The New Section 1202 Tax-Free Business Sale: Congress Rewards Small Businesses That Survived the Great Recession

On September 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Creating Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (“SBJA”) that contains a temporary amendment to Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) § 1202. The amendment permits original shareholders of eligible corporation stock to sell the stock without being taxed on the sale. The temporary amendment initially only applied to certain stock acquired after the enactment of the SBJA and before January 1, 2011, but the amendment was extended on December 17, 2010 for another year ending January 1, 2012. With the impending sunset of the 15% capital gains rate at the end of 2012, this 100% exclusion from both capital gains taxes and the alternative minimum tax (“AMT”), would be a very big financial windfall to business owners with qualified small business stock (“QSBS”). A qualified small business (“QSB”) is a C corporation with assets of $50 million or less where at least 80$10 million or 10 times the adjusted basis in the corporation. Victor Fleischer stated that the main purpose for enhancing the IRC § 1202 exclusion is to encourage investment in certain new C corporation ventures and small businesses. Manufacturing, construction, and retail wholesaling industries appear to be some of the main areas promoted by the expanded exclusion, since the definition of “qualified trade or business” excludes many other major areas of industry. This Article provides an overview of the IRC Section § 1202 tax-free business sale provision, the history behind the development of the IRC amendments, the apparent intent for enactment, the likelihood the Act will achieve its purposes, the statute’s ambiguities, and some policy implications of creating a tax-free business sale provision

The New Dividend Tax Cut; Bush\u27s Prescription for Rescuing the Economy

The purpose of this paper is to cover the Act as passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, discussing each of the major provisions contained within the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act and examining the differing views as to whether it will succeed

Environmental Protection or Mineral Theft: Potential Application of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause to U.S. Termination of Unpatented Mining Claims

The mining claim patent process was much less rigorous in the early days of mining when nearly anyone willing to expend the $500 on “patent improvements,” pay for a mineral survey, and pay the statutory purchase price could patent a mining claim very easily. Over time, the United States government has grown increasingly reluctant to patent mining claims and to allow mining activities to occur on unpatented federal public domain lands. The U.S. government argues that its reluctance to allow mining is simply an environmental concern. However, the U.S. tightening of private mining upon federal lands also coincides with a period of significantly rising mineral values. In the early 1990s, the U.S. government used delay tactics in the patent application process followed by an absolute moratorium on patent application approvals in the mid-1990s. The U.S. began gradually imposing arguably-excessive occupancy and environmental regulations around this time as well, increasing the cost of mining operations significantly. In the early 2000s the U.S. began utilizing a dormant trap in the General Mining Act—a combination of valuable discovery, use, and mine-to-mill site provisions—to retroactively invalidate most of the remaining unpatented mining claims as untenable under the Marketability Test. The U.S. also sought to prevent relocation of such retroactively invalidated claims by currently withdrawing federal lands as national monuments under the Antiquities Act. Claimholders who feel that their claims have been wrongly invalidated and/or denied patenting have looked for redress often by arguing that the government’s actions are unconstitutional. An argument that is more likely to be successful, however, is that the invalidation and withdrawal of an otherwise valid, unpatented mining claim may constitute a compensable Fifth Amendment taking by the U.S. government. This article discusses: (1) an overview of the laws governing U.S. mining claims; (2) the process of locating and maintaining an unpatented claim; (3) the process and requirements of claim patenting; (4) the relative benefits of patenting; (5) the federal land withdrawal power under the Antiquities Act; (6) how the a Fifth Amendment takings argument may arise from increased regulatory compliance costs; (7) how a Fifth Amendment takings argument may arise from federal land withdrawals of otherwise valid unpatented mining claims; (8) procedures for litigating mining claim contests; and (9) issues related to a former unpatented claimholder’s standing to sue or intervene in a mining claim contest

Congress Giveth and Congress Taketh Away: The Slow Death of the SESOP

This article discusses in detail each of the S Corp. Employee Stock Ownership Plan (SESOP) skirmishes mentioned above and outlines the practical effect of the outcome of each of them

An analysis and treatment of ten selected events in seven European background history textbooks

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

The New Tax Shelter Opinion Letter Regulations: Cutting Back on a Client\u27s Ability to Rely on the Advice of His Counsel

The main question this article will discuss is whether the inability of a client to rely on a client\u27s counsel on such complicated matters as tax shelters is good public policy

United States v. KPMG: Does Section 6103 Allow the IRS to Put Taxpayer Names on the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal

Section 7431 provides redress for taxpayers in which such confidential taxpayer information is improperly disclosed. Although the IRS disclosure of confidential taxpayer names appears to meet the general rule giving rise to a cause of action, it is unlikely that the named taxpayers would recover damages because the United States is likely to meet the exception where the disclosing party has a good faith, but erroneous, interpretation of section 6103. The United States would meet this exception by showing that a reasonable IRS agent would have believed that the agent could disclose the information. For purposes of this Article, it is assumed that the IRS would be able to meet this threshold by showing that KPMG was the taxpayer in the summons enforcement action and that its internal policies dictated that it may disclose third party names when filing a petition to enforce KPMG\u27s summonses. Assuming Tax Analysts is successful in its FOIA requests of the government, the decision making process of the government on this matter will illuminate whether this assumption is borne out by the facts