Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
New Cases
-
Federal Court Issues Injunction Prohibiting UCLA From Allowing Antisemitic Encampments To Block Jewish Students From Areas Of Campus
Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, No. 2:24-cv-04702 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2024): In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact…
-
The Constitutional Line On Direct Taxes
Rob Natelson (Montana; Google Scholar), The Constitutional Line on Direct Taxes: The idea of a federal wealth tax recently has become a popular cause among “progressives.” The question arises, however, of whether such a tax would be constitutional. In theory, a federal wealth tax could pass constitutional muster. But unless it qualified under the Constitution as…
-
Moore v. The United States: Will The Supreme Court Join The Whack-A-Tax Shelter Game?
Eugene Steuerle (Tax Policy Center; Google Scholar), Moore v. The United States: Will The Supreme Court Join The Whack-A-Tax Shelter Game?: In Moore v. the United States, the Supreme Court dodged the issue of whether the Constitution allows for the taxation of unrealized income, concluding that the “disagreement over realization” was among “potential issues for another day.”…
-
Lesson From The Tax Court: The Shrinking §469 Exception For Active Participation
Section 469 generally denies taxpayers the ability to use net losses from passive activities to offset income from active activities. Renting real property is a passive activity. But there are some exceptions when it comes to renting real estate. Two are relevant for today’s lesson. First, taxpayers who are real estate professionals can deduct such…
-
More Evidence That ‘Direct Taxes’ Include Levies On Wealth And Income
Rob Natelson (Montana; Google Scholar), More Evidence That "Direct Taxes" Include Levies on Wealth and Income: My July 12 entry provided links to Founding-era sources showing that the Constitution's category of "direct taxes" included levies on all kinds of wealth and on business profits and income. Direct taxes were not, as often claimed, limited to capitations…
-
Clarifying The Uncertainty Over Direct And Indirect Taxes In Moore v. United States
Rob Natelson (Montana; Google Scholar), Clarifying the Uncertainty over Direct and Indirect Taxes in Moore v. United States: The Supreme Court's June 20 decision in Moore v. United States continues the long-standing controversy over the Constitution's distinction between "direct" and "indirect" taxes. Writing for the Court, Justice Brett Kavanagh stated that "Generally speaking, direct taxes are those taxes imposed…
-
Kysar: Moore v. United States—The Stakes Of Constitutionalizing The Tax Law
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore v. United States—The Stakes of Constitutionalizing the Tax Law, by Rebecca Kysar (Fordham; Google Scholar): Since the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, the Court has generally left Congress to its own devices when it comes to tax law. [1] Indeed, a leading federal income tax casebook has observed that,…
-
Lesson From The Tax Court: Finding Safe Harbors From The §72(t) Early Distribution Penalty
Congress wants taxpayers to save for retirement. To encourage such savings, Congress authorizes a smorgasbord of tax-advantaged retirement plans that taxpayers can use. Authority for such plans are scattered in different statutes, such as §401, §403, and §408. Again, the purpose of these provisions is to allow taxpayers to save for retirement. Congress give other…
-
Zhang: Moore And The Judicial Role In Tax Law
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore, and the Judicial Role in Tax Law, by Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar): Most tax scholars breathed a sigh of relief last Thursday. The Supreme Court, in a 5-2-2 split, upheld the mandatory repatriation tax on narrow grounds. Others have commented on the doctrinal implications of the case. I will focus here on…
-
Graetz: Moore v. United States—Winning The Battle But The War Goes On
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore v. United States—Winning the Battle but the War Goes On, by Michael Graetz (Columbia) (Author, The Power to Destroy: How The Antitax Movement Hijacked America (2024)): The lawsuit by the Moores over $14,729 of tax was never about the tax (labelled the mandatory repatriation tax or MRT) enacted in 2017 to…
-
More Moore Commentary
Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Limiting The Blast Radius: Can Congress Save The Code From Realization? Josh Blackman (South Texas), Thoughts on Moore v. United States Moore Money, More Problems NFIB PTSD The Sixteenth Amendment did not "Overrule" Pollock Bloomberg, Democrats’ Wealth Tax Dreams Look Dim After Supreme Court Ruling Bloomberg, Foreign Tax Ruling Takes Pains to…
-
Grewal: Moore Decides Less
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore Decides Less, by Andy Grewal (Iowa; Google Scholar): When the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Moore v. United States, 602 U.S. ___ (2024), it agreed to decide whether the Sixteenth Amendment allows Congress to tax unrealized sums. Alas, the Moore opinion directly resolved only relatively dull and straightforward questions. In doing so,…
-
FedSoc Debate: Is A Wealth Tax Constitutional?
