Penn Receives $125 Million Naming Gift, Largest Gift Ever To A Law School

Law.com, Penn Law, With Record-Breaking Donation, Gets New Name:

The University of Pennsylvania Law School has received the single largest donation to a law campus on record and is changing its name in honor of the donor.

The school will now be called the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School after receiving $125 million from the W.P. Carey Foundation. That tops the $115 million gift James E. Rogers made to the University of Arizona’s law school in 1998 and the $100 million donation from the Pritzker family to Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in 2015. ...

Naming rights have become an increasingly important avenue for fundraising in legal education. Last month, Pepperdine University’s law school was renamed the Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law after it received $50 million from its namesake, who is a Los Angeles-area real estate developer.

The $125 million gift will be spent on these six priorities:

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Is The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act GILTI Of Anti-Simplification?

Christine Davis (S.J.D. (Tax) 2020, Florida), Is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act GILTI of Anti-Simplification?, 38 Va. Tax Rev. 315 (2019):

In December 2017, Congress enacted tax reform legislation, commonly referred to as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” or “TCJA,” which fundamentally changed the United States’ international corporate taxation system. The TCJA was enacted quickly; the bill was signed into law less than 2 months after the House of Representatives introduced it. Since that time, tax professionals across the United States and around the world have worked overtime to try to understand the new tax laws. Now that the U.S. Treasury Department is releasing and requesting comments on proposed tax regulations, practitioners must have a thorough understanding of the TCJA. This paper attempts to reduce the complexity of the TCJA’s international tax provisions by examining global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”) and its interaction with other provisions that implement income taxation of cross border corporations.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Elkins Reviews Listokin's Posner on Tax: The Independent Investor Test

This week, David Elkins (Netanya) reviews a new work by Yair Listokin (Yale), Posner on Tax: The Independent Investor Test, 86 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1159 (2019):

Richard Posner is one of the most influential legal scholars of recent generations. He is perhaps best known as a leading figure in the school of Law and Economics. Complimenting his academic work, he served as a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for 36 years before retiring in 2017. In the field of taxation, one of his more memorable decisions was Exacto Springs Corp. v. Commissioner, 196 F3d 833 (7th Cir. 1999), which concerns the characterization of payments from closely held corporations to individuals who are both shareholders and employees: is the payment properly classified as a salary or as a distribution?

The question of how to characterize payments to shareholders arises whenever shareholders provide services or sell property to the corporation that they control. If a shareholder leases property to a corporation, is the payment that the parties describe as rent truly rent or is it only partly rent and partly a distribution? The issue of classification is particularly significant in the field of international taxation. For example, if a corporation operating in Country A pays what it describes as a royalty to a parent (or otherwise related) corporation in Country B, is the payment actually a deductible royalty or is it a nondeductible distribution? The answer to that question may determine whether Country A can collect tax from the economic activity in its territory.

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Above the Law, The Law Schools With The Highest Student Loan Default Rates
• Akron Law, Akron Law introduces innovative Blended Online J.D. Program
• Deborah L. Borman & Catherine Haras, Something Borrowed: Interdisciplinary Strategies for Legal Education
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Commentary on Something Borrowed: Interdisciplinary Strategies for Legal Education
• Inside Higher Ed, After First Rejection, Florida Coastal Law School Makes Another Bid To Go Nonprofit

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Tax Policy In The Trump Administration

• Bloomberg News, Democrats Worried Over Wealth Tax Design Other Plans to Tax the Rich
• Bloomberg News, IRS Auditors are Watching Companies That Owe Offshore Profit Tax
• Bloomberg News, Taxing the Ultra-Wealthy Forces Democrats to Get Creative
• Bloomberg News, Warren’s Wealth Tax Could Drive Billionaires to Funds She Hates
• Bloomberg Opinion (Brian Chappatta), Could Canceling Student Loans Be a Tax Cut 2.0?

