The unrelated business income tax is imposed on otherwise exempt organizations to prevent the shifting of business assets to exempt entities. Entities that are exempt (or believe they are exempt) from UBIT have recently acted as accommodation parties in transactions, allowing high-rate taxpayers...

Should we see major tax reform, taxpayers will clamor for guidance from Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service ('IRS') regarding new provisions, as they did after passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 ('1986 Act'). Indeed, the greater the degree of reform, the greater the need for guidance....

In May 2012, the Tax Court issued two decisions denying income tax deductions for gifts to charitable organizations because they failed to meet the requirements for a qualified appraisal. These cases lit a firestorm of outrage in various circles, raising questions of how strictly substation...

A recent IRS technical advice memorandum denied tax-exempt status to bonds of a development district on the grounds that the district was not “inherently accountable, directly or indirectly, to a general electorate.” This short piece reviews applicable law and private letter rulings to argue...

This paper considers section 4941, the private foundation excise tax on self-dealing, on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Part I gives background on section 4941. Part II compares the rules of section 4941 to the parallel ones applicable to public charities, including the special rules...

Churches often bear the burden of the Internal Revenue Code's electioneering prohibition without their contributors enjoying the benefit of a tax deduction. Although contributions to religious congregations may be deducted, many, perhaps most of them, are not because many of those who give to...

This article undertakes a critical evaluation of the Supreme Court's use of dictionaries. It does so by describing and applying principles of lexicography to show that dictionaries are not as authoritative, precise, or scholarly as we and the Justices often assume. Modern lexicographers see...

In the recent debate about nonprofit organizations and political activity, little attention has been paid to what we can learn from the approach of other countries. This piece compares U.S. rules with those of Canada and England, in the context of both their nonprofit rules applicable to...