Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Why Is University Housing Tax-Exempt?
Hacibey Çatalbaşoğlu (J.D. 2024, NYU), Note, Why Is University Housing Tax-Exempt?, 99 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1721 (2024):
In this Note, I challenge three dominant theories behind property tax exemptions for university housing—the “Quid-Pro-Quo,” “Sovereignty,” and, what I call, “Oxbridge” theories—and propose that only undergrad housing should be taxexempt. My proposal would recognize the unique educational value of undergrad housing, help reduce town-gown tensions, and be easy to apply.
Introduction
Picture two charming Brooklyn brownstones side-by-side. They’re identical: They offer the same amenities, look the same, cost the same, and both house university students. But one is owned by the local Davenport University and the other by lifelong Brooklynite Benjamin Butler. Yet, come the end of the year, the City of New York can charge property taxes only on Mr. Butler’s brownstone. The students in both homes can use the city’s services—for example, they can all enjoy Central Park or, if they have kids, send them to Brooklyn Tech—but Mr. Butler’s tenants pay for the city’s services, through property taxes in their rent, while the university’s tenants don’t.
November 5, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Law, Literature, And The Legal Imagination
Simon Stern (Toronto; Google Scholar), Law, Literature, and The Legal Imagination, 35 Yale J.L. & Human. 211 (2024):
Law and literature occupies an unusual place among the interdisciplines in the legal academy. Various interdisciplinary conjunctions have found a home on law faculties over the last half-century or so, such as law and economics, law and sociology, and law and psychology, more recently supplemented by law and neuroscience. Most law professors could summarize the aims of scholarship fairly accurately in these areas. Law and literature has had a place in the legal academy for about the same amount of time, and yet those who do not read current scholarship in this field tend to have a vague or even misinformed understanding of what the work entails.
November 5, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
Artful Imbalance: How the US Tax Code And State Trust Laws Enable The Growth Of Inequality Through High-Value Art Collections
Mimi Strauss (J.D. 2024, Brooklyn), Note, Artful Imbalance: How the US Tax Code and State Trust Laws Enable the Growth of Inequality Through High-Value Art Collections, 89 Brook. L. Rev. 681 (2024):
The United States has become the leading jurisdiction for those who wish to buy and store high-value art and NFTs, pay as few taxes as possible, and ultimately secure their wealth for generations. This “onshore” tax crisis is the result of tax loopholes, money laundering, the securitization of art and NFTs, and the state-by-state trust system. These forms of tax dodging—both legal and illegal—contribute to wealth inequality and deplete the welfare state. As natural disasters and pandemics become ever more present, the United States will rely more heavily on taxes, and that burden should be carried by everyone, not just the middle class.
November 5, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
ABA Walks Back Plan To Remove ‘Race And Ethnicity’ From Law School Diversity Accreditation Standard
Following upon my previous posts (links below): Reuters, ABA Walks Back Plan to Remove 'Race and Ethnicity' From Law School Diversity Rules:
The American Bar Association is aiming to keep references to “race and ethnicity” in its diversity rules for law schools, following pushback from legal educators who said a proposed revision of the rule that struck those terms could hobble efforts to recruit diverse students and faculty.
The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar on Friday is slated to consider a second revised version of what is currently called the Diversity and Inclusion standard after an earlier version received widespread criticism for going “too far” beyond the parameters of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision barring the consideration of race in college admissions, according to a Nov. 1 memo from the committee that drafted the revision.
The rule at issue involves how law schools must demonstrate commitment to diversity through recruitment, admissions and programming. The ABA is designated as the national accreditor of law schools by the U.S. Department of Education and it maintains a series of standards that all schools must follow.
November 5, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Mazur & Thimmesch: Transforming Tax Communications With Large Language Models
Orly Mazur (SMU; Google Scholar) & Adam Thimmesch (Nebraska; Google Scholar), Transforming Tax Communications With Large Language Models, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 757 (Oct. 28, 2024):
In this installment of Academic Perspectives on SALT, Mazur and Thimmesch explore how to improve the efficiency and equity of tax administration through the strategic use of large language models and related artificial intelligence.
Conclusion
LLMs have the potential to significantly transform tax communications by simplifying taxpayer interactions, enhancing the efficiency of tax communications’ personalized support, and making tax agency resources more widely accessible. This article has highlighted just a few of the ways LLMs can revolutionize the IRS and state tax agencies’ communication functions — from enhancing external communications with taxpayers to improving internal training and promoting fairness.
November 5, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Law Student Faces Expulsion For ‘Aggressive Pointing’
Update: New York Post, NY Law Student Faces Expulsion For ‘Aggressive Pointing’ at Trans Student as Prop 1 Panel Descends Into Chaos
Olivia Reingold (The Free Press), Law Student Faces Expulsion for ‘Aggressive Pointing’:
When Houston Porter, a 28-year-old law student at Pace University, first walked into the college auditorium last month, he was surprised to see a packed house for the “Saving Women’s Sports” panel he was co-moderating.
“Our events normally don’t get that kind of turnout,” says Porter, a member of The Federalist Society, a conservative group that sponsored the panel at Pace’s law school in White Plains, New York. “So it was exciting.”
But not long after, Porter’s world started “crumbling down”—with at least one professor shouting at panelists and another allegedly rushing the stage, followed by a Title IX investigation that accuses him of having “aggressively pointed” at a transgender student and misgendering her. Now Porter faces the possibility of suspension, expulsion, and even being barred from practicing law.
November 5, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Monday, November 4, 2024
NYU Seeks to Hire A Tax VAP
New York University Graduate Tax Program, Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law Position Commencing Fall 2025:
For over 50 years, the Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law program has launched the careers of dozens of tax academics.
Visiting Assistant Professors of Tax Law (VAPs) show promise as legal scholars and have a strong interest in teaching. They serve on a full-time, non-tenure track basis at the Law School for two academic years. At the start of their second year, they are expected to seek a tenure-track position on the law school academic job market.
