Author: Paul Caron
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Howie Carr: Why Don’t Pro-Tax Taxpayers Pay More Taxes?
Boston Herald, Moonbats Wing it When it Comes to Paying More Taxes, by Howie Carr: Hey moonbats of Massachusetts — why won’t you pay more taxes? You’re always lecturing the rest of us how taxes are an investment in the future, the price we pay for civilization, etc., etc. But when given the option of
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SSRN Tax Professor Rankings
SSRN has updated its monthly rankings of 629 American and international law school faculties and 1,500 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN data base. Here is the new list (through March 18, 2010) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads
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The U.S. International Tax System at a Crossroads
Barbara Angus, Tom Neubig, Eric Solomon & Mark Weinberger (all of Ernst & Young and former officials in the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy) have published The U.S. International Tax System at a Crossroads, 127 Tax Notes 45 (Apr. 5, 2010). Here is the abstract: In a special report published exclusively in Tax Notes, four senior tax leaders
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A Harvard 3L Refuses to Contribute to His Class Gift
A Harvard 3L has refused a request to donate $20.10 for his class gift for a variety of reasons, including: "[I]nstead of giving to some meaningless class gift where most of the money will surely be wasted, I think the best thing I can do is give nothing so that tuition will be raised and
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WSJ: More Americans Are Fleeing U.S. to Avoid Rising Taxes, More Aggressive IRS
Wall Street Journal, More Americans Give Up Citizenship As IRS Gets Aggressive Overseas, by Martin Vaughan: The number of American citizens and green-card holders severing their ties with the U.S. soared in the latter part of 2009, amid looming U.S. tax increases and a more aggressive posture by the Internal Revenue Service towards Americans living
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Bloomberg: Wealthy Lack Loopholes to Avoid Obama’s Tax Increases
Bloomberg, Wealthy Lack Loopholes to Offset Obama’s Taxes: Economist Arthur Laffer, 69, took a radical approach to rising income taxes four years ago: he moved to Tennessee from California Laffer, who was an adviser to former President Ronald Reagan, said he’ll stay in Nashville, Tennessee, which doesn’t tax earned income, offsetting U.S. tax rates that
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Ken Starr: A Call to Serve
I previously blogged my enormous gratitude for the opportunity to spend spring break in Malibu, California, teaching a one-week short course at Pepperdine University School of Law as the Strauss Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law. Following up on my post on Pepperdine Dean Ken Starr's imminent departure to become President of Baylor University: Baylor Magazine has a
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Is There a Tax Prof ‘Superstar Effect?’
Wall Street Journal, The Superstar Effect: From the playing field to the boardroom, when one competitor is clearly the best, the others don’t step up their game—they give up. As Tiger Woods returns to golf, Jonah Lehrer looks at the nature of competition. … According to a paper by Jennifer Brown, an applied macroeconomist at
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Thuronyi Presents A VAT for the US? Today at Northwestern
Victor Thuronyi (Senior Counsel (Taxation), International Monetary Fund) presents A VAT for the US? at Northwestern today as part of its Advanced Topics in Taxation Series organized by Tom Brennan and Charlotte Crane: Victor's paper (which will be published once bureaucratic clearance is obtained at IMF) argues that the VAT should be considered for the US only
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Tiley Presents Tax Avoidance — The Never Ending Search Today at Case Western
John Tiley (Queens College, University of Cambridge) delivers the Norman A. Sugarman Tax Scholar in Residence Lecture today at Case Western on Tax Avoidance: The Never Ending Search for Resolving Clashing Principles: What is the definition of avoidance? Would principles based drafting help our tax legislation? It is possible to arrange your affairs to avoid paying
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Schmalbeck & Soled: It’s Time to Limit the Luxury Box Tax Deduction
New York Times op-ed, Throw Out Skybox Tax Subsidies, by Richard Schmalbeck (Duke) & Jay Soled (Rutgers Business School): Until the 1970s, Major League Baseball was a populist sport. Bleacher seats cost as little as a dollar, meaning middle- or even working-class fans could afford to take their families to a game a few times
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ABA Tax Section Accepting Nominations for 2011-2013 Public Service Fellowships
The ABA Tax Section is accepting applications for Public Service Fellowships for 2011-2013: Applications must be received by October 4, 2010 to be considered. Applicants selected for interviews will be invited to attend the Section’s meeting in Boca Raton on January 20-22, 2011, and asked to participate in interviews on January 22, 2011.
