Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Celebrity Tax Lore
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Say It Ain’t So, Sammy: Former Slugger Stiffs Law Firm for Tax Work
As if Sammy Sosa did not have enough troubles — his record-setting home run spree of 1998-2002 (he averaged 58 home runs annually over the 5-year period) is now tarnished by steroid suspicions as his performance has fallen precipitously since then (his home run total has fallen this year from 35 to 14). The Boca…
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New Paris Hilton TV Ad
No — not the steamy Paris Hilton ad for the Carl’s Jr. hamburger chain. Taking a suggestion from Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press, 2005) by Michael J. Graetz (Yale) & Ian Shapiro (Yale) [blogged here], which suggested that opponents of estate tax repeal change the moniker…
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Yet More Tax Songs for Your iPod
Following up on prior tax musical stylings (here and here), Stuart Levine offers up a Tax Hootenanny, which links to Sales Tax, performed by the Mississippi Sheiks.
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Tax Entertainment from iPods to TV
After two recent posts on tax songs for your iPod (here and here), we shift today to tax on TV: the LikeTelevisionBlog has a wonderful post, The Tax Man’s Video Vault, with links to free copies of some tax TV clasics: The Beverly Hillbillies episode Jed Pays His Income Tax The Burns and Allen Show…
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More Tax Songs for Your iPod: The Tax Man
Following up on last week’s post on the tax song Taxes Are Best When You Pay Nothing At All, the Tax Guru has made available an mp3 recording of the Beatles’ The Tax Man, as performed by bluegrass group Nickel Creek on PBS’s Austin City Limits show. For a clip of the show, see here;…
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A Tax Song for Your iPod: Taxes Are Best When You Pay Nothing At All
Following up on my recent post bemoaning the lack of good tax songs, Stephen Stubbs (Jeffrey Burr, Las Vegas) sent in his original song, Taxes Are Best When You Pay Nothing At All, sung to "You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All" (Copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. This song is not to be…
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Nary a Tax Lawyer on NBC’s The Law Firm
There is not a tax lawyer among the 12 associates duking it out on NBC’s new reality show, The Law Firm. The bios of the associates list a variety of legal specialties (including civil litigation, criminal defense, employment law, entertainment law, personal injury), but not one is a tax lawyer.
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Jon Stewart Daily Show Video of Tax Evasion Through Cayman Islands
Following up on last year’s post about the Jon Stewart Daily Show video on the tax consequences of Oprah’s car giveaway: here is the video of the wonderful segment on tax avoidance by U.S. businesses that set up phony Cayman Islands addresses.
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TiVo and Tax
John C. McCaffrey (NYU) passes on this heretofore unappreciated aspect of TiVo: you can program TiVo to scan program descriptions for keywords, such as "Tax" and "Taxes." The possibilities are endless — John, for example, turned up that Three Stooges classic, Income Tax Sappy (1954). Other possibilities: Dodging the Beer Tax (1915) A Tax from…
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Tax Consequences of Buying and Selling Uniform Numbers
Joel Newman (Wake Forest) passed along an interesting tax angle in today’s New York Times story, What Is a Number Worth? Some Athletes Pay the Price, which recounts how professional athletes who join a new team often will pay a current player for the right to wear a particular uniform number. Some examples in the…
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Oprah’s Tax Problems Redux: Can 5k Checks to 100 Employees Be Treated as Gifts Rather Than as Income?
