Taxing Creativity

The recent sell offs of song catalogs by Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and Mick Fleetwood for extraordinarily large sums of money raise questions about the law on creativity. While patent and copyright laws encourage a wide array of creative endeavors, tax laws governing monetization of creative works do not. The Songwriters Capital Gains Equity Act, in particular, solidifies creativity exceptionalism, exacerbates tax inequities among creators, and perpetuates racial disparities in the tax Code. This Article asserts that the law must encourage creativity from all creators. It is time to eliminate tax exceptionalism for musical compositions or expand its scope to cover a broader classification of creative property

Attacking Innovation

Economists generally agree that innovation is important to economic growth and that government support for innovation is necessary. Historically, the U.S. government has supported innovation in a variety of ways: (1) a strong legal system for patents; (2) direct support through research performed by government agencies, grants, loans, and loan guarantees; and (3) indirect support through various tax incentives for private firms. In recent years, however, we have seen a weakening of the U.S. patent system, a decline in direct funding of research, and a weakening of tax policy tools used to encourage new innovation. These disruptive changes threaten the future of innovation in the United States, potentially driving innovation activities offshore to Europe and China. This Article concludes that the current innovation crisis demands changes to both the patent and tax systems in order to instill confidence in the innovation landscape

Multinational Efforts to Limit Intellectual Property Income Shifting: The OECD\u27s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project

Before 2017, there were two major international movements going on at the same time: (1) the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement; and (2) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project. The movements presented a unique opportunity to consider the intersection of a behemoth multinational trade agreement and ambitious multinational efforts to close international tax loopholes. Although the TPP is essentially dead, as newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump unsigned the TPP as a matter of unilateral Executive power, the OECD’s BEPS Project is not. Indeed, many nations have been adopting BEPS Project proposals to prevent international tax avoidance by multinational companies. With that said, however, the United States’ commitment to adopting BEPS Project proposals is far from certain. For the United States, at least, the end of the era of multinational trade agreements could signal the end of the era of multilateral efforts to close international tax loopholes. This article looks at the OECD’s BEPS Project, and its implications for multinational companies and many countries

Wealth Transfer Tax Planning for 2013 and Beyond

On January 1, 2013 Congress avoided the tax part of the so called “fiscal cliff” when it passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA). Among its many impacts this law prevented the application of a number of sunset provisions that would have dramatically altered the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes. Instead Congress made permanent two significant transfer tax provisions introduced as temporary measures in 2010: the indexed basic exclusion amount and the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. The latter provisions are sometimes referred to as the portability rules. ATRA also introduced a new maximum transfer tax rate of 40%. In addition ATRA made permanent a deduction for state death taxes and prevented the return of the state death tax credit. Thus, the main transfer tax emphasis of the actions taken by Congress in ATRA was to stabilize the wealth transfer tax system in a fashion that eliminates or reduces its planning impact on most taxpayers while also permanently establishing a significant new planning tool for the wealthy, the deceased spousal unused exclusion (DSUE) amount. In this article we summarize the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes in the wake of ATRA and describe the basic tax planning techniques for wealth transmission. In doing so, we offer a thorough analysis of the operation of the portability rules and discuss their planning virtues and drawbacks. The overall design of this article is to bring the general practitioner into the current wealth transfer tax planning picture while providing references to more detailed treatments of particular topics within this broad field

The Fundamentals of Wealth Transfer Tax Planning: 2011 And Beyond

This article discusses basic aspects of all three transfer taxes, with particular emphasis on the estate tax. This article then outlines fundamental estate planning techniques in light of the impact of these taxes. In addition, references are provided in the footnotes to more detailed treatments of the planning techniques described here

Wealth Transfer Tax Planning for 2013 and Beyond

On January 1, 2013, Congress avoided the tax part of the so-called “fiscal cliff” when it passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA). Among its many impacts, ATRA prevented the application of a number of sunset provisions that would have dramatically altered the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes. Instead, Congress made permanent two significant transfer tax provisions introduced as temporary measures in 2010: the $5,000,000 indexed basic exclusion amount and the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. The latter provisions are sometimes referred to as the portability rules because, in effect, they allow one spouse’s estate tax exclusion to be passed to the other spouse. ATRA also introduced a new maximum transfer tax rate of 40%. Thus, the main transfer tax emphasis of the actions taken by Congress in ATRA was to stabilize the wealth transfer tax system while also permanently establishing a significant new planning tool, the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. In this Article, we explain the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes (the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation skipping transfer tax) in the wake of ATRA and dissect the basic tax planning techniques for wealth transmission. In doing so, we offer a thorough analysis of the operation of the portability rules and explain their planning virtues and drawbacks. The overall design of this Article is to bring the reader into the current wealth transfer tax planning picture while providing references to more detailed treatments of particular topics within this broad field

Wealth Transfer Tax Planning for 2013 and Beyond

On January 1, 2013 Congress avoided the tax part of the so called “fiscal cliff” when it passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA). Among its many impacts this law prevented the application of a number of sunset provisions that would have dramatically altered the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes. Instead Congress made permanent two significant transfer tax provisions introduced as temporary measures in 2010: the indexed basic exclusion amount and the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. The latter provisions are sometimes referred to as the portability rules. ATRA also introduced a new maximum transfer tax rate of 40%. In addition ATRA made permanent a deduction for state death taxes and prevented the return of the state death tax credit. Thus, the main transfer tax emphasis of the actions taken by Congress in ATRA was to stabilize the wealth transfer tax system in a fashion that eliminates or reduces its planning impact on most taxpayers while also permanently establishing a significant new planning tool for the wealthy, the deceased spousal unused exclusion (DSUE) amount. In this article we summarize the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes in the wake of ATRA and describe the basic tax planning techniques for wealth transmission. In doing so, we offer a thorough analysis of the operation of the portability rules and discuss their planning virtues and drawbacks. The overall design of this article is to bring the general practitioner into the current wealth transfer tax planning picture while providing references to more detailed treatments of particular topics within this broad field

Wealth Transfer Tax Planning After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

On December 17, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Among its many impacts, the TCJA increased the inflation-adjusted estate tax basic exclusion amount to $10,000,000 on a temporary basis. This has dramatic implications for many existing and future estate plans, including a major crossover impact on income tax planning. In this Article, we explain the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes (the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation skipping transfer tax) in the wake of the TCJA and dissect the basic tax planning techniques for wealth transmission. The overall design of this Article is to bring the reader into the current wealth transfer tax planning picture while providing references to more detailed treatments of particular topics within this broad field

Wealth Transfer Tax Planning for 2013 and Beyond

On January 1, 2013, Congress avoided the tax part of the so-called “fiscal cliff” when it passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA). Among its many impacts, ATRA prevented the application of a number of sunset provisions that would have dramatically altered the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes. Instead, Congress made permanent two significant transfer tax provisions introduced as temporary measures in 2010: the $5,000,000 indexed basic exclusion amount and the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. The latter provisions are sometimes referred to as the portability rules because, in effect, they allow one spouse’s estate tax exclusion to be passed to the other spouse. ATRA also introduced a new maximum transfer tax rate of 40%. Thus, the main transfer tax emphasis of the actions taken by Congress in ATRA was to stabilize the wealth transfer tax system while also permanently establishing a significant new planning tool, the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. In this Article, we explain the operation of the federal wealth transfer taxes (the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation skipping transfer tax) in the wake of ATRA and dissect the basic tax planning techniques for wealth transmission. In doing so, we offer a thorough analysis of the operation of the portability rules and explain their planning virtues and drawbacks. The overall design of this Article is to bring the reader into the current wealth transfer tax planning picture while providing references to more detailed treatments of particular topics within this broad field

Patent Donations and Tax Policy

To achieve the policy goals of ultimate innovation, the government should provide incentives to encourage the patentees to donate, rather than abandon, their orphan patents to universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit organizations with research and development facilities that can properly exploit the patents. The authors advocate for the implementation of incentives that would encourage donors to surrender their monopolistic ownership of patents for the benefit of charitable organizations and, in tum, the development and growth of society