Author: Paul Caron
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Did 16 Law Schools Commit Rankings Malpractice?
As U.S. News rankings aficionados know, the methodology used in the 2011 U.S. News Law School Rankings gives 18% weight to employment statistics: 14% to the percentage of the Class of 2008 employed nine months after graduation (which is reported to the ABA as well), and 4% to the percentage of the class employed at graduation (which is not reported
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IRS Oversight Board Releases 2009 Annual Report to Congress
The IRS Oversight Board today released its 2009 Annual Report to Congress: The report evaluates the IRS’ performance during fiscal year 2009, describes the strategic challenges facing tax administration, and provides a series of “scorecards” that measure the IRS’ performance during FY2009.
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Shackelford, Shaviro & Slemrod: Taxation and the Financial Sector
Douglas A. Shackelford (University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flager Business School), Daniel Shaviro (NYU) & Joel B. Slemrod (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business) have posted Taxation and the Financial Sector on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, a variety of taxes on financial institutions have been proposed or enacted. These
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WSJ: Minnesota — Land of 10,000 Tax Increases
Wall Street Journal editorial, The Minnesota Prelude: Land of 10,000 Tax Increases: Minnesota has a rich Scandinavian heritage, and if Democrats in the state legislature have their way the state is headed toward Scandinavian tax rates. Governor Tim Pawlenty, a likely GOP Presidential candidate, has now smacked this slow, fat pitch out of the ballpark.
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Professor
KingsfieldKaganElie Mystal (J.D. 2003, Harvard) has a riveting account of his socratic experience with Elena Kagan as a IL in her Civil Procedure class at Harvard in Fall 2000: Like Frodo on Weathertop, there are some wounds that never fully heal. Professor Kagan massacred me intellectually, and brutalized my pride. I got some form of
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Feldstein: Extend the Bush Tax Cuts—For Two Years
Wall Street Journal op-ed: Extend the Bush Tax Cuts—For Now: Deficits Are a Real Problem but the Recovery Is Still Too Fragile to Choke Off Growth With Higher Rates, by Martin Feldstein (Harvard University, Department of Economics): This is not the time for a tax increase. But unless Congress acts, under current law the existing income
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Helge: The Taxation of Cause-Related Marketing
Terri Lynn Helge (Texas-Wesleyan) has posted The Taxation of Cause-Related Marketing, 85 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. __ (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: With the economy in turmoil, charitable organizations are looking to nontraditional sources of financing to supplement contributions and fee-based revenues. One potentially lucrative source of revenue stems from cause-related marketing. Cause-related marketing
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Estate Tax Deal in the Works?
The Hill, Kyl: Deal on the Estate Tax in the Offing: Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told reporters on Tuesday that his estate tax proposal is near completion. “It is our hope that we can get together both on the proposal, the details are pretty well resolved, and on a process by which we
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Did U.S. News Claim Another Dean Victim?
South Carolina announced yesterday that Walter F. “Jack” Pratt, Jr. has decided not to seek reappointment at the end of his five-year term in 2011. A South Carolina blog links the news to the law school's descent into the 3rd Tier in the 2011 U.S. News Rankings: USC’s law school has been dropping like a rock
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WHO Seeks ‘Tens of Billions’ in New Global Taxes
Fox News, World Health Organization Moving Ahead on Billions in Internet and Other Taxes: The WHO, the United Nations' public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity and everyday financial transactions like paying bills online — while its spending soars and
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Visiting Profs, 2010-2011
Following up on my recent post, Tax Prof Moves, 2010-2011: the Faculty Lounge has a list of over 100 Law Profs who will be visiting at other law schools during the 2010-2011 academic year.