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Trump's Taxes And Tax Returns

• Bloomberg News, Trump Can’t Block New York District Attorney’s Tax Subpoena
• Bloomberg Opinion (Noah Feldman (Harvard)), Trump Tax Return Case Hinges on John Roberts
• Bloomberg Tax, California Fight For Trump Tax Returns Goes to State High Court
• The Hill, Judge Hints at Letting House Lawsuit Over Trump Tax Returns Proceed
• Los Angeles Times, California Justices Skeptical of Law Requiring Trump to Release Tax Returns For Primary 

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Kim Presents The Digital Services Tax: A Cross-Border Variation Of The Consumption Tax Debate? At BYU

Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Utah) presented The Digital Services Tax: A Crossborder Variation of Consumption Tax Debate at BYU yesterday as part of its Faculty Workshop Series:

As highly digitalized business models, such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, have been mainstreamed in the economy, the traditional profit allocation and nexus rules of taxation are further strained. Traditionally, profit is allocated to market countries when the business has physical presence there. However, highly digitalized business models can generate profits in market countries without physical presence. Thus, market countries, especially the EU, have started imposing a digital services tax (“DST”) on the gross revenue generated in jurisdictions with highly digital business models, which has ignited heated debate across the globe.

DST is criticized as “ring-fencing,” or segregating, certain digital business models, because it arguably imposes a disguised corporate income tax on the profits of only certain digital firms, which discriminates against American tech giants. However, while DST is politically driven, the criticism is largely based on practical concerns and focused on the imminent impact, such as who is the winner and loser in the short term, rather than considering DST theoretically. More importantly, there is little discussion of the consumption tax aspect of the DST. DST is a turnover tax, which is a subcategory of consumption tax levied on the gross revenue of a firm. However, strangely, there is little discussion of the theoretical value of DST as a consumption tax.

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Five Law Schools With Top Bar Pass Rates Share Their Secrets

Law.com, How'd They Do It? Law Schools With Top Bar Pass Rates Share Their Secrets:

We’ve asked five law schools with the highest July pass rate in their respective jurisdictions to tell us about their secrets to bar exam success, and why their graduates tend to do so well on the licensing exam.

Most jurisdictions have released the results of the July 2019 bar exam, and the news is largely positive. Pass rates went up in most states, though closely watched California likely won’t release results for another week or so.

Here are the top performers in their states: Florida International University College of Law (overall pass rate of 96%); Baylor University School of Law (93% first-time pass rate); the University of Georgia School of Law (94% first-time pass rate); the University of Pennsylvania Law School (88% overall pass rate); and Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law (100% first-time pass rate.) ...

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Hemel & Kysar: The Warren/Sanders Wealth Taxes Would Raise Zero Revenue Because They Are Unconstitutional

New York Times op-ed:  The Big Problem With Wealth Taxes, by Daniel Hemel (Chicago) & Rebecca Kysar (Fordham):

Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled a new wealth tax proposal last week that she says will raise — along with her previously announced wealth tax plan — $3.75 trillion over the next decade. Senator Bernie Sanders says his wealth tax will yield $4.35 trillion over the same period.

We fear these figures are vast overestimates. The likeliest outcome is that a wealth tax will raise exactly zero dollars. The problem, alas, is the Constitution. The Warren and Sanders plans run headlong into more than two centuries of precedent that cast doubt on the constitutionality of wealth taxation.

We are tax law professors who identify as liberal Democrats, donate to Democratic candidates, publicly opposed the Trump tax cuts and strongly support higher taxes on the affluent. We are heartened that prominent Democratic presidential candidates are taking the problem of wealth inequality very seriously. We are worried, though, that leading figures in our party are coalescing around an idea whose constitutionality is doubtful at best.

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Pepperdine Remembers The Borderline Shooting And Woolsey Fire

 

One year ago our campus community was forever changed by the events of the Borderline Shooting and Woolsey Fire. In what felt like a mere instant, countless members of our precious Waves family suffered unspeakable loss as we had just begun to grieve a senseless shooting rampage, the loss of one of our students, and destruction from flames more powerful than our community had ever seen. But even amidst unthinkable tragedy, the generous hearts and united spirit of our Pepperdine family prevailed, and today, one year later, we continue to selflessly serve one another as we rebuild, renew, and hope forward—together. This week we remember those who were lost, and we carry in our hearts those whose lives were changed by these tragedies as they demonstrate each day not only their love for each other, but their unyielding strength to carry on.