While in residence at the Law School, Tax VAPs devote a substantial amount of time to their scholarship and begin to develop their research agendas. Tax VAPs teach one course in the Graduate Tax Program each semester. Each Tax VAP also generally serves an Assistant Editor of the Tax Law Review, the nation’s top tax policy journal.
The NYU Law tax faculty mentors the Tax VAPs, evaluating and assisting in their teaching and providing feedback on their scholarly work. In addition, the faculty provides substantial support in preparing the Tax VAPs for entering the academic job market. Tax VAPs are also encouraged to attend faculty workshops and conferences, especially the Tax Policy Colloquium, which meets weekly in the spring semester.
November 4, 2024 in Fellowships & VAPs, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Prof Jobs | Permalink
Legal Ed News Roundup
- ABA Journal, Don’t Give Money To Law Schools Unless They Teach Originalism, Conservative Federal Appeals Judge Says
- ABA Journal, From Behind Bars, To Passing The Bar
- ABA Journal, Sanction Against Northwestern Law Prof Affirmed By 10th Circuit
- American Lawyer, K&L Gates Looks To Extend Gen AI Expertise to Access To Justice Fight
- AfroTech, The Top HBCU Law Schools For The Best Legal Education In The Country
- Daily Report, University Of Georgia School Of Law Finds Next Dean On Its Own Faculty
- Harvard Crimson, President Garber Announces Advisory Committee For Harvard Law School Dean Search
- Law360, 10th Circuit Upholds Sanctions Against Northwestern Law Prof
November 4, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Origination And Original Meaning: Reviving The Origination Clause To Restrain The Administrative State
Jake Settle (J.D. 2025, George Mason), Comment, Origination and Original Meaning: Reviving the Origination Clause to Restrain the Administrative State, 31 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 697 (2024)
There is a disturbing trend of federal agencies assessing fees to be paid by taxpayers via administrative rulemaking. This unconstitutional arrangement leaves Americans in danger of taxation without representation—the very peril the Origination Clause was designed to prevent. This oft-forgotten constitutional provision requires all revenue-raising bills to originate in the House of Representatives.
The Origination Clause was the glue that bonded the Constitutional Convention’s warring factions together to produce the Great Compromise. Since the Declaration of Independence, fear of taxation without representation was front-and-center of the Framer’s concerns. The Origination Clause’s original meaning and purpose was to create a procedural safeguard preventing excessive taxation by connecting the politically sensitive job of assessing tax burdens to the branch of the government most accountable to the people. By ensuring the enactors of a tax were never more than two years away from an election, the Origination Clause provides a strong incentive for legislators to only tax when necessary for the common good.
November 4, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Defending Academic Freedom Means Defending Amy Wax
Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed: Defending Academic Freedom Means Defending Amy Wax, by Alex Morey (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression):
The controversial law professor offers a test of principle.
Why should a professor’s speech outside of class, on a matter totally unrelated to their area of expertise, be protected by academic freedom?
Arizona State University professors Richard Amesbury and Catherine O’Donnell don’t think it should be. In a recent Chronicle Review essay, they argue that the University of Pennsylvania properly disciplined law professor Amy Wax for “unprofessional” extramural comments. Wax has stated quite controversially that Black students have lower average cognitive ability and get worse grades in her classes, and that America would be “better off” with fewer Asians.
Amesbury and O’Donnell argue that the First Amendment principles broadly protecting free speech at public colleges and universities (and at the many private ones like Penn that adopt those principles independently) are fully distinct from academic freedom. So while the Constitution insulates Wax’s extracurricular commentary from government intrusion, academic freedom — which they characterize as protecting “the ability to assess the content of what is said on its merits” — ought not insulate her from faculty-sanctioned discipline.
But Amesbury and O’Donnell are working from a faulty premise. Academic freedom doesn’t work like that. ...
November 4, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Lesson From The Tax Court: FBAR Penalties Are Not Tax Penalties ... Thank Goodness
We often talk about “the IRS” as if it were a person (or animal!). Or we talk about the “Treasury Department” doing this or that. But agencies are legal fictions. They do not exist. The actual work is done by actual people. Thus when you read statutes that Congress writes, you see that Congress generally grants powers not to the agency but instead to just a single person, generally “the Secretary” of a department. That person then delegates the powers to other specific categories of people within the relevant agency. And those folks often then re-delegate their powers to yet other groups of folks. It's a trail of delegations.
Specifically, Congress empowers one single person, the Secretary of the Treasury, to perform a lot of functions. Some of those functions are assessing and collecting internal revenue taxes. Others involve matters about the federal government’s finances and budget. The Secretary has delegated to IRS officials the responsibly for assessing and collecting taxes. But the Secretary has also delegated to the same folks the responsibility for assessing and collection certain non-tax liabilities, such as the penalty for failing to submit a proper Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).
All of this leads to the lesson we learn in Stephen C. Jenner and Judy A Jenner v. Commissioner, 163 T.C. No. 7 (Oct. 22, 2024) (Judge Foley): just because the IRS assesses and collects a liability does not make it a tax liability. The Jenners were assessed a penalty for their failure to submit a proper FBAR. Under its delegated authority, the IRS then sought to administratively collect the penalties by offsetting part of the Jenners’ Social Security payments through the Treasury Offset Program. The Jenners sought a Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing. Both the IRS and the Tax Court said they were not entitled to a CDP hearing because FBAR penalties are not taxes. There are other reasons why CDP does not apply, but the Court did not get into those.
The bad news from this case is taxpayers like the Jenners have no recourse to the Tax Court to contest an FBAR penalty because … it’s not a tax! The good news, however, is that the same taxpayers certainly do have the ability to obtain judicial review without having to fully pay the asserted penalty because … it’s not a tax!
Details below the fold.
