Court Rulings in Estate Tax Cases: Is Gender a Factor?

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jackson ◽  
Sonja Pippin ◽  
Jeffrey A. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Court System ◽  
Asset Valuation ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT The U.S. court system plays an important role in resolving asset valuation disagreements between taxpayers and the taxing authority. A recent study examining the relation between court valuations of estates and case/judge attributes finds evidence suggesting that the number of appraisers used by the taxpayer, the type of asset being valued, and the age and complexity of the case are related to the decisions of the court. We extend this study by testing for the effect of judges' gender. We find evidence that male judges tend to favor the taxpayer in valuation disputes.

Asset and Business Valuation in Estate Tax Cases: The Role of the Courts

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jackson ◽  
Sonja Pippin ◽  
Jeffrey A. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mean Value ◽  
Court System ◽  
Asset Valuation ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
Business Valuation ◽  
A Value ◽  
Asset Value ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
The Mean

ABSTRACT The U.S. court system plays an important role in resolving asset valuation disagreements between taxpayers and the taxing authority. Prior literature suggests that in estate tax cases, courts act as compromisers choosing a value somewhere between the estimates arrived at by the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some studies argue that the tax courts choose the arithmetic mean between the two estimates. Using models from prior literature and an updated dataset, we reexamine the role of the courts in appraising disputed asset value estimates and find that the courts do not simply use the mean value between taxpayer and IRS asset valuation estimates. In addition to testing the concept of courts acting as compromisers, we investigate whether there are certain factors related to the case and the judge that may be correlated with the judge's decision. We find evidence that suggests that the number of appraisers used by the taxpayer, the political affiliation of the judge, the type of asset being valued, and the age and complexity of the case are related to the decisions of the court. Our study should be of interest to taxpayers, the IRS, the courts, and tax researchers.

scholarly journals Stylistic Variation and Stancetaking in the U.S. House of Representatives

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Gian Peter Ochsner
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Stylistic Variation ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Style Shift ◽  
The U.S

This paper contributes to previous research on how politicians use sociolinguistic variables to index their party affiliation, enact stances, and construct political identities. It does so by investigating the 2015 U.S. House of Representatives’ debate on repealing the estate tax, with a focus on the indexical meanings of the “American tax variable”, which consists of the lexical variants estate tax and death tax. In the televised debate, 23 speakers use 31 estate tax tokens and 46 death tax tokens. As the results indicate, the estate tax variant indexes an affiliation with the Democrats and a pro-tax stance, whereas the death tax variant is linked with the Republicans and an anti-tax stance. Apart from expressing these conventionalised indexical meanings, House members also style-shift between the variants and employ them to convey interactional stances of (dis)alignment and empathy, construct a political identity of in-betweenness, and promote a conservative version of Americanism.

From Intent to Effect

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Maxwell Hayter
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
City Council ◽  
Court System ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Chesterfield County ◽  
The U.S

Chapter 3 describes how local African Americans, with the help of the U.S. Congress, federal courts, and the U.S. Department of Justice, instigated the reapportionment revolution after 1965. This revolution carried the spirit of civil rights reform, the Great Society, and President Lyndon Johnson’s equality-of-results standard well into the 1970s. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Allen v. State Board of Elections (1969) to expand the implications of the VRA’s preclearance clause in section 5, antidilution litigation began to flood America’s court system. African American public-housing resident Curtis Holt Sr. and white suburbanites eventually sued to deannex Chesterfield County, but for very different reasons. The white residents of the annexed area saw annexation as a way to continue passive resistance to school integration. Holt’s suit led the Supreme Court to place what became a seven-year moratorium on city council elections. This suit not only plugged Richmond into the Burger Court’s campaign against vote dilution but also eventually culminated in the implementation of Richmond’s majority–minority district system. Local politics in Richmond had national implications. Litigation (e.g., City of Richmond v. United States [1975]), the Supreme Court, and the Department of Justice played a critical role in the monumental election of a black-majority council in Richmond in 1977.

U.S. State Legislation to Limit Use of International and Foreign Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Fellmeth
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
International Law ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Court System ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
Foreign Law ◽  
Federal Judges ◽  
The U.S

International law is no stranger to controversy in the U.S. court system. The Supreme Court’s occasional citations to international law and foreign laws have generated debate in Congress, academia, and civil society, and between the justices themselves. In 2004 and 2005, “Constitution Restoration Act” bills were introduced into both houses of Congress that would have, inter alia, subjected federal judges to impeachment for any citation to international or foreign law (other than the English common law) when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Neither bill was adopted, but they attracted five senatorial cosponsors and thirty-four in the House of Representatives.

The Inequity of U.S. Estate Tax Consequences for Noncitizen Spouses and Expatriates and the Impact of the Proposed Exit Tax

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett R. Wilkinson ◽  
Tracy J. Noga
Keyword(s):  
Tax Law ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Compliance Costs ◽  
Estate Tax ◽  
Tax Legislation ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Tax Deduction ◽  
The U.S

In most cases, U.S. estate tax law permits assets passed to a spouse on death to be excluded from the tax net via the operation of the marital tax deduction. For individuals with noncitizen spouses, however, the law denies the marital deduction unless the assets are placed in a qualified domestic trust. The purpose of this arrangement is to prevent assets being lost to the estate tax system due to repatriation by the noncitizen spouse. The additional compliance costs imposed on noncitizen spouses regardless of whether they repatriate, stands in stark contrast to the regime faced by U.S. citizens who elect to relinquish their citizenship. The alternative tax system imposed on such former-citizens offers considerable scope for both legitimate and illegitimate tax minimization. This paper proposes a greater alignment of these divergent systems, in light of the proposed exit tax legislation, both of which are designed to achieve the same objective of ensuring that wealth generated in the U.S. does not escape the estate tax net.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document