Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Political News
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Brunori on Bush’s Tax Panel Has a Crazy Idea. Let’s Go For It
David Brunori (Executive Vice President of Editorial Operations, Tax Analysts) published an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post, Bush’s Tax Panel Has a Crazy Idea. Let’s Go For It: Pity the poor McMansion owner. If the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform gets its way, those folks with the three-car garages, grand entryways, mega-kitchens and…
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More Tax Blogosphere Reactions to Tax Reform Panel’s Recommendations
Joe Kristan (Roth CPA): Without a significant rate reduction to reward taxpayers for the loss of their targeted tax breaks, it’s hard to see how this plan can advance. For all of their hard work, it seems like the best the commission can hope is that their ideas nudge the tax reform debate along for…
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Business Groups Mobilize Against Tax Reform Panel’s Plan
Interesting Bloomberg story today by Ryan Donmoyer: U.S. Insurers, Retailers, Realtors Mobilize to Save Tax Breaks: Even before President George W. Bush’s tax advisory panel has put its proposals on paper, business lobbying groups are fighting recommendations that may threaten their special breaks. Within hours of the panel’s Oct. 18 announcement of two proposals to…
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Tax Blogosphere Reactions to Tax Reform Panel’s Recommendations
Vic Fleischer (The Congomerate): [L]iberals need to fight through their instincts that any tax system that exempts investment income must be bad. It’s not. Liberals must recognize that our current system fails to tax a lot of investment income, so don’t defend the status quo for the sake of defending the status quo. More importantly,…
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Tax Policy Center Launches New Web Site Dedicated to President’s Tax Reform Panel
The Tax Policy Center yesterday established a very helpful new web page dedicated to the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, which provides an array of links to relevant research and testimony.
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Conservative Think Tank Dismisses Bartlett in Flap Over Anti-Bush Book
The New York Times reported Tuesday that conservative tax and economics commentator Bruce Bartlett has been dismissed from his position as Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis: In a statement, the organization said the decision was made after Mr. Bartlett supplied its president, John C. Goodman, with the manuscript of his forthcoming…
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President’s Tax Reform Panel Holds Final Public Meeting Today; Press Reports Say Panel Will Embrace Flat Tax
The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform holds its final in-person public meeting today at 9:00 am at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center Amphitheater, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. Panel members will discuss issues associated with tax reform (no testimony will be presented). The panel will hold two additional public…
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More Miers Tax Troubles
Newsday reports that the city of Dallas through the years has slapped ten tax liens on real estate owned by Harriet Miers: The year Harriet Miers began work as a senior presidential aide in the White House, the city of Dallas slapped three liens in three months on a property she controls in a low-income…
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Are Feds Investigating Miers’ Firm’s Tax Shelter Work?
We previously have blogged (here and here) the shoddy tax shelter opinions issued by the Locke, Liddell & Sapp law firm while Harriet Miers was co-managing partner. Blogosphere reports today (here and here) say that a federal investigation has been opened into the firm’s tax shelter work: In May 2004, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for…
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Tax Profs, Practitioners, & Sen. Grassley Assess Impact of Tax Shelter Opinions on Miers Nomination
Allen Kenney has published Will Tax Shelter Opinions Affect Miers’s Nomination?, also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc 2005-20849, 2005 TNT 198-2: With Harriet Miers’s confirmation hearings quickly approaching and criticism mounting, it is unclear how her former law firm’s link to a questionable tax shelter will affect her nomination to the…
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Miers and Tax Poetry
We have faithfully mined the Miers nomination for tax nuggets (Miers and … Tax Textualism, … Tax Shelters, … Property Tax Exemption, … Charitable Deduction). Wonkette today includes this funny item: The New York Times has posted a PDF of a portion of Harriet Miers’ correspondence while she was a Texas state official. Her giggly…
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C-Span Showing Tax Reform Panel Hearing
C-Span is showing yesterday’s public meeting of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform from 11:00 am – 1:25 pm today. Update: The hearing will be re-broadcast on C-Span3 from 4:30 – 7:00 pm today. A tape can be ordered from C-Span for $75.
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Is Miers a Tax Textualist?