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Burke: The Sound and Fury of Carried Interest Reform
Karen C. Burke (San Diego) has posted The Sound and Fury of Carried Interest Reform, 1 Colum. J. Tax L. 1 (2010), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Of all the proposals advanced in recent years to reform Subchapter K, the part of the Internal Revenue Code governing partnership tax, perhaps none has generated more
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TIGTA: IRS Releases Confidential Information to Callers Without Proper Authentication in 16% of Cases, Subjecting Taxpayers to Risk of Identity Theft
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released Telephone Authentication Practices Need Improvements to Better Prevent Unauthorized Disclosures (2010-40-045): In February 2009, the Federal Trade Commission reported that for the ninth year in a row identity theft was the number one consumer complaint nationwide. Identity theft occurs when someone uses Personally Identifiable Information, such
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Bainbridge: A Memo to Casebook Authors
Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), A Memo to Law School Casebook Authors: Change is coming. The major law school casebook publishers are working on game changers like eBooks and textbook rentals, while trying to do so unilaterally within the confines of standard form contracts designed for the 19th Century. Textbook pricing is out of whack. Our students
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USA Today: 2009 Tax Bills Are Lowest in 60 years
USA Today, Tax Bills in 2009 at Lowest Level Since 1950: Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found. Some conservative political movements such as the "Tea Party" have criticized federal
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Accounting Program Rankings
Brigham Young University has released a new Accounting Research Rankings website based on the paper by Joshua G. Coyne, Scott L. Summers, Brady Williams & David A. Wood (all of BYU, School of Accountancy), Accounting Program Research Rankings by Topical Area and Methodology (blogged here). See the methodology and abstract: Recognizing the diversity of accounting research, this paper provides separate
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Art Imitates Life: The Estate Tax on Last Night’s Law & Order
Last week, I blogged my Creighton lecture on The Costs of Estate Tax DIthering — in which I showed a clip from Throw Momma from the Train (originally coined by Paul Krugman to refer to the 2001 passage of the one-year repeal of the estate tax in 2010), discussed two papers showing the impact of estate tax changes on the timing of deaths, and concluded
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Real World Tax Consequences of Property Transactions in Virtual Worlds
Following up on recent posts on the tax consequences of online virtual worlds: Adam Chodorow (Arizona State), Tracing Basis Through Virtual Spaces, 95 Cornell L. Rev. 283 (2010) Leandra Lederman (Indiana-Bloomington), EBay’s Second Life: When Should Virtual Earnings Bear Real Taxes?, 118 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 136 (2009). Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.), When is a Game Only a Game?:
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VanderWolk: The New World of Tax Information Exchange
Jefferson P. VanderWolk (Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong) has posted The New World of Tax Information Exchange, 13 Asia-Pacific J. Tax'n ___ (2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The smaller financial centers such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong and other low-tax jurisdictions have no realistic choice but to cooperate with the
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Treasury & IRS Seek Public Comment on 2010-11 Guidance Priority List
The Treasury Department and IRS on Friday issued an advance copy of Notice 2010-43, inviting public comment on recommendations for items that should be included on the 2010-11 Guidance Priority List: The Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy and the Service use the Guidance Priority List each year to identify and prioritize the tax issues
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More on the IRS’s Interim Report on 400 Colleges and Universities
Following up on Friday's post, IRS Releases Interim Report on 400 Colleges and Universities: Chronicle of Higher Education, IRS Finds Possible Problems With How Colleges Set Salaries and Report Business Income Inside Higher Ed, Colleges as Potential Tax Targets
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Party Law School Rankings
SubtleDig has released the second annual Party Law School Rankings, which attempt to measure the “quality of life” of the Top 100 (102 with ties) law schools in the 2011 U.S. News Rankings. Here are the Top 10 and Bottom 10 (“where fun goes to die“) party law schools: Party School Rank School U.S. News
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Johnston: Anschutz and a 21st Century Tax System
David Cay Johnston has published Anschutz and a 21st Century Tax System, 127 Tax Notes 699 (May 10, 2010): Johnston looks at a major Tax Court case [Anschutz Co. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2006-40 (Mar. 13, 2006), T.C. Memo. 2006-124 (June 14, 2006)] and its implications for developing a new tax system for the 21st-century economy.
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Ph.D. Program Rankings to Use Range, Not Single Number
Inside Higher Ed, Methodology Change for Doctoral Rankings: The National Research Council — responding to criticism it received in the internal peer review of its forthcoming doctoral program rankings — is changing the methodology in a few key places for the long-awaited project. The changes — which are not yet final — are likely to