Estates and trusts are recognizing growing amounts of taxable income from “income in respect of a decedent” (or “IRD”). These are payments attributable to income earned by a decedent before death but received by an estate, trust, or other beneficiary after death, and taxed to that...

Probably the most uncontroversial thing that one can say about international taxation is that it is a mess. Sophisticated planning techniques, which seem beyond the power of taxing authorities to control, enable highly profitable multinational enterprises (MNEs) to pay little or no tax on their...

When a Canadian expects to face higher tax rates in the future, where should savings be put? The standard advice is… ‘when you expect your marginal tax rate to rise in the future, contribute to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) now, but delay claiming the tax deduction'. This paper...

In the public debate on taxation, fairness has become a prominent issue over the past few years. In the 1950s legal philosophers have developed a definition of the principle of fairness which focuses on the relationships between tax payers and the expectations they have of each other. It is this...

This paper describes the relevance to lawyers and law students of the concept of income for tax purposes and tax policy. Three reasons are given for law practitioners to have an understanding of the policies underlying tax legislation: the complexity of the legislation; the fact that it can...

An individual taxpayer's maximum tax rate on ordinary income is fifty percent, while his maximum tax rate on long-term capital gains is only twenty percent as a result of the deduction from gross income allowed for a portion of such gains. Consequently, proper tax planning in the preparation of...

We cannot have an income tax without a concept of income. For a number of reasons, our concept of income must be artificial. A principal reason is that income tax law generally taxes the results of legal transactions rather than their underlying economic substance, which causes a dislocation...

As commercial transactions and tax law have both become more complex, tax practitioners have called for the establishment of procedures whereby taxpayers can find out in advance the official opinion of the revenue authorities as to the tax implications of their proposed transactions. If formally...

Kenneth James Ltd. v. Commissioner of Inland Revenue (1983) 6 NZTC 61,565 related to the assessability of profits on the sale of certain parcels of land under section 65(2)(e) of the Income Tax Act 1976. The section applies to profits or gains derived from the sale of property if the business of...