Posted by Pepperdine University on Thursday, November 7, 2019

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Malibu Burning (Nov. 9, 2018)
• Fires Cause Massive Destruction In Malibu, But Pepperdine Is Safe (Nov. 10, 2018)
• The Pepperdine Disaster Relief Clinic And The Woolsey Fire (Nov. 14, 2018)
• A Clinic Rises From The Ashes (Nov. 20, 2018)
• Why Pepperdine Stays Put When Wildfires Rage (Nov. 21, 2018)
• Pepperdine Law Rises From The Ashes: Better, Stronger, United (Nov. 28, 2018)
• Pepperdine AALS Reception To Thank Legal Ed For Its Support In The Aftermath Of The Fire (Dec. 20, 2018)
• Pepperdine Law Reception At #AALS2019 (Jan. 5, 2019)
• Tragedy Brings Out The Best In People (And Law Schools) (Jan. 8, 2019)

Columbia Journal Of Tax Law Publishes New Issue

The Columbia Journal of Tax Law has published Vol. 10, No. 2:

• Meredith R. Conway (Suffolk), And You May Ask Yourself, What Is That Beautiful House: How Tax Laws Distort Behavior Through the Lens of Architecture, 10 Colum. J. Tax L. 165 (2019)
• Kartikeya Singh (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Washington D.C.) & Aparna Mathur (American Enterprise Institute), The Impact of GILTI and FDII on the Investment Location Choice of U.S. Multinationals, 10 Colum. J. Tax L. 199 (2019)

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UNH Law Dean: School's Deficit Is Part Of Long-Term Strategy To Break Even In 2023-24

Following up on my previous post, UNH Law School Budget Deficit Exceeds 100% Of Revenues:  New Hampshire Public Radio, UNH Law Dean: School's Deficit Is Part Of Long-Term Strategy: 

Law schools across the country have struggled in the last decade with declining enrollment.

In that time, the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law has seen many changes. It’s no longer a private school and it’s seen growing deficits.

The school spent more than double its operating budget last fiscal year, but university officials say these losses are an investment in the law school’s long-term success and things are starting to look up.

NHPR’s Morning Edition Rick Ganley spoke with the dean of UNH Law, Megan Carpenter. ..

I understand you've got a long term strategy, of course, to increase enrollment. Numbers have gone up. But ideally, you should be breaking even at some point. I imagine that's the long term goal here. When does the school projected a financial return on all of this long term investment?

In higher education, we see an ebb and flow over time. Sometimes, you know, STEM is up and liberal arts is down. Sometimes liberal arts is up and STEM is down. That's why we really think of higher education in a holistic way. Higher education is not sort of designed to be a profit center. However, we project a breakeven point at 2023-2024. ...

What is your argument to an average resident in New Hampshire about why spending that much money to keep the law school afloat is worth it?

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Carried Interest Warning From Court May Be Trouble For Treasury

Bloomberg Tax, Carried Interest Warning From Court May Be Trouble for Treasury:

A recent court case meant to clarify the definition of a corporation intensifies questions about the tax treatment of carried interest, a prized perk for private equity and hedge fund managers [Charleston Area Medical Ctr. v. United States (Fed. Cl. Oct. 17, 2019)].

The IRS argued for a broad definition of the term “corporation” in the case. But the legal issue that could come up in the future is whether it’s reasonable for Treasury regulations to interpret the term more narrowly in the carried interest context, affecting who can qualify for the treatment.

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WSJ: More Women Pursue MBAs As Elite Schools Step Up Recruiting

Wall Street Journal, More Women Pursue M.B.A. as Elite Schools Step Up Recruiting:

As applications to American business schools decline, the percentage of women enrolled in full-time M.B.A. programs continues to rise, climbing this fall to an average of 39% at more than 50 of the top programs in the U.S., Canada and Europe, new data show.

Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School came closest to an even split between male and female students, with 49% women enrolled this fall, according to data collected by the Forté Foundation, a nonprofit focused on advancing women into leadership roles through access to business education. Others with high percentages of female students include the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which each had 45% or more women enrolled.

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NY Times: Trump Tax Return Case Confronts Supreme Court With A Momentous Choice

New York Times, Trump Tax Return Case Confronts Supreme Court With a Momentous Choice:

Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton sustained unanimous losses when they sought to withhold evidence, suggesting that President Trump may face an uphill fight.

