax Cases

January 5, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

• One-Year Anniversary of The Shelf Project
• Porn Star Sentenced on Tax Evasion Charges
• Tabbach: Crime, Punishment, and Tax
• Hymel & Mann: Tax Incentives for Ethanol

Friday:

• More on Judicial Salaries v. Law Professor and Law Dean Salaries
• Doran: Tax Penalties and Tax Compliance
• Improving the Quality of Services Offered By Tax Agents
• The Top 10 Tax Stories of 2008
• Alarie: Tax-Free Savings Accounts
• The Lockout Effect of U.S. Taxation of Worldwide Corporate Profits

Saturday:

• Rangel Sought $10 Million Contribution From AIG, Then OK'd Tax Cut Benefiting AIG
• Li Posts Tax Papers on SSRN
• 5-Day National Tax CLE Conference Kicks Off Today in Vail

Sunday:

• Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
• Advice for Young Law Scholars
• Lawyer Battles With IRS: 5-Cent Tax Bill or 4-Cent Tax Refund?
• Research in Accounting for Income Taxes

January 5, 2009 in Weekend Roundup | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sunday, January 4, 2009

There is a lot of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new #1 paper and new papers debuting on the list at #4 and #5:

1.  [231 Downloads]  Private Equity Management Fee Conversions, by Gregg D. Polsky (Florida State)  [blogged here]

2.  [152 Downloads]  Take the Money and Run -- The Impact of the HEART Act on the Ultimate Estate Plan: Expatriation to Avoid U.S. Income, Estate and Gift Tax, by Kathleen Macaulay (Houston)  [blogged here]

3.  [144 Downloads]  The Undocumented Immigrant Tax, by Francine J. Lipman (Chapman)  [blogged here]

4.  [128 Downloads]  The Virtual Tax Library: A Comparison of Five Electronic Tax Research Platforms, by Katherine Pratt, Jennifer M. Kowal & Daniel Martin (all of Loyola-L.A.)  [blogged here]

5.  [124 Downloads]  Dead or Alive: An Investigation of the Incidence of Estate and Inheritance Taxes, by Lily L. Batchelder (NYU) & Surachai Khitatrakun (ERS Group)  [blogged here]

January 4, 2009 in Top 5 Downloads | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Gordon Smith (BYU) offers some advice for young law scholars, from the perspective of someone who has written 15-20 tenure review letters over the past few years.  I think his final point is often overlooked by young scholars, to their detriment:

You probably can't afford a publicist, so you will have to market yourself. This piece of advice comes from a very basic insight: if I haven't heard of you before I get the call or the email inviting me to review your work, that's a bad sign for you. I almost always accept invitations to write tenure letters simply because I believe this form of service is important. Rarely am I asked to write a review for someone who is completely unknown to me, but it happens. And it's hard for me to imagine writing a letter about how significantly you have influenced the field if I have never heard of you. Send reprints. Get yourself invited as a guest blogger on a popular law professor blog. Go to conferences. Host your own conference. Invite important figures in your field to give talks at your law school. Find a mentor. Do whatever it takes to get to know the players in your field, and cultivate those relationships.

I talked about this at the 2007 AALS Annual Meeting, Building and Marketing Your Scholarly "Brand"

January 4, 2009 in Law School | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Nickel Detroit Free-Press: 9-cent IRS Dilemma Leaves Lawyer Confused; He Owes a Nickel and Is Due 4-Cent Refund, by Joe Swickard:

While many may fight the IRS over thousands of dollars, [Detroit criminal defense lawyer James] Howarth said he's in a dilemma with the federal agency, and he insists it's no chump change controversy. ...

In mid-November, Howarth received notice that his FICA account, even after an adjustment, was out of whack. He owed the IRS a nickel. And the IRS was serious. It advised him to act promptly "to avoid additional penalty and/or interest." Howarth started calculating how much that nickel was going to cost him. As he figures it, there is the 5 cents plus the cost of a check -- payment must be made by check or money order. Then there is his CPA's fee, an envelope, his secretary's time, his own time and a 42-cent stamp. ...

But then a second letter arrived. This one said Howarth had a refund coming. The amount? Four cents. But to get it, Howarth would have to ask for it because it was less than $1. "When I owe them a nickel, I must pay them," he said. "It's not optional. ... He said he is unsure if he now owes one penny or if there was a recalculation resulting in a 9-cent swing in his favor. "I just don't know."

(Hat Tip:  Adam Rosenzweig.)

January 4, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

John R. Graham (Duke University, Fuqua School of Business), Jana Smith Raedy (University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School) & Douglas A. Shackelford (University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School) have posted Research in Accounting for Income Taxes on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This paper provides a comprehensive review of Accounting for Income Taxes (AFIT). The first half of the paper provides background and a primer on AFIT. The second half reviews existing studies in detail and makes suggestions for future research. We emphasize the research questions that have been addressed (most of it related to whether the tax accounts are used to manage earnings, and whether the tax accounts are priced in capital markets) and also highlight the areas that to date have not received much research attention. We draw six broad conclusions regarding AFIT research: (1) a comprehensive theoretical framework for interpreting and guiding empirical AFIT studies does not exist; (2) an apparent inconsistency exists between empirical findings that suggest the tax information in the financial statements is useful and the practitioner view that the data are of poor quality; (3) future research should study the disaggregated components of book-tax differences to better explain the underlying causes; (4) we need to better understand whether some empirical findings imply market inefficiency or whether they are driven by market imperfections; (5) the extant empirical research does not take full advantage of panel data econometric techniques and hence it is likely that some of the existing results are overstated; and (6) research opportunities may present themselves as the U.S. moves toward IFRS.

