The idea has gained currency that the Taxing Clause in the Constitution gives Congress the power to do anything, or almost anything, that would be funded by taxation. Most recently, that argument has been advanced in connection with the litigation about the individual mandate in the Obamacare...

This article responds to an argument, made by economist Martin Sullivan, that, if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate in the Obamacare legislation, all sorts of tax incentives — which, he argues, are economically equivalent to the mandate — would suddenly be at risk...

In a 2011 decision, Tempel v. Commissioner, the Tax Court had held, among other things. that gain on sales of state income tax credits was capital gain. In a Chief Counsel Advice released later in the same year, the IRS accepted the result, and most of the analysis, of Tempel, and it also...

This essay reviews a book about the venerable Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. Written when the firm was being hit by allegations of ethical impropriety - including suggestions that the firm had been welcoming to Nazi provincial governments in pre-War Germany - the book at times is...

Critics of American Indian law have often complained about federal interference in the internal affairs of American Indian nations. The author ponders how independent the critics really want American Indian nations to be and whether secession theory might help us think about the theory and...

In debates about reorienting the American revenue system, nearly everyone assumes the Constitution is irrelevant. With few exceptions, the tax provisions in the original Constitution - particularly the direct-tax apportionment rule and the uniformity rule - have been interpreted to be paper...

The author argues that, if a legal journal publishes a response to one of its own articles, it has the obligation to let the original author respond to the critic, even if only briefly. If that doesn't happen, it looks as though the journal is accepting the critic's views as the final word on...

This article challenges the politically correct theory advanced in a 1989 article by Gregory Schaaf, “From the Great Law of Peace to the Constitution of the United States: A Revision of America's Democratic Roots.” Professor Schaaf argued that large parts of the U.S. Constitution were based...

The intersection of buffalo law and taxation hasn't been a busy one, but accidents still happen: not everyone understands that buffalo have the right of way. This article critically analyzes the recent Tax Court summary opinion in Wheir v. Commissioner, which involved a bodybuilder who sought to...

Article III of the Constitution seeks to protect judicial independence, partly through a guarantee of life tenure and partly through a clause that prohibits the diminution of judges' quot;compensationquot;. The Compensation Clause does not address the subject of taxation, but it has always been...