Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
News
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Mass. Considers 2.5% Excise Tax on College Endowments > $1 Billion
From yesterday’s Boston Globe: Lawmakers Target $1b Endowments; Exempt Status of Schools Debated, by Peter Schworm & Matt Viser: Massachusetts lawmakers desperate for additional revenue are eyeing the endowments of deep-pocketed private colleges to bolster the state’s coffers by more than $1 billion a year, asserting that the schools’ rising fortunes undercut their nonprofit status.
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Palley: Tax Policy and the House Price Bubble
Tax Policy and the House Price Bubble, by Thomas Palley (Economics for Democratic & Open Societies): The bursting of the recent house price bubble has focused attention on the failures of monetary and regulatory policy. However, tax policy also likely played a role by providing tax subsidies that contribute to a cult of home ownership.
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War on Greed: The Tax Treatment of Private Equity and Hedge Funds
Check out the War on Greed’s take on the tax treatment of private equity: For a more scholarly treatment, see ataxingmatter.
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Tax Profs and Cognitive Surplus
Check out this interesting recent speech: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, by Clay Shirkyon: Someone working alone, with really cheap tools, has a reasonable hope of carving out enough of the cognitive surplus, enough of the desire to participate, enough of the collective goodwill of the citizens, to create a resource you couldn’t have imagined
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Birthday Gift Suggestion
For those men approaching forty (or any other birthday): a birthday gift suggestion for your spouse. (Hat Tip: Dan Filler.)
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Rising Taxes, Not Rising Mortgage Payments, Primary Cause of Middle-Class Squeeze
I previously blogged (here and here) Todd Zywicki’s contention that in their book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke, Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi wrongly blamed rising mortgage and health care costs for the increasing strain on family budgets despite the growing incomes earned by two-income
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Virginia Bar Sanctions Tax Lawyer
Last month, I blogged the disciplinary proceedings involving a Virginia tax lawyer who had contended that his tax services provided to clients were "administrative" services not involving an attorney-client relationship. On Friday, the Virginia three-judge court imposed a series of sanctions against the tax lawyer for violating Virginia Rule 7.1 by providing false or misleading
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WSJ: Tax Consequences of Forgiveness of Law Student Loans
Today’s Wall Street Journal Tax Report, by Martin A. Vaughan: Law students, be civic minded … but also be tax wise. Yale Law School last week announced it is expanding its student-loan-forgiveness program to include students in public-service jobs making up to $60,000. Yale is one of more than 100 law schools nationwide that offers
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NY: Coin-Operated Dog Wash Subject to Sales Tax
The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Tax Policy Analysis, Taxpayer Guidance Division, has issued Advisory Opinion TSB-A-08(17)S (3/19/08): Petitioner’s newly constructed laundromat facility is also equipped with a coin-operated dog washing machine. Customers use the dog washing machine to wash and dry their dogs without the assistance of any of
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Tax Lawyers Are More “Productive” Than Tax Profs
Bye, Bye Baby: Why Doctors and Lawyers Out-Reproduce Professors (Chronicle of Higher Education), by Robin WIlson: Male and female faculty members are less likely than their counterparts in the fields of medicine and law to have children, according to a new study of professionals and fertility. Nicholas H. Wolfinger, an associate professor at the University
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Angry Bear: Eliminate the Charitable Deduction
The Angry Bear proposes to eliminate the charitable deduction: Much of what constitutes charity, according to the tax code, is little more than self-serving activity, whether tax avoidance schemes or methods of self-aggrandizement. Much of it constitutes encouraging behavior that is offensive to some, or even many other people. Such activities will take place whether
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Texas to Strip Tax Exemption from Church of Scientology?
The Republican Party of Texas has approved a resolution to strip the Church of Scientology of its state tax exemption. See Anonymous Houston and Gloss Lip.
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John Gimigliano, Senior Tax Counsel on House Ways & Means Committee, to Join KPMG
John P. Gimigliano, Senior Tax Counsel on the House Ways & Means Committee, has accepted a position as Principal-In-Charge, Americas Climate Solutions and Energy Sustainability Tax Practice, at KPMG in Washington, D.C.