November 4, 2024 in Bryan Camp, New Cases, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Practice And Procedure, Tax Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hubbard: New Rule Of Law Data Underscores Urgency Of Educating Next Gen Lawyers For Democracy
TaxProf Blog op-ed: New Rule Of Law Data Underscores Urgency Of Educating Next Gen Lawyers For Democracy, by William C. Hubbard, Dean, South Carolina; Co-founder and Chair of the Board, The World Justice Project:
In June, 104 law deans, convened under the auspices of the ABA Task Force on American Democracy, signed a joint letter committing to training the next generation of lawyers to protect our democracy and uphold the rule of law. That this is an urgent project is underscored by new data, published last week by the World Justice Project, the board of which I chair.
As I have shared with this audience in the past, WJP has been tracking a global rule of law recession since 2016. For seven years in a row, the WJP Rule of Law Index has registered declining scores in a majority of countries worldwide. This year saw Index scores slide in 57% of countries, including the United States, which has in recent years suffered particularly steep declines in critical checks and balances, and now ranks a disappointing 26th out of 142 countries included in the study. The data provide a powerful evidence base for the law deans’ call to action.
November 4, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup
- This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
- Law Firm Accuses DePaul Law Student Of 'Sabotage' In Chicago Bears Hiring Bias Lawsuit
- 5th Circuit Affirms Tax Court: Tax Rule In Political Donations Tightened
Sunday:
- The Christian Case For Voting Democrat, Republican, And Third Party
- Presidential Candidates Break Out Faith References In The Final Days Of The Campaign
- Unity Before And After November 5th
- Vanity Fair: What JD And Usha Vance Learned From Their ‘Tiger Mom’ At Yale Law School
- The Top Five New Tax Papers
November 4, 2024 in Legal Education, Tax, Tax Daily, Weekend Roundup | Permalink
Sunday, November 3, 2024
The Christian Case For Voting Democrat, Republican, And Third Party
Christianity Today, Bulletin: Stop. Look. Listen:
The Bulletin is a weekly (and sometimes more!) current events show from Christianity Today hosted and moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today’s editor in chief) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). ... [O]ur special Stop. Look. Listen. miniseries ... features thoughtful reflections from Christians on who they’re voting for in November’s presidential election.
- Why David French Is Voting Democrat
David French (J.D. 1994, Harvard; Columnist, New York Times) - Why Eric Teetsel Is Voting Republican
Eric Teetsel (Executive Vice President, Center For Renewing America) - Why Matt Martens Is Voting Third Party
Matt Martens (J.D. 1996, North Carolina; Partner, WilmerHale)
November 3, 2024 in Faith, Legal Education | Permalink
Presidential Candidates Break Out Faith References In The Final Days Of The Campaign
Christianity Today, Candidates Break Out Faith References ‘For Such a Time as This’:
Overall, there’s been less focus on religious outreach by either campaign this election cycle, less talk of religion, and fewer faith events. Most Americans don’t see either candidate as particularly religious.
But in the final days of the campaign, both former president Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are doing more to evoke God in their messaging—and to appeal to Christian voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan.
Trump and Harris have held events in Georgia churches in recent weeks. They each offered remarks to different crowds on how the country needs faith—with contrasting ideas of how to live that out in office. ...
A new survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution has found that Christian support for the candidates splits on racial lines.
November 3, 2024 in Faith, Legal Education | Permalink
Unity Before And After November 5th
I sent the following email to our students last week:
Our Pepperdine Caruso Law community will join others across our nation in casting votes for leaders of our federal, state, and local governments this Tuesday, November 5, 2024. In this 60th presidential election in our nation’s history, we will once again exercise the power of self-government and embody the virtues of liberty, equality, and the rule of law upon which our constitutional republic stands.
As we cast our votes and await the collective will of our fellow citizens, our law school community will remain rooted in faith, hope, and love.
My wife Courtney and I invite you to come and share a meal together and hear a message of unity at the Dean’s Bible Study this Wednesday, November 6, at our on-campus home. All are welcome, regardless of your faith tradition (if any).
* 6:00 pm Dinner
* 7:00 pm Message (Bound Together in Christ: Embracing Unity in a Divided World) ...
Thank you for your commitment to one another and for being part of this very special community.
Larissa Phillips (The Free Press), Whatever Happens, Love Thy Neighbor:
I’m a Democrat living in a red, rural county. Trump supporters have mowed my lawn, walked my dog, and eroded my prejudices with their humanity.
November 3, 2024 in Faith, Legal Education, Pepperdine Legal Ed | Permalink
Vanity Fair: What JD And Usha Vance Learned From Their ‘Tiger Mom’ At Yale Law School
Following up on my previous post, New York Times (July 17, 2024), How Yale Law School Launched The Careers Of JD And Usha Vance: Vanity Fair (Nov. 1, 2024), What JD and Usha Vance Learned From Their “Tiger Mom” at Yale Law School:
Amy Chua, the professor whose 2011 parenting memoir made her a household name, looms large in the legal and political trajectories of numerous figures who have matriculated from the powerful Ivy League law school, including the Vances.
When JD Vance became Donald Trump’s running mate in July, completing his transformation from vigorous critic to true MAGA believer, he left former friends from Yale Law School scratching their heads. A corollary question arose from the professional bona fides and cultural background of his wife. Surely Usha Chilukuri Vance, onetime Supreme Court clerk and associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco, a firm known for its clients in tech and entertainment, is not standing for the anti-immigrant, anti-woman stuff, right? Back in July, friend and strategist on JD Vance’s Senate campaign Jai Chabria told The Washington Post that Usha had also undergone a “shift in views” alongside her husband. If they weren’t in lockstep when they met as students at Yale Law School, they certainly seem to be on the same page now.
November 3, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
The Top Five New Tax Papers
There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #5.
- [1007 Downloads] Federal Tax Procedure (2024 Practitioner Ed.), by John Townsend (Houston; Google Scholar)
- [905 Downloads] What is Tax Fairness?, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar)
- [507 Downloads] Reforming the Taxation of Life Insurance, by Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar) & Andrew Granato (Yale; Google Scholar)
- [455 Downloads] Non-(Fully) Harmonised Excise Taxes and Irrebuttable Presumptions, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar)
- [308 Downloads] An Introduction to the Taxation of Financial Instruments, by Joshua Banafsheha (Cravath)
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November 3, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship, Top 5 Downloads | Permalink
Saturday, November 2, 2024
This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
- Derek Muller (Notre Dame), Recent Trends In Law School Lateral Hiring, 2019-2024
- Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Richard Amesbury (Arizona State) & Catherine O'Donnell (Arizona State)), Stop Defending Amy Wax: Academic Freedom Doesn’t Authorize Unprofessional Conduct
- American Enterprise Institute, College President Rankings
- Kris Franklin (New York Law School) & Catherine Martin Christopher (Texas Tech), Defining The Discipline: Six Pillars Of Academic Success Programming In Law Schools
- Victoria Sutton (Texas Tech), Online Learning In Law Schools: The Pandemic Experiment
- National Law Journal, More Young Lawyers Are Entering Big Law With Mental Health Issues. Are Firms Ready To Accommodate Them?
- Inside Higher Ed, Faculty Presidential Election Survey: 78% Harris, 8% Trump
- Reuters, UC-San Francisco Law School Applications Surge 64%, Thanks To Alumna Kamala Harris
- Josh Blackman (South Texas), How To Reform Law Schools: Boycott Law Clerks (Judge Ho) Or Divest Funding (Judge Thapar)?
- Pepperdine Newsroom, Pepperdine Caruso Law School Awards Honorary Degree To 98-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor David Wiener
Tax:
- Tax Notes, 2024 Student Writing Competition Winner: Nicholas Lott (BYU)
- Call For Papers, The Law And Economics Of Wealth Management And Transmission
- Florida Seeks to Hire A Tax VAP
- Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo), Review Of Taxing The Wealthy At The State Level By Brian Galle (Georgetown), David Gamage (Missouri) & Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)
- Benjamin Leff (American), Challenging The Johnson Amendment: What SAFE SPACE Gets Right — And Wrong
- Heather Field (UC-San Francisco), Tax Enforcement By The Private Sector—Deputizing Tax Insurers
- Itai Grinberg (Georgetown), Lecture On Pillar 2 And The OECD Tax Function At Vienna University
- Cliff Fleming (BYU), Robert Peroni (Texas) & Stephen Shay (Boston College), The U.S. Tax System’s Curious Embrace Of Manufacturing Job Losses
- SSRN, Tax Professor Rankings
- Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo), International Tax Implications For Private Equity Investments
Faith
- Dispatch Faith (Samuel D. James), Our Curated Lives Are Walling Us Off From Others, And Ultimately From God
- Notre Dame Symposium, Liberalism, Christianity & Constitutionalism
- Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Bibles At The Supreme Court
- New York Times Op-Ed (Ross Douthat), Is the World Ready For A Religious Comeback?
- Pepperdine Newsroom, Pepperdine Caruso Law School Awards Honorary Degree To 98-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor David Wiener
November 2, 2024 in About This Blog, Faith, Legal Education, Tax, Weekly Top 10 TaxProf Blog Posts | Permalink
Law Firm Accuses DePaul Law Student Of 'Sabotage' In Chicago Bears Hiring Bias Lawsuit
Following up on my previous posts:
- White Male DePaul 1L Sues Chicago Bears For Gender And Racial Discrimination In Hiring For 'Legal Diversity Fellow' Position: (Mar. 30, 2024)
- Chicago Bears Settle Hiring Bias Suit From White Male Law Student (Sept. 3, 2024)
Law360, Law Firm Accuses Ex-Paralegal Of 'Sabotage' In Bears Case:
An Illinois law firm has accused one of its former paralegals of attempting to stiff the firm for work it did settling his discrimination suit against the Chicago Bears, alleging that the erstwhile employee declined to file key paperwork and deleted critical files.
The accusations were laid out in a Tuesday filing by Trent Law Firm PC, a litigation boutique in Chicago that represented one of its paralegals, Jonathan Bresser, in his case against the Bears. That case settled in August, but Bresser resigned shortly thereafter, citing his "dissatisfaction" with the fees it was seeking for the case, the firm said.
November 2, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
5th Circuit Affirms Tax Court: Tax Rule In Political Donations Tightened
Wall Street Journal, Tax Rule In Political Donations Tightened:
A federal appeals court narrowed the tax rule that has let conservative and liberal groups pour billions of dollars into political campaigns without disclosing their donors, and the case could restrict the flow of so-called dark money into politics [Memorial Hermann Accountable Care Organization v. Commissioner, No. 23-60608 (3d Cir. Oct. 28, 2024)].
The unanimous opinion from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came this week in a healthcare case that didn’t directly address politically active organizations. But the decision—from a conservative court—sets a tighter legal standard for tax-exempt status that the advocates for political donor transparency have long sought. from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came this week in a healthcare case that didn’t directly address politically active organizations. But the decision—from a conservative court—sets a tighter legal standard for tax-exempt status that the advocates for political donor transparency have long sought.
The court said groups can’t qualify for tax exemption under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code if they have a substantial nonexempt purpose. That is a much stricter standard than the one in Internal Revenue Service regulations, which say groups only need a primary purpose that qualifies for the exemption. That has been interpreted to allow tax exemptions for groups that spend 51% of their money on lobbying or other clearly allowed activities—and 49% on politics.
“The people who are making the case that they can do up to 49%, do they have a leg to stand on? Their leg got a lot weaker,” said Phil Hackney, a University of Pittsburgh tax law professor.
November 2, 2024 in New Cases, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax News | Permalink
Friday, November 1, 2024
The Tax Lawyer Publishes New Issue
The Tax Lawyer has published Vol. 77, No. 4 (Summer 2024):
- Hayes Holderness (Richmond), Self-Policing Through Retaliatory Taxation, 77 Tax Law. 715 (2024)
- Adam B. Thimmesch (Nebraska; Google Scholar), A Future for the State Corporate Income Tax, 77 Tax Law. 761 (2024):
November 1, 2024 in ABA Tax Section, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Weekly Legal Education Roundup
- American Enterprise Institute, A Crisis in Leadership? Examining the Successes and Failures of University Presidents
- Josh Blackman (South Texas), How To Reform Law Schools: Boycott Law Clerks Or Divest Funding? Judges Ho and Thapar Favor Different Approaches.