Following up on Sunday’s post on Harriet Miers’ responsibility as managing partner for the shoddy tax shelter opinions issued by the Locke, Liddell & Sapp law firm: Vic Fleischer disagrees with his colleague Stephen Bainbridge’s casual dismissal of the relevance of Miers’ role in the opinions and draws three lessons that offer insights into the…
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President’s Tax Reform Panel Eschews National Sales Tax, Backs Capping Deductions for Mortgage Interest, Employer-Provided Health Insurance
Bloomberg reports that the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform at its public meetings today backed caps on tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance to pay the cost of repealing the AMT: President George W. Bush’s tax advisory panel agreed to recommend limiting tax breaks for homeowners and employer-provided health-care benefits…
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President’s Tax Reform Panel Holds Penultimate Meeting Today in Washington, D.C.
The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform holds its eleventh of twelve scheduled public meetings today at 11:00 am at the Renaissance Hotel, 999 Ninth Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001. Panel members will discuss issues associated with tax reform (no testimony will be presented). The meeting will be broadcast later today on C-Span. (For…
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Miers’ Law Firm Profited from Shoddy Tax Shelter Opinions
Tax Analysts has unearthed a Senate Report noting that while Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers was co-managing partner of Locke, Liddell & Sapp, the Dallas-based law firm provided investors with questionable legal opinions (at $50,000 a pop for each of 70 transactions, or $3.5 million total) for contingent deferred swap (CDS) tax shelters marketed by…
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WSJ: Alleged IRS Abuses in Clinton Administration
Interesting editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, Hiding the Cisneros Report: What don’t David Kendall, the law firm of Williams & Connolly, and clients such as Hillary Rodham Clinton want the public to know? We’d have thought that question would be on more Washington lips as the report of Independent Counsel David Barrett languishes under…
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Miers’ Wealth Declined Due to Mother’s Care, Church Donations
Press reports today note that financial disclosure forms filed by Harriet Miers reveal that her assets have dropped dramatically since coming to Washington, D.C., from $552,000 -$1.13 million in 2000 to $218,000 – $595,000 in 2004 (the most recent form available, filed in May 2005). Part of the reduction is due to the 75% drop…
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Miers Helped Bush Hide “Questionable Tax Advantage”
The L.A. Times reports today that Harriet Miers’s role in hiding a "questionable tax advantage" led her into George W. Bush’s inner circle: For Harriet Ellan Miers, the road to a Supreme Court nomination began in summer 1994, with an ugly little legal problem involving an exclusive East Texas fishing camp and the soon-to-be governor,…
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Conservative Groups Want Tax Reform Panel to Embrace “Dynamic” Revenue Estimates
A coalition of more than 40 free-market leaders has asked President Bush to direct the Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform to adopt "reality-based" revenue estimating methodology: Currently, the panel is using "static" revenue estimating techniques. But these estimates assume that tax policy changes – regardless of their magnitude – have no impact on the…
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Bush Nominates Miers to Replace O’Connor
President Bush has nominated Harriet Miers, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. White House Announcement ABC CNN Fox News NY Times Wall Street Journal Washington Post Here are some Google references to Ms. Miers and tax: Ask the White House (10/14/04) Ask the White House (19/29/04) Update: …
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New Web Site Supports Charitable Giving Through IRAs
Conrad Teitell (Cummings & Lockwood) has launched www.IRAGift.org, a web site to encourage charitable giving through IRA rollovers. The site is pushing for the enactment this year of The Public Good IRA Rollover Act (H.R. 1607 & S. 1366).
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Deadline Extended for President’s Tax Reform Panel
President Bush yesterday issued an executive order extending the deadline for the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform to issue its report from September 30 to November 1 (the original due date was July 30). The panel has scheduled public meetings on October 11 & 18 at which panel members will discuss issues associated…
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GiveBackTheTaxCut.org
Daniel Markovits (Yale) and Robert Hockett (Cornell) have formed GiveBackTheTaxCut.org, which asks Americans to "Help the Victims of Hurricane Katrina. Donate Your Tax Cut." (Thanks to Calvin Johnson (Texas) for the tip.)
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Republicans on Prowl for Victims of Both Estate Tax and Katrina
From Time: Federal troops aren’t the only ones looking for bodies on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions’ legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their cause, which…