Akhil Reed Amar (Yale) David Schizer (Columbia) Moderator: Corinne Snow (Vinson & Elkins, Washington, D.C.)
-
Galle: What’s Next For Wealth And Mark-To-Market Taxes After Moore?
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: What's Next For Wealth And Mark-To-Market Taxes After Moore?, by Brian D. Galle (Georgetown; Google Scholar): The Moore case was always about wealth taxes. Now that the Supreme Court has handed down its decision, and seems to have studiously avoided making any (technically) definitive statements about whether wealth taxes fit into the constitutional…
-
Brooks & Gamage: Moore v. United States—Initial Reactions
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore v. United States—Initial Reactions, by John R. Brooks (Fordham; Google Scholar) & David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia; Google Scholar): In its decision in Moore v. United States on June 20, the Supreme Court upheld a broad government power to tax business entities, including corporations, on a pass-through basis. The taxpayers in Moore had challenged as…
-
Avi-Yonah: Is A Mark To Market Tax Constitutional After Moore?
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Is a Mark to Market Tax Constitutional After Moore?, by Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar): The main reason the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Moore was not to debate the constitutionality of the Mandatory Repatriation Tax (MRT). If that were all, there would be no need for any of the Justices to…
-
Clarke: Four More Takeaways From Moore
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Four More Takeaways From Moore, by Conor Clarke (Washington University; Google Scholar): Like everyone in the tax world, I read Thursday’s Moore opinion with great interest. The result was both predictable and startling: The government won on a narrow theory that many saw coming—but that win may be dulled by some mildly Pyrrhic elements…
-
Zelenak: Moore Thoughts
TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Moore Thoughts, by Lawrence Zelenak (Duke; Google Scholar): In terms of its bottom line, the Supreme Court's Moore decision is no surprise to anyone who listened to (or read the transcript of) the oral argument last December. It seemed then nearly certain that the Court would uphold the mandatory repatriation tax (MRT) as…
-
7-2 Supreme Court Upholds Mandatory Repatriation Tax In Moore
Moore v. United States, No. 22–800 (June 20, 2024): The [Mandatory Repatriation Tax] —which attributes the realized and undistributed income of an American-controlled foreign corporation to the entity’s American shareholders, and then taxes the American shareholders on their portions of that income—does not exceed Congress’s constitutional authority. … KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the…
-
Todd: While Tax World Waits For Moore, Supreme Court Decides Important Connelly Estate Tax Case
TaxProf Blog op-ed: While Tax World Waits For Moore, Supreme Court Decides Important Connelly Estate Tax Case, by Timothy M. Todd (Interim Dean, Liberty; Google Scholar): Although the eyes of the tax world have been focused on the pending decision in Moore v. United States—a case that challenges the one-time “mandatory repatriation tax,” and depending…
-
Unanimous Supreme Court Affirms IRS’s Position On Life Insurance Proceeds Used To Fund A Stock Redemption
Connelly v. United States, No. 23–146 (June 6, 2024): SyllabusMichael and Thomas Connelly were the sole shareholders in Crown C Supply, a small building supply corporation. The brothers entered into an agreement to ensure that Crown would stay in the family if either brother died. Under that agreement, the surviving brother would have the option…
-
Lesson From The Tax Court: Proving Last Known Address
Many statutes require the IRS to send taxpayers notices. What confuses my students (and many taxpayers) is that the statutes rarely require that the taxpayer actually receive a particular notice; they just require the IRS to properly send the notice. And the IRS will always meet the statutory requirement if the IRS sends the notice…
-
Lesson From The Tax Court: When Is An Excise Tax Really A Penalty?
“The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Justice John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 431 (1819). “Sometimes a tax is…just a tax.” — Sigmund Freud’s Tax Advisor. Today’s lesson is about how to tell when an excise tax is really a penalty. The answer I learn is: “why do you…
-
Lesson From The Tax Court: Choose Your Return Preparer Carefully
In Stephanie Murrin v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-10 (Jan. 26, 2024), Judge Urda decided that the fraudulent acts of a return preparer starting in 1993, made an honest taxpayer liable for some $65,000 in deficiencies resulting from the 30-year old fraud of someone else, plus some $15k in §6662 penalties. That is, the return preparer’s…