- Andrele Brutus St. Val (Pittsburgh), Distance Learning: New Tech, Old Problems
- Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law School Awards Honorary Degree To 98-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor David Wiener
- Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Richard Amesbury & Catherine O'Donnell), Stop Defending Amy Wax: Academic Freedom Doesn’t Authorize Unprofessional Conduct
- Meera Deo (Southwestern), Equity in Legal Education
- Kris Franklin (New York Law School) & Catherine Martin Christopher (Texas Tech), Defining the Discipline: Six Pillars of Academic Success Programming in Law Schools
November 1, 2024 in Legal Education, Scott Fruehwald, Weekly Legal Ed Roundup | Permalink
Tax Policy In The Biden Administration
- Bloomberg, Casualty Loss Deductions Need Fairer Approach
- Bloomberg, GOP's SALT Failure Gives Democrats Cudgel in Tight House Races
- Bloomberg, Post-Election Tax Cliff Spurs Rich to Prep Huge Wealth Transfer
- Cato Institute, More than Just a Tax Cut: the Case of Child Tax Credit Reform
- Cato Institute, The Right Corporate Tax Rate Is 0 Percent
- CNBC, Trump Doubles Down on Replacing Income Taxes With Tariffs in Joe Rogan Interview
November 1, 2024 in Tax, Tax Daily, Tax News, Tax Policy in the Biden Administration | Permalink
Deo: Equity In Legal Education
Meera E. Deo (Southwestern; Google Scholar), Equity in Legal Education, 63 Santa Clara L. Rev. 95 (2023):
The pandemic has brought to light myriad inequities, in legal education as elsewhere in society. Many of these barriers have existed for decades; while they have been exacerbated due to COVID, they will likely linger even as the pandemic subsides. This Article draws from both quantitative and qualitative data collected from students and faculty to reveal how the pandemic has heightened existing challenges in legal education, in particular ways and with distinctive effects on different populations. While inequities are a hallmark of legal education, the fissures and fault lines of these hierarchies have expanded during COVID. People of color, women, caregivers, those who are the first in their families to earn a college degree (“first- gen”), and others from backgrounds traditionally excluded from legal education are in particularly precarious positions due to the pandemic—though the inequities they face as law school students or professors have existed for decades.
November 1, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
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November 1, 2024 in About This Blog, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink
Florida Symposium: Moore, Loper Bright, Corner Post, And The Future Of The Federal Tax System
The University of Florida Levin College of Law hosts the Florida Tax Review Symposium on Moore, Loper Bright, Corner Post, and the Future of the Federal Tax System today and tomorrow (agenda):
Friday, November 1:
9:15 - 11:15 AM (zoom)
- Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & Muskan Sharma (Michigan), Containing the Blast Radius: Can Congress Save the Code from Realization? (with Elise Hocking (Michigan))
- Commentator: Tamir Shanan (Haim Striks; Google Scholar)
- Calvin Johnson (Texas), Charles and Kathleen Moore and the Coming Tax Armageddon
- Commentator: Tracey Roberts (Cumberland; Google Scholar)
11:30 - 12:30 PM
- Tracey Roberts (Cumberland; Google Scholar), The Tax Trench Deepens
- Commentator: Blaine Saito (Ohio State; Google Scholar)
1:30 - 2:30 PM: The Future of the Federal Tax System (zoom)
November 1, 2024 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
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November 1, 2024 in About This Blog, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink
Implementing ABA Standard 303(B)(3): Positive Legal Education Through A Community Of Inquiry
Joshua Aaron Jones (Cal-Western; Google Scholar), Implementing ABA Standard 303(B)(3): Positive Legal Education Through A Community Of Inquiry, 48 Vt. L. Rev. 564 (2024):
This Article builds on previous scholarship and offers an andragogy option for delivering PID at the classroom level. Adopting the Foundational Competencies Model (FCM) and Four Foundational Professional Development and Formation Goals (PD&F Goals), this Article revisits Professor Debra S. Austin’s call for a Positive Legal Education (PLE) movement. The Article suggests that, when combined with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) teaching framework and andragogy methods, positive legal education provides an ideal philosophy for meeting the PD&F Goals to achieve the FCM. The discussion includes suggestions for law schools to employ positive psychology in a CoI so that students can learn, grow, and flourish while in law school, on the bar exam, and in the profession.
November 1, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Aprill & Mayer: 21st Century Churches And Federal Tax Law
Ellen P. Aprill (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar) & Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), 21st Century Churches and Federal Tax Law, 2024 U. Ill. L. Rev. 939:
Federal tax treatment matters to churches, the term the IRS uses for all types of religious congregations, including synagogues, mosques, and temples. The federal tax provisions most significant for churches and certain entities closely related to them, however, are not those that the public and commentators often assume. Exemption from income tax and the ability of donors to deduct contributions, the benefits that receive the most public attention, in fact provide surprisingly little benefit either to churches in the aggregate or to most individual churches. Their status as organizations taxexempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, moreover, imposes a variety of burdens on them. The burdens include limitations on lobbying and the prohibition on any intervention in campaigns for public office.
October 31, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Distance Learning: New Tech, Old Problems
Andrele Brutus St. Val (Pittsburgh), Distance Learning: New Tech, Old Problems, 32 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol’y __ (2025):
In the 1800s, American academic leaders vehemently opposed distance education, which is when the student and teacher are separated by distance, arguing that it eliminated the social aspects of college life and undermined the prestigious status of professors. Fast forward to the present, and a similar debate is raging in legal academia, this time focused on online legal education. Critics contend that online education devalues face-to-face classrooms and undermines the core of effective teaching and learning—in-person interaction. However, a paradigm shift is on the horizon, marked by the American Bar Association's recent proposals to liberalize access to legal education through expanded online options for J.D. students.