In a matter of days, President Trump will ask the Supreme Court to rule on his bold claim that he is absolutely immune from criminal investigation while he remains in office. If the court agrees to hear the case, its decision is likely to produce a major statement on the limits of presidential power — and to test the independence of the court itself.

Mr. Trump has been the subject of countless investigations and lawsuits since he took office, including a 22-month inquiry by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel appointed to look into his campaign’s ties to Russia. But the new case, concerning an investigation by Manhattan prosecutors into hush-money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump, will be the Supreme Court’s first chance to consider the president’s arguments that he is beyond the reach of the justice system.

The case concerns a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat. On Monday, the federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected Mr. Trump’s request to block the subpoena, which seeks eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

The appeals court’s ruling was narrow and modest, hewing closely to the circumstances of the dispute before it. If the Supreme Court adopted the lower court’s reasoning, it would answer only the question of whether state prosecutors may require third parties to turn over a sitting president’s financial records for use in a grand jury investigation.

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Does A Professor Violate Copyright Law By Posting His Published Work On His Website?

Inside Higher Ed, What Happened When a Professor Was Accused of Sharing His Own Work On His Website?:

Like many academics, William Cunningham, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, shares his own articles — published and soon-to-be — on his website. And like most academics, he does so in the interest of science, not personal profit.

So Cunningham and hundreds of his colleagues were recently irked by a takedown notice he received from the American Psychological Association, telling him that the articles he had published through the organization and then posted on his website were in violation of copyright law. The notice triggered a chain of responses — including a warning from his website platform, WordPress, that multiple such violations put the future of his entire website at risk. And because the APA had previously issued similar takedown notices, the threat of losing his website seemed real to Cunningham.

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Matching Tax With Economics In Subchapter K

Zhiyuan Zuo (Cleary Gottlieb, New York), A Gain Must Lie Where It Falls: Matching Tax with Economics in Subchapter K, 11 Colum. J. Tax L. ___ (2019):

Society suffers efficiency costs when tax and economics are mismatched. This principle is illustrated by the tax neutrality doctrines that are the cornerstone of the U.S. international tax system and by the BEPS’s efforts to combat arbitrary income shifting. While society has an interest in maximizing pre-tax income from all economic activities, self-interested taxpayers seek only to maximize their after-tax income. A good, non-arbitrary tax policy must thus incentivize taxpayers to maximize both their pre-tax and after-tax income. This note provides a novel efficiency analysis of the rules under Subchapter K and reveals the efficiency costs that arise when arbitrary tax liabilities sever the positive connection between pre-tax and after-tax income. It applies the insight gained from the efficiency analysis to the Treasury’s various flawed efforts under Subchapter K to match tax with economics, including the Substantial Economic Effect (SEE) safe harbor and doctrines under section 704(c). The Article then explores alternatives to the Treasury’s “one-size-fits-all” solution, focusing on a detailed analysis of the economic effect equivalence (EEE) test and so-called target allocations

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Financial Transactions Tax: If Not Now, When?

Doron Narotzki (Akron), Financial Transactions Tax – If Not Now, When?, 165 Tax Notes 47 (Oct. 7, 2019):

In this article, Narotzki discusses the short history of the financial transaction tax in the United States and why now is the perfect time to adopt it.

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Kysar Presents Unravelling The Tax Treaty Today At Pennsylvania

Rebecca Kysar (Fordham) presents Unravelling the Tax Treaty, 103 Minn. L. Rev. ___ (2019), at Pennsylvania today as part of its Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Michael Knoll, Chris Sanchirico, and Reed Shuldiner:

Coordination among nations over the taxation of international transactions rests on a network of some 2,000 bilateral double tax treaties. The double tax treaty is, in many ways, the roots of the international system of taxation. That system, however, is in upheaval in the face of globalization, technological advances, taxpayer abuse, and shifting political tides. In the academic literature, however, scrutiny of tax treaties is largely confined to the albeit important question of whether tax treaties are beneficial for developing countries. Surprisingly little consideration has been paid to whether developed countries, like the United States, should continue to sign tax treaties with one another, and no formal revenue or economic analyses of the treaties has been undertaken by the United States government. In fact, little evidence or theory exists to support entrance into tax treaties by the United States, and examination of investment flows indicates the treaties may even lose U.S. revenues. Problematically, the treaties also thwart reforms of the antiquated and broken international tax system. The trajectory of the recent U.S. tax legislation illustrates this phenomenon.