Last year, we shamelessly blogged the tax consequences of Oprah Winfrey’s giveaway of 276 new Pontiac G-6s to her studio audience in celebration of the 19th season of her talk show (see here, here, and here), culminating in Jon Stewart’s hilarious spoof on The Daily Show). With Tax Profs now in full exam prep mode…
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America’s Favorite Hollywood Tax Accountant
IMDB’s April 15 on-line poll asked: "Which movie accountant would you trust most to do your taxes for you?" See if you can guess the #1 answer (who received 34.5% of the 7990 votes): Bud Cort (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) Danny Glover (The Royal Tenenbaums) Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List) Rick Moranis (Ghostbusters) Gene…
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Survivor Winner Richard Hatch Blames CBS for His Tax Woes
zAs previously noted (here and here), Richard Hatch, the winner of the first CBS Survivor reality show, recently backed out of an agreement to plead guilty to two counts of income tax evasion for failing to report the $1 million prize he received from the show. In press reports yesterday, Hatch claimed that it was…
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Celebrity Tax Lore: Regis & Kelly and the Oscars
More entries for our Celebrity Tax Lore file: Michael Kirsch (Notre Dame) notes that Live with Regis and Kelly (and Pontiac) have learned from the tax imbroglio caused by Oprah’s giveaway of 276 Pontiac G-6 sedans to her studio audience (blogged here, here, here, here, here, and here): The show is giving away a Pontiac…
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More on Tax Consequences of Chicago Cubs’ Misdirected Direct Deposit
Back in September, we blogged the interesting tax issues involving a newspaper deliveryman man for the Chicago Tribune-owned Hartford Courant who received direct deposits of $301,000 in his bank account in 2003 that were intended for the Mark Guthrie who pitched for the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs. When the Tribune discovered the error later in 2003,…
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Tax Treatment of Bloggers’ “Tips” Redux
Earlier this week, we blogged the tax consequences of the increasingly common practice of law professor bloggers (like The Volokh Conspiracy, ProfessorBainbridge, and InstaPundit) soliciting "tips" from their readers. Eugene Volokh prompted the discussion by asking: Should blog tips be treated by us as income (on the analogy to tips for waiters or cabbies) or…
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Tax Treatment of Bloggers’ “Tips”
The Volokh Conspiracy has joined the growing number of law professors with tip jars on their blogs (see also ProfessorBainbridge and InstaPundit). Regular readers are asked, but not required, to contribute ("tip"). Eugene asked us about the proper tax treatment of these tips: "Should blog tips be treated by us as income (on the analogy…
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More on Extreme Makeover: Taxpayer Edition
We previously have blogged the aggressive tax position taken by ABC’s lawyers in connection with the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (see here, here, and here). The lawyers apparently tell recipients of home makeovers that they can avoid tax on the value of the improvements by characterizing the items as short term rental payments within…
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Survivor Winner Richard Hatch Cannot Survive IRS
Richard Hatch, the winner of the first CBS Survivor reality show, plead guilty yesterday to two counts of income tax evasion for failing to report: $1,000,000 he received in 2000 for winning the show (along with a $10,000 payment he received for appearing on the final episode). $320,000 he received for working on a…
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Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tax
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: reports on how some southern officials tried to use state tax laws to stop King and the nascent civil rights movement: "In Alabama, … Governor John Patterson in early 1960 directed state revenue authorities to charge Martin Luther King, Jr., with tax evasion and perjury in completing…
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Tobin Says Journal of Taxation Article Overstates Tax Problems of Oprah’s Studio Audience
Donald Tobin (Ohio State) takes issue with the authors of the "Shop Talk" piece in the January issue of the Journal of Taxation, who claim in an article blogged here yesterday that Oprah Winfrey’s payment of $2,500 to each member of the studio audience at her November 22 show did not eliminate the tax liability…
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Oprah Again Sticks Audience with Big Tax Bill
Inveterate readers of this blog know that we ran several posts on the tax problems associated with Oprah Winfrey’s giveaway of 276 new Pontiac G6 sedans to members of the audience at her premiere of the 2004-05 season (9/14, 9/21, 11/3, and 12/20). Because the cars constitute taxable prizes, Oprah’s largesse resulted in heft tax…
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Recap of 2004 Celebrity Tax Lore on TaxProf Blog
Since our launch on April 15, I have been proud of our coverage of tax colloquia, conferences, and scholarship, as well as our coverage of tax issues in the 2004 Presidential Campaign (including the many tax aspects of the red state-blue state divide). I would like to think that our coverage of these issues is…
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J. of Taxation Revisits Tax Consequences of Oprah’s Car Giveaway
December’s "Shop Talk" column in the Journal of Taxation revisits the tax consequences of Oprah Winfrey’s giveaway of 276 new cars on her TV show (previously blogged here and here). The column focuses on three tax issues: The valuation of the cars for income tax purposes The timing of the income The marginal tax rate…
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Tax Consequences of “Malice in the Palace”
Last week’s NBA near-riot involving Ron Artest (and several of his Indiana Pacer teamates) and courtside Detroit Pistons fans at The Palace of Auburn Hills provides some classroom fodder for the basic income tax class. Some Tax Profs show a film clip of former Piston bad boy Dennis Rodman kicking a courtside photographer to illustrate…