October 31, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
International Tax Implications For Private Equity Investments
Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo; Google Scholar), International Tax Implications for Private Equity Investments, in Research Handbook on the Structure of Private Equity and Venture Capital (Brian Broughman (Vanderbilt; Google Scholar) & Elisabeth de Fontenay (Duke; Google Scholar) eds., forthcoming 2025). :
Private equity funds (PEFs) have continuously grown over the last couple of decades, making up a “quarter of global M&A activity and as much as half of the leveraged loan issues in the capital markets” (Talmor and Vasvari, 2011, 3). Its popularity is due to the fact that it allows access to capital not available on the public markets. However, discourse on private equity tax is still limited to domestic matters. There is scant research analyzing international tax aspects of PEFs’ cross-border investment, despite the dramatic increase in international capital flows. Indeed, PEFs invest all over the world. American private equity firms were in charge of 32% of international buyout investments between 2003 and 2007. During the same period, 34% of the investments from the European private equity market were deployed in nondomestic countries (Talmor and Vasvari, 2011).
October 31, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Podcasting As Legal Scholarship
Sara Y. Gras (Seton Hall), Positioning Podcasting as Legal Scholarship, 2024 Utah L. Rev. 189:
Technology has revolutionized legal practice, education, and society generally, yet the availability of new forms of digital media has not significantly changed the locus of legal scholarship. This Article examines whether our collective understanding of where scholarship can exist should expand to include podcasting as a formally acknowledged medium for legal scholarship. Student-edited law journals remain the primary vehicle for disseminating law faculty scholarship, as well as an important measure of faculty productivity and success as scholars, even though most legal research is conducted online. Despite acknowledged structural limitations and biases inherent in the academic law review system, traditional print law journals continue to be more highly placed on the hierarchy than their online counterparts.
October 31, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
NYU & ATPI Host Virtual Event Today On What Loper Bright And Moore Mean For Tax
The Tax Law Center and the American Tax Policy Institute host a virtual event today on What Loper Bright & Moore Mean for Tax (recording):
The Tax Law Center and the American Tax Policy Institute are hosting a virtual event on Thursday, October 31 from 9:30-11 am EDT on the impact of the Moore andLoper Bright decisions on the tax system, including reflection on underappreciated aspects of these otherwise much-discussed cases. Following a panel on each case, the event will close with reflections from former Assistant Treasury Secretaries for Tax Policy Lily Batchelder and Eric Solomon....
October 31, 2024 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
More Young Lawyers Are Entering Big Law With Mental Health Issues. Are Firms Ready To Accommodate Them?
National Law Journal, More Young Lawyers Are Entering Big Law With Mental Health Issues. Are Firms Ready to Accommodate Them?:
It was always fathomable that law school—with its relentless competitiveness, grading curves and Socratic method—could worsen someone's mental health.
But for reasons including social media, traumatic world events and a global pandemic, many of today's law students with a mental health issue developed it before they finished their undergraduate degree. ...
The overall downturn of mental health in young people prompted Loyola Marymount University law school professor Amy B. Levin to study the available research that could explain what she was seeing in her classes. "In my last five years of teaching, the ability of students to read and write has declined, and I'm not alone in feeling that way," said Levin, who compiled her research into a paper titled "The Kids Aren't Alright."
October 31, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Galle Presents How To Tax The Rich: Options For 2025 And Beyond Today At Emory
Brian Galle (Georgetown; Google Scholar) presents How to Tax the Rich: Options for 2025 and Beyond at Emory today as part of its Faculty Colloquium Series:
How should we pay for the future? This monograph describes and compares major proposals to reform federal individual income and transfer (that is, estate and gift) taxes. The Biden administration and senior Senate Democrats have outlined plans for a “minimum income tax” on multi-millionaires in which very wealthy households (generally those worth over $100 million) would be taxed on the value of appreciated but unsold property. The administration’s proposal was dubbed the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, or BMIT. Yet some other Senators, and advocates outside government, have pointed to possible constitutional limits on that proposal, as well as offering critiques of its economic and political merits. ...
October 30, 2024 in Colloquia, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship, Tax Workshops | Permalink
College President Rankings
American Enterprise Institute, A Crisis in Leadership? Examining the Successes and Failures of University Presidents:
Executive Summary
College presidents are receiving heightened public attention and scrutiny. But few data exist that demonstrate which college presidents are most effective at improving student outcomes. This report ranks over 400 current and former college and university presidents on how much they improved access, affordability, and student success during their tenure as president. The rankings reveal that some college presidents are superstars. While president, these individuals cut tuition costs, increased the share of students from low-income and underrepresented racial backgrounds, and increased graduation rates. Other presidents, however, did little to improve these outcomes, and some presidents oversaw steep declines in these outcomes. I argue that higher education boards, students, and policymakers should pay more attention to how presidents improve student outcomes. Rankings such as these could provide some much-needed pressure on college presidents to elevate their performance on improving access, affordability, and student success.
Chronicle of Higher Education, Should College Presidents Be Ranked?:
October 30, 2024 in Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink
Avi-Yonah Posts Seven Tax Papers On SSRN
Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) has posted seven tax papers on SSRN:
The Up-C, Taxation, and Corporate Governance, 184 Tax Notes Fed. 2493 (Sept. 23, 2024):
This paper examines the tax and corporate governance issues of umbrella partnership C corporations and considers policy proposals to address those concerns.
Crypto and the Exit Tax, 184 Tax Notes Fed. 2143 (Sept. 9, 2024):
This paper discusses the Ver case and its implications for a constitutional challenge to section 877A.
