One of the most notable examples of U.S. tax exceptionalism is the taxation of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents (LPRs) on their worldwide income, regardless of residence. The United States also imposes broad and increasingly onerous tax and financial reporting obligations on its...

In an earlier article titled as ‘Service Tax on Lawyers: A levy short lived?' [Excise and Customs Reporter Vol. 191(4), pp. 55SF-60SF] I had an occasion to point out that the levy of service tax on individual lawyers was an experiment out of the various experiments conducted by the Government...

The history of ever expanding horizon of service tax law in India has extensive sub-chapters of its own. The levy being unique and unprecedented in the country, the Finance Act, 1994 has made a number of experiments for the levy and collection of service tax from various sectors. Sometimes owing...

Ithaca Trust Co. v. United States, a section 2055 case, held that the annuity tables had to be used to value the life estate of decedent's wife, the non-charitable beneficiary, despite the death of his wife before the due date for filing the decedent's estate tax return. Since that opinion, some...

The 2001 Tax Act has markedly changed the purpose of the gift tax; no longer a backstop to the estate tax, its sole purpose is to prevent abuses of the income tax. As it stands, the retention of the gift tax with the repeal of the estate tax is rife with inconsistencies. Although the best...

It is this author's contention that Ithaca Trust holds that when valuation must be computed by actuarial methods, all facts, except for those necessary to use the tables, must be ignored. This requirement is so despite the fact that an actual facts-and-circumstances analysis would likely produce...

It is difficult to value fractional interests in art because there is virtually no market in those interests. Nevertheless, the Tax Court in Estate of Elkins valued the decedent's fractional interests in multiple artworks, which the decedent and his children highly cherished. First, the court...

In Sommers, ruling on both parties' motions for partial summary judgment, the Tax Court dealt with claims of issue preclusion and collateral estoppel, equitable apportionment, the completion of gifts of limited liability company interests, and retained powers that would cause estate tax...

Twenty-five of the nation's leading tax academics, practitioners, journalists, and public intellectuals gathered in Malibu, California on the Friday before President Obama's second inauguration to plead for tax reform. The papers published in this issue of the Pepperdine Law Review provide very...

Many people — perhaps most — want to make money and lower their taxes, but few want to unabashedly break the law. These twin desires have led to a range of strategies, such as the use of “paper corporations” and offshore tax havens, that produce sizable profits with minimal costs. The...