Howard E. Abrams (Emory) presents The Section 734(b) Basis Adjustment Needs Repair today at Northwestern’s Tax Policy Colloquium.  Here is the opening: 

The partnership tax provisions – Subchapter K of the Internal Revenue Code – work pretty well. Those provisions have a difficult job of providing a reasonable mechanism for taxing arrangements between parties that can be far from off-the-rack. It should not be difficult to figure out how to tax two individuals who contribute equal amounts of cash to start a joint business in which each will own a one-half interest. It quickly becomes problematic, however, when one of the two partners wants a greater share of early receipts in exchange for a lower share of back-end gains. If the amounts the partners contribute are unequal, they will have some arrangement to account for that difference which the taxing structure must digest. A partnership is the most flexible form of business organization, and the rules of Subchapter K capture that flexibility surprisingly well.