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WSJ: Small Bras and the VAT
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Small Bras and the Value-Added Tax, by Irwin Stelzer (Hudson Institute): Taxing consumption sounds easy. Wait until government starts to carve out the political exceptions. o we are to have a European-style value-added tax (VAT). That’s the emerging consensus in Washington as people come to recognize the reality of the deep
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The Top 25 Law Faculties: Citations, Reputation, Downloads
Brian Leiter (Chicago) has released a ranking of the Top 25 law faculties with the most “scholarly impact,” as measured by citations during the past five years (Jan. 1, 2005 – Jan. 15, 2010). In our article, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83, 86-102 (2006), Bernie Black (Northwestern) and I compared the ranking
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The 15 Most-Cited Tax Faculty
Brian Leiter (Chicago) has released a ranking of the Highest Impact Faculty in 13 Areas of Specialization, including tax, as measured by citations during the past five years (Jan. 1, 2005 – Jan. 15, 2010): Rank Tax Prof Citations Age 1 Michael Graetz (Yale) 370 66 2 Daniel Shaviro (NYU) 310 53 3 David Weisbach (Chicago) 300 47
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WaPo: Obama’s 17-Minute, 2,500-Word Response to Woman’s Claim of Being ‘Over-Taxed’
Washington Post, Obama’s 17-Minute, 2,500-Word Response to Woman’s Claim of Being ‘Over-Taxed’: Even by President Obama’s loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy. Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether
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NY Times: Law School Clinics Face a Backlash
New York Times, School Law Clinics Face a Backlash: Law school students nationwide are facing growing attacks in the courts and legislatures as legal clinics at the schools increasingly take on powerful interests that few other nonprofit groups have the resources to challenge. … Law clinics at [Maryland, Michigan, Rutgers, and Tulane] … are facing similar challenges.
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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup
Saturday: WaPo: Five Myths About Your Taxes 2009-10 Moot Court Rankings Homemakers and Social Security The Disparate Treatment of Similarly Situated Taxpayers Under § 104(a)(2) Sunday: Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads WSJ: Last-Minute Tax Help § 2703, Valuation Discounts in FLPs & Holman Elliffe Posts Tax Papers on SSRN
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Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with new papers debuting on the list at #4 and #5: 1. [519 Downloads] Ten Estate Planning Advantages of Limited Liability Companies, by Paul L. Caron (Cincinnati) 2. [377 Downloads] Foreign Bank Accounts — FBAR Reporting Obligations, Enforcement Exposures and Managing the Risk: What
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WSJ: Last-Minute Tax Help
Weekend Wall Street Journal, Taxes: Last-Minute Help, by Laura Saunders: The government has given its citizens several new tax breaks this year, and has made it easier than ever for them to file their returns. The days of battling lines at the post office are over (mostly); now a return can be transmitted with little more
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§ 2703, Valuation Discounts in FLPs & Holman
Alden Koste (J.D. 2010, Catholic) has published The IRS Fished Its Wish: The Ability of Section 2703 to Minimize Valuation Discounts Afforded to Family Limited Partnership Interests in Holman v. Commissioner, 59 Cath. U. L. Rev. 289 (2009). Here is part of the Introduction: Family limited partnerships (FLPs) have become an integral estate planning tool
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Elliffe Posts Tax Papers on SSRN
Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland, Faculty of Business & Economics) has posted several of his tax papers on SSRN: Tax Avoidance — Still Waiting for Godot?, 23 New Zealand Universities L. Rev. 368 (2010) The Meaning of 'Beneficial Ownership' in Double Tax Agreements, 3 British Tax Rev. ___ (2009) General Anti-Avoidance Rules and Double Tax Agreements: A
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WaPo: Five Myths About Your Taxes
Washington Post, 5 Myths About Your Taxes, by Roberton Williams & Rosanne Altshuler (both of the Tax Policy Center): April is here, which means it's almost time to pony up and render unto Caesar. We've gathered our receipts and other documents, and dragged ourselves to the strip-mall tax preparer or fired up do-it-yourself software to
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2009-10 Moot Court Rankings
Law School Advocacy ranks 124 law school appellate advocacy programs based on their performance in competitions during the 2009-10 academic year. From Brian Koppen: Three Ranking Seasons, 2007-9, have elapsed since LSA was born; so here's this year's Top 10, with a brief discussion of the trends: 1. South Texas2. Texas Tech3. Loyola – Chicago4. John
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Homemakers and Social Security
Laura C. Bornstein (J.D. 2010, Georgetown) has published Homemakers and Social Security: Giving Credits Where Credits Are Due, 24 Wis. J.L. Gender & Soc'y 255 (2009). Here is part of the Introduction: I argue that Congress should amend the Social Security Act to allow people whom I will refer to as “homemakers” (those who have