January 4, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Saturday, January 3, 2009

From the New York Times ( Rangel Pushed for a Donation; Insurer Pushed for a Tax Cut):  Embattled House Ways & Means Chair Charles Rangel sought a $10 million donation from AIG for a school of public service that City College of New York was building in his honor and later changed his position and approved the subpart F active financing exception (worth millions annually to AIG) that was later enacted as part of the $700 billion bailout bill. For more, see American Spectator, Gothamist, and UPI.  For prior TaxProf Blog coverage of Chairman Rangel's tax troubles, see:

• Rangel Disputes NY Times' Charge That He Provided Retroactive Tax Break to Corporation Whose CEO Donated $1m to His Charity (12/4/08)
• Rangel Hires Accountant to Scrub Tax Returns (11/15/08)
• More Rangel Tax Troubles: Untaxed Free Parking (9/18/08)
• Rangel Refuses to Step Down as Ways & Means Committee Chair (9/16/08)
• NY Times: Rangel Should Resign as Ways & Means Chair (9/15/08)
• Rangel Episode Shows Need to Audit Tax Returns of Ways & Means Committee (9/10/08)
• Rangel Failed to Report $75k Rental Income From Second Home (9/5/08)

January 3, 2009 in Congressional News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Jinyan Li (Osgoode Hall Law School) has posted two tax papers on SSRN:

• A Principled Approach to Reforming the Canadian Outbound Tax System: Broader Accrual and Full Exemption
• The Transformation of Chinese Enterprise Income Tax: Internationalization and Chinese Innovations (with He Huang)

January 3, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The ABA Tax Section is co-sponsoring its 16th annual National CLE Tax Conference in Vail, Colorado today through January 7.  For a list of the speakers and their topics, see here.

January 3, 2009 in ABA Tax Section, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Friday, January 2, 2009

In his recently released 2008 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts again makes a plea for raising federal judges' salaries, currently:

• Supreme Court Justice:  $208,100 (Chief Justice: $217,400)
• Circuit Judge:  $179,500
• District Court Judge:  $169,300

I previously questioned the Chief Justice's assertion, made dramatically with the following chart, that federal judges are woefully underpaid compared to law professors and deans:

Salary Chart

• TaxProf Blog:  How Many Law Professors Make $330k? (2/12/07)
• TaxProf Blog:  More on Judge and Law Professor Salaries (2/12/07)
• Legal Ethics Forum:  Law Professor Salaries and the Legal Profession (3/22/07)
• Empirical Legal Stuidies Blog:  Law School Professors Make Over $338,000? (7/13/08)
• Above the Law:  Prof Wars: $600k to Teach Corporations? (9/8/08)

On Balkinization, David Stras (Minnesota) notes that An Overlooked Aspect of the Judicial Pay Raise Debate is the far more generous pensions given federal judges compared to law professors and deans:

Continue reading "More on Judicial Salaries v. Law Professor and Law Dean Salaries"

January 2, 2009 in News | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Michael Doran (Virginia) has posted Tax Penalties and Tax Compliance, 45 Harv. J. on Legis. ___ (2008), on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

This paper examines the relationship between tax penalties and tax compliance. Conventional accounts, drawing from deterrence theory and norms theory, assume that the relationship is purely instrumental - that the function of tax penalties is solely to promote tax compliance. This paper identifies another aspect of the relationship that generally has been overlooked by the existing literature: the function of tax penalties in defining tax compliance. Tax penalties determine the standards of conduct that satisfy a taxpayer's obligations to the government; they distinguish compliant taxpayers from non-compliant taxpayers. This paper argues that tax compliance in a self-assessment system should require the taxpayer to report her tax liabilities only on the basis of legal positions that she reasonably and in good faith believes to be correct. However, the accuracy penalties provided under current law set much lower standards of conduct. In the case of a non-abusive transaction, current law allows the taxpayer to base her self-assessment on a position having as little as a one-in-five chance of prevailing; for an abusive transaction, the taxpayer only needs a reasonable belief that her position is more likely than not to prevail. The paper describes reformed standards of conduct for taxpayers, tax practitioners, and government officials that define tax compliance more appropriately for a self-assessment system.

