IRS, Inc. - The IRS Oversight Board - Effective Reform or Just Politics? - Some Early Thoughts from a Corporate Law Perspective

This article examines the new IRS Oversight Board as a governance device, particularly in light of corporate governance in the private sector. First, the author traces the history of the IRS, exploring past organizational and governance problems. The author then focuses on the reforms enacted in the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, paying particular attention to the structural changes and establishment of the IRS Oversight Board. The author then engages in a critical review of the IRS Oversight Board, reviewing the Board from a corporate perspective by examining the role of directors in governing private corporations. The author\u27s analysis tests the corporate analogy and considers recent criticisms of the corporate board model of governance in light of the current corporate scandals. The article ultimately concludes that, to the extent the creation of the IRS Oversight Board as a governance mechanism rests on a corporate analogy, the Board does not approach the reform suggested by the political rhetoric and does not significantly improve governance shortcomings

Taxation of Prepaid Tuition Plans and the 1997 Tax Provisions - Middle Class Panacea or Placebo? Continuing Problems and Variations on a Theme

This article addresses the continuing tax issues and policies attendant to one form of financing the costs of higher education -- prepaid tuition plans. These plans generally allow one to purchase tuition in advance for future use. One attraction of such a plan is that the purchaser can lock in tuition at present rates, thus protecting against inflation and other tuition hikes. Moreover, favorable tax treatment exists as the build up of benefits is generally tax-free to the purchaser, which provides a significant advantage over other savings programs. Although prepaid tuition plans have been in existence for a number of years,8 they have become particularly noteworthy in light of three recent developments, which will be addressed in this article. The first development involves the taxability of the plan\u27s investment income in light of the recent case, State of Mich. V. United States involving the Michigan Education Trust, and holding the trust exempt from tax on its annual investment income. Although the Sixth Circuit\u27s divided opinion drew strong criticism, Congress essentially codified the result in new Internal Revenue Code Section 529, as enacted in the Small Business Tax Act of 1996. The second issue involves the question of whether the prepaid tuition contracts are contingent debt obligations, and as such, subject to the original issue discount rules. In recently promulgated regulations, the Treasury ruled that prepaid tuition plans are not debt subject to the original issue discount rules. The final development very much reflects the prevailing political and policy winds flowing from the first two developments. This last development concerns President Clinton\u27s recently-enacted education initiatives, which include a higher-education tax credit and an educational savings account

A continuous flow probe method for on‐line introduction of liquid samples for detection by laser desorption with resonant two‐photon ionization in supersonic beam mass spectrometry

A continuous flow probe is used as a direct inlet source for injection of liquid samples into a time‐of‐flight (TOF) mass spectrometer. The direct liquid inlet is coupled to laser desorption as a means of rapidly vaporizing the nonvolatile sample dissolved in the solvent for entrainment into a supersonic jet expansion. The target analyte is then selectively analyzed by resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) in the TOF device. This method demonstrates the ability to continuously inject thermally labile biological samples such as neurotransmitters and oligopeptides for detection and structural analysis by REMPI. In addition, sensitivity limits in the low ng regime are demonstrated with quantitation over 3 orders of magnitude.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/70599/2/RSINAK-62-4-957-1.pd

Ellipticity of Structures in CMB Sky Maps

We study the ellipticity of contour lines in the sky maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as well as other measures of elongation. The sensitivity of the elongation on the resolution of the CMB maps which depends on the pixelization and the beam profile of the detector, is investigated. It is shown that the current experimental accuracy does not allow to discriminate between cosmological models which differ in curvature by Delta Omega_tot=0.05. Analytical expressions are given for the case that the statistical properties of the CMB are those of two-dimensional Gaussian random fields

Identification of a novel cell type in peripheral lymphoid organs of mice: III. Functional properties in vivo

[No abstract available

Application of compressed sensing to the simulation of atomic systems

Compressed sensing is a method that allows a significant reduction in the number of samples required for accurate measurements in many applications in experimental sciences and engineering. In this work, we show that compressed sensing can also be used to speed up numerical simulations. We apply compressed sensing to extract information from the real-time simulation of atomic and molecular systems, including electronic and nuclear dynamics. We find that for the calculation of vibrational and optical spectra the total propagation time, and hence the computational cost, can be reduced by approximately a factor of five.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure