The Internal Revenue Code is an important source of federal tax law, but it is not the only source. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service issue important guidance, and federal courts interpret all of these authorities. This essay provides an overview of federal tax...

The federal government has engaged in a number of well-publicized enforcement efforts in an attempt to collect back taxes owed on offshore bank account and other offshore assets. Among those efforts are special offshore “voluntary disclosure” initiatives — essentially tax amnesties —...

In 2016, Congress enacted a statutory Taxpayer Bill of Rights containing a list of ten rights but lacking an explicit remedy or enforcement mechanism. Are the rights listed therefore merely aspirational, or are some or all of them enforceable? It is worth noting that the statute does not say...

This is a thematic report on the topic of "Administrative Surcharges: Instruments of Cooperative Tax Compliance Regimes" for the 2015 annual meeting of the European Association of Tax Law Professors in Milan. Professors participating in the meeting were surveyed regarding their countries' use of...

This is the General Report for the United States on the theme of “Surcharges and Penalties in Tax Law” for the 2015 meeting of the European Association of Tax Law Professors in Milan, Italy. The Report addresses questions relating to the treatment of civil penalties, criminal penalties and...

The U.S. Tax Court (Tax Court), which hears the vast majority of litigated federal tax cases, occupies an unusual place in the federal government. It is a federal court located outside of the judicial branch, but its decisions are appealable to the federal courts of appeals. This odd structure,...

The Treasury regulations at issue in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner condition the validity of controlled taxpayers' income allocation under a cost-sharing agreement upon the requirement that the controlled parties share all costs, including stock-based compensation costs, proportionately with the...

This April 1998 article discusses the U.S. Tax Court's then-existing practice of making the opinions and files in small tax cases unavailable to the public. It argues that that practice violated Internal Revenue Code provisions that make Tax Court documents public records

Stephanie Hoffer and Christopher Walker's excellent Minnesota Law Review article, The Death of Tax Court Exceptionalism, 'http://ssrn.com/abstract= 2393412' http://ssrn.com/abstract= 2393412, analyzes the topical and important question of whether the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governs...

The “fraud triangle”—a theory of why people commit fraud—is the preeminent framework for analyzing fraud in the accounting literature. It developed out of studies of fraudsters, including inmates convicted of embezzlement. The three components of the fraud triangle are (1) an incentive...