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Professor's WSJ Op-Ed: 'Strategic Plans Are A Fraud'

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Why ‘Strategic Plans’ Are Rarely Strategic—or Effective, by Wyatt Wells (Auburn University):

Auburn University at Montgomery, where I teach, recently completed a common organizational ritual: It drafted a strategic plan. The process took months and entailed work by a variety of committees, at considerable expense. When it was completed, faculty and staff applauded. Then most, on returning to their offices, promptly consigned the new document to the trash. In the majority of organizations, workers respond to strategic plans with the same cynicism, nodding and smiling in public while sighing and rolling their eyes in private.

The typical strategic plan begins with an anodyne statement of principles, lists several general goals, and finally recounts a series of initiatives that the institution will undertake to realize these objectives. In its statement of principles, AUM’s plan asserts that the university seeks to “provide quality and diverse educational opportunities,” offering a “student-centered experience” with “excellence as our standard.” These are more specific than Google’s old mantra, “Don’t be evil,” but not much. Presumably every institution of higher learning shares these goals—none would boast that “adequacy is our standard.” ...

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Federal Taxation Of Cannabis

Kat Allen (Wykowski Law, San Francisco), Federal Taxation of Cannabis, Parts I - III:

• Part I: The Tax Law's War on Drugs, 164 Tax Notes 855 (Aug. 5, 2019): "In the first of a three-part series on the
  taxation of cannabis, Allen provides a framework for debate regarding the tax code’s treatment of illegal activities or payments.
• Part II: Timing Is Everything, 164 Tax Notes 1041 (Aug. 12, 2019):  "In this second installment of a three-part series, Allen examines the code’s timing rules for state-regulated cannabis businesses."

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Listokin: Posner on Tax — The Independent Investor Test

Yair Listokin (Yale), Posner on Tax: The Independent Investor Test, 86 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1159 (2019):

This paper, written in honor of Judge Richard Posner’s retirement from the federal judiciary, uses his opinion in Exacto Spring v. Commissioner [196 F.3d 833 (7th Cir. 1999)] as a lens into his tax law jurisprudence more generally. In Exacto Spring, Posner delivers a devastating rejection of the muddled multifactor test then in effect to distinguish reasonable salaries, which are deductible from corporate income, from disguised dividends, which aren’t. Posner replaces the multifactor test with the independent investor test, which focuses the judicial inquiry on the substance of the transaction. I critique Posner’s application of the independent investor test to the problem of salary disguised as dividends, showing that it yields perverse outcomes by treating equity as a fixed claim, rather than a residual claim. But I show that, when applied to dividends disguised as debt, the independent investor test offers great promise.

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Princeton Review's Best 167 Law Schools (2020 Edition)

The Princeton Review has published the 2020 edition of The Best 167 Law Schools (press release) (FAQs) (methodology):

The ranking lists, reported in 14 categories, each name the top 10 law schools. The education services company tallied the lists based on its surveys of 19,000 students attending 167 law schools [an average of 114 per school] in the U.S., and of administrators at those schools. The Princeton Review's 80-question student survey for this project asked students to rate their law schools on dozens of topics and report on their school experiences. The survey of law school administrators, which numbered more than 200 questions, covered topics from academic offerings and admission requirements to data about currently enrolled students as well as graduates' employment. Six of the 14 ranking lists were tallied using both student and administrator-reported data, five solely from student data, and three solely from administrator data.

Best Professors:  Based on student answers to survey questions concerning how good their professors are as teachers and how accessible they are outside the classroom.

1. Virginia
2. Duke
3. Chicago
4. Washington & Lee
5. Stanford
6. Notre Dame
7. Boston College
8. Boston University
9. Michigan
10. Northwestern

Best Quality of Life:  Based on student answers to survey questions on: whether there is a strong sense of community at the school, whether differing opinions are tolerated in the classroom, the location of the school, the quality of social life at the school, the school's research resources (library, computer and database resources).

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WSJ: Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Make Inequality Worse

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Make Inequality Worse, by Alan S. Binder (Princeton):

Here’s a short test of your value judgments. (There’s no right answer.) If free markets start dishing out increasingly unequal pretax incomes, should the government ignore it, mitigate it by making the tax system more progressive, or exacerbate it by making the tax system less progressive?

The question isn’t hypothetical. And you may be surprised to learn that the U.S. political system has given a clear answer: Exacerbate it. ...

[I]ncome inequality in America now stands at, or just a tad below, its all-time high. The essential fact is that inequality has been rising for almost 40 years.

What about tax progressivity? Two economists at the University of California, Berkeley, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, just published an important new book, The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Perhaps the most stunning finding: “For the first time in the past hundred years, the working class today pays higher tax rates than billionaires.”

Chew on that for a moment. You may remember Warren Buffett bemoaning that he paid a lower average tax rate than his secretary. Apparently, he wasn’t alone. ...

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Professors' Slow, Steady Acceptance Of Online Learning

Inside Higher Ed, Professors' Slow, Steady Acceptance of Online Learning: A Survey:

Inside Higher Ed's 2019 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, conducted with Gallup and published today, shows a continuing uptick in the proportion of faculty members who have taught an online course, to 46 percent from 44 percent last year. That figure stood at 30 percent in 2013, meaning that the number has increased by half in six years.

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Call For Student Tax Papers: 2020 Chris Bergin Award for Excellence In Writing

Christopher E. Bergin Award for Excellence in Writing:

The Christopher E. Bergin Award for Excellence in Writing recognizes superior student writing on unsettled questions in tax law or policy. It is named in honor of the late Christopher E. Bergin, former president and publisher of Tax Analysts and longtime editor of Tax Notes Federal. The award, given annually, epitomizes the qualities that Chris championed.

No one cared more than he did about clear, precise writing about taxation, and he instilled that passion in our whole staff.
Cara Griffith, Tax Analysts President and CEO

To learn more about Christopher E. Bergin, click here.

Eligibility: Must be enrolled in an accredited undergraduate or graduate program during the academic year.
Topic: Submissions should focus on an unsettled question in federal, state, or international tax law or policy.
Evaluation: Our editorial staff blindly evaluates entries on originality, readability, organization, reasoning, and overall quality of content.
Due Date: June 30, 2020

Click here for competition guidelines.

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Fleurbaey Presents Optimal Income Taxation Theory And Principles Of Fairness Today At NYU

Marc Fleurbaey (Princeton) presents Optimal Income Taxation Theory and Principles of Fairness at NYU today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series hosted by Lily Batchelder and Daniel Shaviro:

The achievements and limitations of the classical theory of optimal labor-income taxation based on social welfare functions are now well known. Even though utilitarianism still dominates public economics, recent interest has arisen for broadening the normative approach and making room for fairness principles such as desert or responsibility. Fairness principles sometimes provide immediate recommendations about the relative weights to assign to various income ranges, but in general require a careful choice of utility representations embodying the relevant interpersonal comparisons. The main message of this paper is that the traditional tool of welfare economics, the social welfare function framework, is flexible enough to incorporate many approaches, from egalitarianism to libertarianism.

Glogower Presents Progressive Tax Procedure Today At UC-Hastings

Ari Glogower (Ohio State) presents Progressive Tax Procedure (with Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine)) at UC-Hastings today as part of its Tax Speakers Series hosted by Heather Field and Manoj Viswanathan:

Discussions of progressive taxation in the United States—and of whether the rich pay enough in taxes—generally focus on the structure of the substantive tax law, such as the marginal rates, income brackets, deductions, and credits under the federal income tax. Despite recent reports of tax avoidance and noncompliance by high-income taxpayers, these discussions have not focused on the structure of the tax procedure rules, which govern the Internal Revenue Service’s administrative responsibilities and taxpayers’ compliance obligations.

This Article presents the case for a new system of “progressive tax procedure.” Currently, tax procedure rules—such as tax penalties and the statute of limitations—typically apply in a uniform manner to all taxpayers, irrespective of their income. Under progressive tax procedure, in contrast, these rules would vary depending on the taxpayer’s income. For example, a high-income taxpayer would face higher tax penalty rates or longer periods where the IRS could assess tax deficiencies.

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