Sourcing Derivatives: Time to Reverse the Rule?, 184 Tax Notes Fed. 1993 (Sept. 2, 2024):
October 30, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
UC-San Francisco Law School Applications Surge 64%, Thanks To Alumna Kamala Harris
Reuters, Kamala Harris' Law School Reports an Applicant Surge as Election Nears:
The University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, has reported a 64% spike in its number of applicants during the final weeks of the U.S. presidential election between Donald Trump and the school's alumna, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
The school has received 633 applications thus far, up from 385 this time last year, according to a report prepared by the Law School Admission Council and reviewed by Reuters. The council maintains a centralized application system for all U.S. law schools accredited by the American Bar Association.
Law Dean David Faigman said on Tuesday that applicants have cited Harris as one reason UC Law San Francisco is in high demand this year. Harris, who is running for president as a Democrat, graduated from the school in 1989 when it was called the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
October 30, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Zelenak: Why Nix Tip Tax Now?
Lawrence A. Zelenak (Duke; Google Scholar), Why Nix Tip Tax Now?, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 237 (Oct. 14, 2024):
In this article, Zelenak explores why — more than 100 years after a Treasury regulation declared tips taxable — proposals to exempt tips from federal income tax are only now politically viable, and he examines the design challenges faced by the drafters of proposals to exempt tips.
October 30, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Online Learning In Law Schools: The Pandemic Experiment
Victoria Sutton (Texas Tech; Google Scholar), Online Learning in Law Schools—the Pandemic Experiment:
Using methods from epidemiology and disaster research methods and data collected by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), this study observes the effects of law students learning online during the COVID-19 Pandemic government mandated closure and transition to online learning. The effects are measured by two measures: Multi-state Bar Examination (MBE) scores because this is consistently given in all states (except one); and the bar passage rate for all jurisdictions. This experimental method is used in catastrophic events when conditions not normally testable can be tested due to the extreme events. These effects can be observed over all law schools which online learning during the period for the classes of 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The findings did not agree with at least one hypothesis. Overall, law students performed slightly better on standardized testing on legal analysis and knowledge (the MBE) with all online learning;
October 30, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Kysar Presents Sunrise Legislation Today At UC-Irvine
Rebecca Kysar (Fordham; Google Scholar) presents Sunrise Legislation at UC-Irvine today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Natascha Fastabend:
Certain philosophers and legal scholars have advocated for the increased use of “sunrise legislation,” which takes effect only after a delay. In their view, sunrise legislation can obscure the identify of those whom the law benefits and burdens, thereby achieving a “veil of ignorance” effect that can facilitate public-minded reforms. In another context, sunrise legislation has not fared as well, with scholars questioning its function, as well as that of other devices like grandfathering, in mitigating the losses sustained by private parties because of legal reform. This “legal transition” literature generally concludes that the government need not, and should not, compensate for harms caused by legal reforms because doing so induces actors to engage in inefficient behavior.
In recent decades, lawmakers are increasingly using sunrise laws, typically to delay tax increases. They do so not to mask the identify of those burdened by the law or to provide transition relief but to comply with budget rules and meet fiscal pressures.
October 29, 2024 in Colloquia, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship, Tax Workshops | Permalink
Syracuse Partners With Kaplan To Provide Law Students With Academic Support And Free Bar Prep Courses
Syracuse University College of Law will begin providing all its graduating students with free comprehensive test prep for the bar exam through a new partnership with global educational services provider Kaplan, as part of its award-winning All Access initiative. Syracuse Law students in the Class of 2025 will be the first to take advantage of this new offering. Kaplan will also provide the school and students with other robust, comprehensive academic support services, from orientation through graduation, including integrated curriculum, diagnostics, and assessments.
October 29, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Florida Seeks to Hire A Tax VAP
University of Florida Levin College of Law, Visiting Assistant Professor:
University of Florida Levin College of Law seeks to hire a visiting assistant professor in tax as part of the College’s pursuit of excellence in legal education and scholarship. The University of Florida, located in Gainesville, FL, currently has the #3 tax law program in the nation and is the flagship university of the third largest state.
We welcome applications from holders of JD, LLM, and SJD degrees as well as from Ph.D. recipients or candidates in a related field. Successful candidates will have strong scholarly potential, commitment to excellence in teaching, and enthusiasm for creating a welcoming environment for all students.
VAPs will spend one or two years in residence at the Levin College of Law and will teach one class per semester in the JD tax or LLM tax curriculum. VAPs will have the opportunity to participate fully in the law school’s vibrant scholarly community and will benefit from the mentorship of our renowned tax and other faculty. The program’s goal is to prepare VAPs for a future career in legal academia.
October 29, 2024 in Fellowships & VAPs, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Prof Jobs | Permalink
Faculty Presidential Election Survey: 78% Harris, 8% Trump
Inside Higher Ed, Faculty Overwhelmingly Back Harris in November. But They Won’t Tell Students to Do the Same.:
Of the more than 1,100 faculty members across the U.S. who responded to a new Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research survey, almost none said they’re sitting this presidential election out. Ninety-six percent said they plan to vote. And they overwhelmingly intend to vote for Democrats.
Seventy-eight percent support Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz, while only 8 percent of the respondents back Donald Trump and JD Vance, according to the survey, which has a 2.9 percent margin of error. But while their personal support for Democrats was overwhelming, almost no respondents said they plan to tell students which party or candidate to vote for.