January 2, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Margaret McKerchar (Australian School of Taxation), Kim Bloomquist (Senior Economist, IRS) & Sagit Leviner (Tel Aviv University, Buckmann Faculty of Law) have published Improving the Quality of Services Offered By Tax Agents: Can Regulation Assist?, 23 Australian Tax Forum 399 (2008).  Here is the abstract:

The practice of taxpayers using tax agents, or paid preparers, to lodge their tax returns is long standing and relatively common in many jurisdictions that rely on self assessment, including Australia and the United States (US). However, across these jurisdictions the relevant regulatory requirements vary markedly. Tax agents in Australia are currently subject to quite rigorous regulation regarding their level of education, experience and professional conduct. Further, it appears that these requirements are soon to be made even more rigorous to improve the quality of services provided by tax agents to taxpayers. In contrast, in the US in all states and territories other than California and Oregon, no educational or regulatory standards are imposed on the majority of individuals who prepare federal and state income tax returns for a fee. The performance of tax agents in Oregon, with its relatively rigorous program of paid preparer regulation, was compared to tax agents in the rest of the US (except California). Paid preparer tax returns in Oregon were found to be both more accurate and more compliant on three measures of performance: (1) math errors, (2) potential reporting discrepancies of $10 or more for interest income, and (3) audit outcomes. This finding may have important implications for Australia as it seeks to introduce further regulatory reform in this area, and for other self-assessment jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and US, where paid preparers play a vital role in tax administration and taxpayer compliance.

January 2, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition, below the fold are the Top 10 Tax Stories of 2008, generated from a post on the TaxProf Discussion Group, beginning with Joe the Plumber, Tax Pork Added to the Bailout Bill, and Tax Policy in the Obama-Biden Administration:

Continue reading "The Top 10 Tax Stories of 2008"

January 2, 2009 in Celebrity Tax Lore, IRS News, New Cases | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack (0)

Benjamin Alarie (Toronto) has posted Assessing Tax-Free Savings Accounts: Promises and Pressures on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Tax-free savings accounts ("TFSAs") will be available in Canada in January 2009. A TFSA is a "tax prepaid" or "yield-exempt" investment account that does not provide any deduction for contributions and allows for tax-free compounding of investment returns in addition to tax-free withdrawals at any time. This article examines the theory surrounding TFSAs, briefly outlines the empirical evidence from the UK and the US with similar accounts, and identifies the consequences that are likely to emerge with the advent of TFSAs within the existing Canadian tax system. TFSAs can be expected to generate some modest new savings by Canadians with low and middle incomes and to give rise to asset shifting from taxable investments to TFSAs by those who have savings that are currently held outside of tax-advantaged accounts. The analysis suggests that the TFSA regime should probably be regarded ambivalently from the perspectives of efficiency and equity on account of having a small effect on savings and investment behaviour that will come at the cost of significant forgone tax revenue.

January 2, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

John R. Graham (Duke University, Fuqua School of Business), Michelle Hanlon (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business) & Terry J. Shevlin (University of Washington, Foster School of Business) have posted Barriers to Mobility: The Lockout Effect of U.S. Taxation of Worldwide Corporate Profits on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Using data from a survey of tax executives, we examine the corporate response to the one-time dividends received deduction in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (AJCA). We describe the firms' reported sources and uses of the cash repatriated under the Act. In addition, we examine non-tax costs companies incurred rather than bringing the cash home prior to the AJCA. We also contribute to current policy debates by examining whether firms would repatriate reinvested earnings again if a similar Act were to occur in the future and the likelihood that firms assess on there being another such Act. Overall, the evidence is consistent with a substantial lockout effect resulting from the current U.S. tax policy of taxing the worldwide profits of U.S. multinationals.

January 2, 2009 in Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Tax_analysts_logo I previously blogged the launch of the ambitious new Shelf Project by Calvin Johnson (Texas) and Tax Analysts.  Calvin reports on the one-year anniversary of the project:

This is a review of our year and a brief status report for the future.  For the immediate future, the Congress will enact stimulus. Good revenue raising ideas will sit, aptly named, on the Shelf. But projects get better with vintage and time in development. All our proposals are serious and professionally reviewed.

I.  Year in Review.  We have published 27 shelf project proposals in Tax Notes (Tax Shelf column) to raise revenue, but not rates, and protect the tax base:

• The Shelf Project: Revenue Raising Projects that Defend the Tax Base, 117 Tax Notes 1077 (Dec. 10, 2007)
• Calvin Johnson, Replace the Corporate Tax with a Market Capitalization Tax, 117 Tax Notes 1082 (Dec. 10, 2007)
• Calvin Johnson, Repeal Tax Exemption for Municipal Bonds, 117 Tax Notes 1259 (Dec. 24, 2007)
• Calvin Johnson, Sale of Goodwill and Other Intangibles as Ordinary Income, 118 Tax Notes 321 (Jan. 7, 2008)
• Charles I. Kingson, Revise the Rules for Passive Income and Assets, 118 Tax Notes 535 (Jan. 28, 2008)
• Charles I. Kingson, Business Income and the Foreign Tax Credit, 118 Tax Notes 741 (Feb. 11, 2008)
• Charles I. Kingson, Reform Intercompany Sales and Service Income under Subpart F, 118 Tax Notes 951 (Feb. 25, 2008)
• Charles I. Kingson, Taxing Foreign Corporations on U.S. Business Income