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April 15: Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?
Following up on this morning’s post on Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go? — Americans United for Change reports: The Iraq War has already cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering $526 billion in direct costs and roughly $1.3 trillion to the economy. That is $16,500 for each U.S. family of four, or roughly $3 billion for
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Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: From the National Priorities Project: Here is where a family’s $25,000 of federal income tax in 2007 went:
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NLJ: Corporate Counsel Fight IRS in Key Work Product Protection Case
Corporate Counsel Fight IRS on Key Work Product Protection Case (National Law Journal), by Marcia Coyle: The Association of Corporate Counsel and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have joined an aerospace defense company in its court fight with the IRS in a closely watched tax case with work product protection at its core. U.S. v.
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April 15-Eve Tax News
Citizens for Tax Justice: President Bush Has Made Tax Day Easier for the Rich — at the Expense of Everyone Else Cleveland Plain Dealer: Two Americas on Taxes (editorial) CNN: Gay Couples Face Higher Tax Bills IRS 1040 Central April 15 Deadline Approaching; Filing Extension Available Economic Stimulus Payments Information Center IRS Offers Last Minute
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Soled & Ventry: Using Shame to Close the Tax Gap
A Little Shame Might Just Deter Tax Cheaters (USA Today), by Jay A. Soled (Rutgers Business School) & Dennis J. Ventry, Jr. (American): Eliot Spitzer isn’t the only john being shamed these days. Around the country, campaigns such as "Johns TV" launched by Denver are fighting the demand side of prostitution with public humiliation. …
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A “Gang Tax”
The Feakonomics Blog ciriticizes New York’s new bill outlawing gangs: A few days ago, New York’s State Senate passed a bill making it illegal to recruit someone into a street gang. In the never-ending fight by city officials and legislators to combat gangs, this is one of the latest efforts to outmaneuver gang members. Other
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Top 50 Charitable Donors
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has released the The Philanthropy 50: Americans Who Gave the Most in 2007. Here are the Top 10: William Barron Hilton: $1.2 billion Jon M. Sr. and Karen H. Huntsman: $750 million T. Denny Sanford: $502.6 million George Soros: $474.6 million John W. Kluge: $400 million Sanford I. and Joan H.
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Happy 3rd Birthday to PrawfsBlawg
Happy 3rd birthday to the fine folks at PrawfsBlawg! They are too modest to say, but Prawfs is one of the very best and most popular general interest law prof blogs — over 1.7 million visitors and 3.1 million page views! They deserve a priority place in your RSS feed.
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Skadden Names Four New Tax Partners
Skadden announced yesterday that it has named 25 new partners, including four in tax: Michael Beinus (Los Angeles) (J.D. 1999, UC-Hastings) Pamela Lawrence Endreny (New York) (J.D. 1994, Columbia) David F. Levy (Chicago) (J.D. 1995, American; LL.M. (Tax) 1998, Georgetown) Eric B. Sensenbrenner (Washington, D.C.) (J.D. 1996, DePaul; LL.M. (Tax) 1997, Georgetown)
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Law Prof Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Accepting $240k in Kickbacks From Students
From the Associated Press: A judge has sentenced a German law professor to three years in prison for accepting kickbacks from doctoral students. The Hannover university professor, whose identity was not revealed, confessed to accepting euro156,000 (US$240,000) to serve as a faculty adviser to 68 doctorate students between 1998 and 2005. Judge Peter Peschka called
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Texas “Pole Tax” on Strip Club Patrons Ruled Unconstitutional
The Houston Chronicle reports that a state district judge has ruled Texas’s $5-per-customer pole tax unconstitutional. For prior TaxProf Blog coverage, see here. (Hat Tip: Ira Sheppard.) Update #1: PrawfsBlawg has much more here. Update #2: The opinion is here.
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TaxProf Blog Featured in Today’s Wall Street Journal
TaxProf Blog is featured in the Blog Watch column in today’s Wall Street Journal (page R8): Paul L. Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and the author of numerous books, writes this influential and popular blog, which includes coverage of tax-reform legislation with extensive explanations. Recent posts include a discussion