October 29, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
SSRN Tax Professor Rankings
SSRN has updated its monthly ranking of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database. Here is the new list (through October 1, 2024) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months):
All-Time | Recent | ||||
1 | Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan) | 236,819 | 1 | Jonathan Choi (USC) | 19,307 |
2 | Daniel Hemel (NYU) | 136,076 | 2 | Amy Monahan (Minnesota) | 12,749 |
3 | David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia) | 130,051 | 3 | Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan) | 11,729 |
4 | Dan Shaviro (NYU) | 129,612 | 4 | Zachary Liscow (Yale) | 6,610 |
5 | Lily Batchelder (NYU) | 128,825 | 5 | Kristin Hickman (Minnesota) | 5,020 |
6 | Darien Shanske (UC-Davis) | 121,965 | 6 | Daniel Hemel (NYU) | 4,518 |
7 | David Kamin (NYU) | 115,583 | 7 | Bridget Crawford (Pace) | 3,980 |
8 | Cliff Fleming (BYU) | 109,386 | 8 | David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia) | 3,881 |
9 | Ari Glogower (Northwestern) | 105,635 | 9 | Kim Clausing (UCLA) | 3,816 |
10 | Manoj Viswanathan (UC-SF) | 105,423 | 10 | Darien Shanske (UC-Davis) | 3,570 |
11 | Rebecca Kysar (Fordham) | 104,843 | 11 | D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley) | 3,516 |
12 | D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley) | 55,048 | 12 | Brad Borden (Brooklyn) | 3,457 |
13 | Michael Simkovic (USC) | 51,021 | 13 | Robert Sitkoff (Harvard) | 3,026 |
14 | Louis Kaplow (Harvard) | 44,504 | 14 | Louis Kaplow (Harvard) | 2,954 |
15 | Jonathan Choi (USC) | 42,866 | 15 | Jordan Barry (USC) | 2,698 |
16 | Paul Caron (Pepperdine) | 42,583 | 16 | David Weisbach (Chicago) | 2,663 |
17 | Bridget Crawford (Pace) | 41,555 | 17 | Michael Simkovic (USC) | 2,599 |
18 | Richard Ainsworth (Boston University) | 40,656 | 18 | Kyle Rozema (Northwestern) | 2,579 |
19 | Robert Sitkoff (Harvard) | 36,088 | 19 | Ruth Mason (Virginia) | 2,544 |
20 | Amy Monahan (Minnesota) | 35,038 | 20 | Brian Galle (Georgetown) | 2,126 |
21 | Brad Borden (Brooklyn) | 34,962 | 21 | Dan Shaviro (NYU) | 2,063 |
22 | Ruth Mason (Virginia) | 33,228 | 22 | Richard Ainsworth (Boston University) | 1,981 |
23 | Kim Clausing (UCLA) | 31,484 | 23 | Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.) | 1,962 |
24 | Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine) | 31,455 | 24 | John Brooks (Fordham) | 1,939 |
25 | Ed Kleinbard (USC) | 30,555 | 25 | Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo) | 1,892 |
October 29, 2024 in Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Prof Rankings, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Defining The Discipline: Six Pillars Of Academic Success Programming In Law Schools
Kris Franklin (New York Law School) & Catherine Martin Christopher (Texas Tech), Defining the Discipline: Six Pillars of Academic Success Programming in Law Schools:
This Article describes six "pillars" of programming that each law school must have in place in order to ensure the academic success of its students and graduates. No one person or program need provide all six, but law schools can use this Article to self-assess their strengths and identify areas where additional resources should be added. Likewise, academic success professors can use this Article to self-assess and design a plan for professional development. The pillars are: expertise in the fundamentals of learning theory and pedagogy, possessing fluency with core law school doctrine, understanding marginalization in order to mitigate, assisting students in crisis, operating effectively within the law school's institutional structures, and promoting professional longevity through development and self-care. While squarely aimed at promoting the academic success of law students, the pillars also implicate issues of employment status and pay equity for ASP professors.
October 29, 2024 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink
Monday, October 28, 2024
Field: Tax Enforcement by the Private Sector—Deputizing Tax Insurers
Heather M. Field (UC-San Francisco; Google Scholar), Tax Enforcement by the Private Sector: Deputizing Tax Insurers, 99 Ind. L.J. 1179 (2024):
The IRS is outgunned when trying to ensure compliance by large corporations and other sophisticated taxpayers. The private sector can help. Private sector actors, such as financial institutions, employers, and whistleblowers, have been valuable allies in the IRS’s efforts to improve compliance and enforcement. This Article argues for using another, largely overlooked, private sector party—tax insurers—to expand the IRS’s enforcement abilities. Tax insurers insure sophisticated taxpayers’ uncertain tax positions (e.g., the tax-free treatment of a corporate spinoff or tax credits critical to a renewable energy project). For a premium, a tax insurer agrees to pay any additional taxes owed with interest and penalties (up to the policy limit) if an insured tax position is successfully challenged by a tax authority. The tax insurance industry has grown dramatically since the mid-2010s, but scholars and policymakers pay little attention to its enforcement-enhancing potential. This is a mistake because insurers have informational, expertise, and capacity advantages over the IRS, because of the industry’s recent explosive growth, and because more robust enforcement is needed among precisely those taxpayers served by tax insurers.
October 28, 2024 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink
Legal Ed News Roundup
- ABA Journal, California Supreme Court Approves State’s Kaplan-Created Bar Exam
- ABA Journal, Columbia Law Prof Facing Probe Over Campus-Protest Comments Says Firm ‘Abruptly’ Dropped Her As Client
- Above the Law, Elite Law School Called Out By Students Over Draconian Policy
- Daily Universe, BYU Law School's Habeas Chorus Provides Musical Outlet for Students
- Daily Wire, University Of Arkansas Law School Promoted ‘Name And Gender Change’ Pro Bono Session
- Fix the Court, Gorsuch and Barrett Thought Their Law School Teaching Jobs Were Conflicts Requiring Recusal. Why Don't These Other Judges?
- Harvard Crimson, Harvard Law School Banned 60 Students From Its Library for a ‘Study-In.’ Dozens Just Did It Again.
October 28, 2024 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Call For Papers: The Law And Economics Of Wealth Management And Transmission
The Global Wealth Management Project at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School is delighted to announce the receipt of a grant from the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) Foundation to host a one-day academic symposium on Friday September 26, 2025, on the theme "The Law and Economics of Wealth Management and Transmission." Here is the symposium description:
The symposium theme is "The Law and Economics of Wealth Management and Transmission." The theme is deliberately broad. First, law and economics refers to the economic analysis of law in its widest sense. It embraces positive and normative approaches as well as rational-choice and behavioral approaches.
October 28, 2024 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink