Does Enforcement Reduce Compliance?

Shu-Yi Oei

Boston College Law School held its first Tax Policy Workshop of the semester last Thursday and the speaker was Surly Blogger Leandra Lederman. Leandra presented a draft paper entitled “To What Extent Does Enforcement Crowd Out Voluntary Tax Compliance?” The draft isn’t publicly available yet, but you can email Leandra for a copy.

So, what’s the paper about? The standard economic model tells us that a taxpayer will weigh the magnitude of the penalty and the likelihood of audit to reach an “expected” cost of punishment for tax evasion. Allingham & Sandmo (1972). So, if the audit rate is low (which it is), the expected cost of evasion also remains low, absent draconian penalties. Yet, we see relatively high voluntary compliance rates in the U.S. Some scholars claim that this is a “puzzle” and theorize that there is some sort of “intrinsic motivation” to comply with tax obligations, regardless of the low expected costs of punishment. Leandra has pointed out in several articles that this simple comparison presents a false puzzle because it ignores information reporting (and withholding), which IRS voluntary compliance statistics show is highly effective. She argues that information reporting is akin to an invisible audit. Nonetheless, some scholars suggest that enforcement and deterrence action are “extrinsic motivators” that might actually reduce compliance by displacing (i.e., “crowding out”) preexisting internal motivations to comply.

Leandra’s paper synthesizes the empirical literature on the effects of audit threats and fines as well as the growing tax and non-tax literature on contexts in which enforcement can lead to reduced compliance. In brief, the paper finds:

Continue reading “Does Enforcement Reduce Compliance?” →

Tax Professor Letter Opposing Impeachment or Censure of IRS Commissioner Koskinen

By: Leandra Lederman

123 tax law professors recently signed a letter (available here) urging House leaders “to oppose any resolution to impeach or censure John Koskinen, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.” Full disclosure: I am among the signatories. The letter explains not only that “[w]e believe that nothing that has been reported provides any basis for impeachment or censure” but also that impeachment or censure will undermine tax administration:

“The IRS carries out a vitally important mission for our country. Respect for the IRS fosters the voluntary compliance that is essential for our revenue system to work.

Impeachment or censure will harm the country by weakening our revenue system. Impeachment or censure would disrupt the functioning of the IRS—which has had four Commissioners in as many years—leading to increased tax evasion, reduced revenue collection, and a higher national debt. Impeachment or censure would also set a dangerous precedent and deter talented people from working to improve the country’s struggling revenue system.”

This is an important message and I hope House leaders will listen.

Continue reading “Tax Professor Letter Opposing Impeachment or Censure of IRS Commissioner Koskinen” →

Walmart and Puerto Rico

By: David J. Herzig

Everyone knows by now the dire financial problems facing Puerto Rico. (My co-blogger Shu-Yi Oei wrote about the default in Surly here.) In order to generate liquidity to pay debt and run government operations, Puerto Rico began to look to the deepest pockets for help. If you are looking for a deep pocket, look no further than Walmart. The question facing Puerto Rico was how to get more money out of Walmart without actually targeting the corporation (that would be unconstitutional.)

The territory, instead, tinkered with an old law to created a tax hikes which on the face seemed neutral. However, the law, according to Walmart, targeted primarily the large retail corporation. The after-tax effect of the corporate alternative minimum tax change was to raise Walmart’s Puerto Rican tax liability to over 90% of its income.

How did we get here? Last year, Puerto Rico enacted Act 72-2015 (Act 72) into law. The key component of the act was an increase in the Tangible Property Component (TPC) of the corporate AMT. According to prior reporting, “The TPC piece of the AMT imposes a tax on the value of property transferred to an entity doing business in Puerto Rico from a related party outside of Puerto Rico.”

Then last December, Walmart filed suit styled, Wal-Mart Puerto Rico Inc. v. Zaragoza-Gomez, 15-cv-3018, U.S. District Court, District of Puerto Rico (San Juan) challenging Act 72. According to Walmart, the tax was unconstitutional violating the commerce clause. Moreover, the new tax raised the company’s estimated income tax to “an astonishing and unsustainable 91.5% of its net income.”

In March of 2016, the District Court agreed with Walmart and in a 109 page opinion stated, “Puerto Rico’s AMT, on its face, clearly discriminates against interstate commerce.” Part of the story told by bond holders, is that in the course of the trial, it came to light the government of Puerto Rico might have been misleading their bond holders and this law was a kind of hail-mary. Per the UBS report, “In the course of the trial, senior officials of the García administration were obliged to provide sworn testimony. Judge Fusté’s subsequent written opinion provided information that had been either knowingly or inadvertently withheld from investors by the Government Development Bank.” So, yes, the tax was targeted at Walmart. Also, the government of Puerto Rico was also not disclosing to its bond holders the true economic conditions.

Late last week, the 1st Circuit agreed with the District Court. The 1st Circuit concluded, “As to the merits of the Commerce Clause challenge, the AMT is a facially discriminatory statute that does not meet the heightened level of scrutiny required to survive under the dormant Commerce Clause.”

Continue reading “Walmart and Puerto Rico” →

House Staffer is a Tax Protester?

By: David J. Herzig

Politico reported yesterday that “Isaac Lanier Avant, chief of staff to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Democratic staff director for the Homeland Security Committee, allegedly did not file returns for the 2009 to 2013 tax years.”

According to the Department of Justice Press Release, Mr. Avant has been a staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2002. In 2005, he filed a form with “his employer that falsely claimed he was exempt from federal income taxes. Avant did not have any federal tax withheld from his paycheck until the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) mandated that his employer begin withholding in January 2013.”

This seemingly innocent story might get more torrid. For starters, missing from the press release by Justice is that, as Richard Rubin pointed out to me, Mr. Avant’s employer was Congress. Do you hear the can of worms opening? I mean, who at payroll in Congress is green-lighting the stopping of withholding? What did his form look like? Did he make up an official and name it – W-NONE? How many other staffer’s did this? How did he never get audited? According the the press release and the story, Mr. Avant did not file tax returns for 5 years; I guess a matching program would not catch anything since he had no withholding. But, one would think Congress would at least ensure that every employee has filed a tax return.

Not sure which awesome tax protester argument he is going with. Personally, I hope it is that he is a sovereign citizen. It would be great if the Democratic staff director of Homeland Security thought the U.S. laws did not apply to him. I guess we will have to wait for the actual complaint. For those interested, the IRS has outlined numerous frivolous tax arguments.

[UPDATE 8/24/16 at 8:41 pm: It appears that a claim of Sovereign Citizen might really be in play. According to the Panolian, a local Batesville, Mississippi newspaper, Mr. Avant is the son of Vernice Black Avant and the late Robert Allen Avant Sr. In 2011, according to the Panolian, Mr. Avant’s mother, who is also a court clerk, filed an “11-page ‘Affidavit of Truth'” “declaring that she is a “freeborn Sovereign” are meant to distinguish her as an individual, distinct from a corporation.” “The affidavit cites participation in the use of bank accounts, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, vehicle license plates and tax returns as ‘under duress.'”]

DC Circuit Seems to have Decided IRS Violated Constitution Before Trial in True the Vote Appeal.

By: Philip Hackney

In 2014, a District Court dismissed (based on 12(b)(6) and 12(b)(1) motions) the complaint of a number of conservative organizations who alleged that the IRS “targeted” them by subjecting them to greater scrutiny in their applications for tax exemption. The lead organization, True the Vote, sought 501(c)(3) charitable organization status; the others primarily sought 501(c)(4) social welfare organization status. The world became aware of this targeting controversy in May 2013 when Lois Lerner, the head of the Exempt Organizations division of the IRS apologized to the Tea Party and other conservative groups for how the IRS treated their applications. To this day Taxprof Blog continues the IRS Scandal post over three years later dedicated at least in part to this controversy.

The primary complaints were the second and fifth claims: (2) the IRS violated the organizations First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, and (5) the IRS violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The District Court concluded that because the IRS had granted exempt status to these organizations, the complaints were moot. True the Vote appealed this dismissal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week the Circuit Court breathed new life into claims 2 and 5. Though the Court found that some of the complaints were moot (including Bivens complaints against IRS employees and a claim of violation of 6103 disclosure rules), it allowed claims 2 and 5 forward because it found that the IRS had not voluntarily ceased its unlawful actions.

In reading the opinion, I find astonishing that the Circuit Court appears to have already concluded, without trial, that the IRS acted unconstitutionally. I recognize that for a 12(b)(1) motion the court is to assume the complaint true, but the court appears to have done much more than make assumptions. I focus on this issue. Continue reading “DC Circuit Seems to have Decided IRS Violated Constitution Before Trial in True the Vote Appeal.” →

Examination of Allegations Against the Clinton Foundation

By: Philip Hackney

book-863418_1280 Back in June I wrote disapprovingly of some actions of the Donald J. Trump Foundation. In that piece I promised to write about the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation too. Recently, Rep. Marsha Blackburn sent a letter that was scheduled to be sent to the FBI, the FTC, and the IRS. That letter makes a number of allegations about the misuse of the Clinton Foundation, and I figured these allegations would be a good place to analyze the performance of the Foundation that I had promised.

Blackburn alleges a number of things, but I am going to focus on her first allegation in this post because it is the only one that is a pure tax exemption question. She alleges that the Foundation is illegally operating outside the scope of its initial application for tax exemption to the IRS. For reasons explained in the post below, I conclude there is very little involved in this claim and it is a misunderstanding of the law. There could be problems with the Foundation but this is not one of them.

UPDATE: I look at the remaining two Rep. Blackburn allegations here.

Continue reading “Examination of Allegations Against the Clinton Foundation” →

Don’t Impeach IRS Commissioner Koskinen

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has introduced H. Res. 737, which would condemn and censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Efforts to impeach or censure the Commissioner are the latest skirmish between Congress and the embattled IRS stemming from the IRS’s use of “Be On the Lookout” (BOLO) lists to screen for excessive political activity by applicants for tax-exempt status under Code section 501(c)(4). The American College of Tax Counsel (ACTC) has sent several House leaders a compelling letter expressing its “view that such actions are not commensurate with the alleged conduct” and its justifiable concern that resolutions to impeach and censure Commissioner Koskinen “will damage the agency at a time when it needs strong leadership.”

Readers may recall that Steve Miller was Acting Commissioner when the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released its report on the BOLO issue, entitled “Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review” in May 2013. Miller resigned shortly after that, because President Obama asked Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew to request Miller’s resignation. Daniel Werfel then became Acting Commissioner for about seven months. Mr. Koskinen did not become IRS Commissioner until Dec. 23, 2013. This was a challenging time to take on that role, given the state of the IRS’s relationship with Congress. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held particularly partisan, contentious hearings. Continue reading “Don’t Impeach IRS Commissioner Koskinen” →

An Amicus Brief on Behalf of the Commissioner in Altera

Susie Morse (Texas) and Steve Shay (Harvard) recently blogged on Procedurally Taxing about the amicus brief they spearheaded and in which I joined, along with Dick Harvey, Ruth Mason, and Bret Wells. The brief, which is available on SSRN, is one of two amicus briefs arguing in favor of the Commissioner’s position before the Ninth Circuit in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner.

In Altera, the U.S. Tax Court invalidated under section 706(2)(A) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) a transfer-pricing regulation–Treas. Reg. § 1.482-7(d)(2)(2003)–on the ground that the regulation was arbitrary and capricious. The regulation required commonly controlled taxpayers wishing to benefit from a safe harbor applicable to cost-sharing agreements to include stock-based compensation as an expense. The Tax Court found that requirement arbitrary and capricious because of evidence Treasury received in the notice-and-comment process that parties not under common control did not share stock-based compensation costs.

Our brief argues in part that, as Treasury stated in the Preamble to the regulation, cost-sharing agreements between uncontrolled parties are not sufficiently comparable to controlled-party transactions to constitute reliable evidence under the standards of Code section 482. In a nutshell, that is because (1) stock-based compensation is an economic cost, (2) transacting parties can adjust another provision of their agreement to achieve the same result, and (3) unrelated parties might prefer not to take on the risk of a counterparty’s stock–a concern that doesn’t arise in controlled-party transactions. The brief argues that Treasury’s actions, including its explanation in the Preamble, were sufficient as a matter of administrative law. Susie and Steve’s excellent blog post on Procedurally Taxing provides more detail.

More Merger Mayhem: Tax Lawyers Testifying

By: David J. Herzig

Great news, the awesome clerks at the Delaware Courts were nice enough to help me get my hands on the trial transcript. I guess I have some heavy reading to do now. My goal is to first look through the transcript to see if anything jumps off the pages. My longer goal is to try to create a tax opinion using the transcript and any depositions if necessary. I would like to see whether I agreed with Cravath or L&W. After all, the judge did not decide whether the transaction withstood a should opinion. Rather, he plotted the various opinions and decided that there was not a sufficient cluster to consider a should opinion was warranted.

[As a quick aside, I can’t believe that all the documents are not readily available for free on the court web site. The judge (chancellor) references the trial transcript in his opinion, yet, the supporting document is not available on-line for free. I have free lexis access as an academic and can find portions of documents but not the docket or the document. As a member of society, this certainly raises an access to justice problem. Thankfully, the clerks are super helpful and accommodated me.]

I also have received some thoughtful responses and theories about the case. I will be wrapping them up into my opinion post later (sorry you have to follow me on twitter (@professortax) to know when it hits or better yet keep checking surlysubgroup.com). But some of the best initial thoughts take into account some of my concerns.

First, I am still not sure why there was an out in the deal base on the should opinion. Continue reading “More Merger Mayhem: Tax Lawyers Testifying” →

Updates on the Williams/ETE Merger

By: David J. Herzig

On Saturday, I posted about a merger gone bad that I thought only a couple partnership tax people would find interesting.

Essentially, a $38 Billion merger was torpedoed because neither, Latham, Morgan Lewis nor Gibson Dunn could conclude that the merger qualified as tax-free under 721.[1] The fight between the the tax attorneys was whether the transaction was truly a partnership formation eligible under 721 with a 731 distribution or if the transaction was a disguised sale under the anti-Otey regulations (Treas. Reg. § 1.707-3).[2] Chancery Court Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock [http://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/list.aspx?ag=court%20of%20chancery%5] ruled, since there was enough uncertainty that the proposed transaction could not be eligible for 721 treatment under a should opinion standard, Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) could back out of the deal. Williams stated that they will appeal.

I honestly thought no one would care about the post. But, it looks like people care, so I will try to keep up with the case and post updates here. I actually have some other thoughts on the transaction that I will post as they become more developed.

To some of the updates, here is a link to a letter to the shareholders of the Williams Continue reading “Updates on the Williams/ETE Merger” →

Tax Times @ ABA Section of Taxation

By Francine J. Lipman

Supervising Editor Professor of Law Linda Beale and her team of outstanding ABA – Tax Section editors, Anne Dunn and Isel Pizarro, and staff have put together an exceptional June 2016 issue of the digital Tax Times. Features include . . . Continue reading “Tax Times @ ABA Section of Taxation” →

IRS Scrutinized Mostly Conservative Nonprofits: Evidence of Targeting?

By: Philip Hackney

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Documents recently released in a court case demonstrate that 282 of 426 organizations caught in the IRS political advocacy, “Tea Party,” nonprofit organization net that caused such a hullabaloo three years ago, were in fact conservative. This comes three years after Lois Lerner apologized to Tea Party groups on behalf of the the IRS because, she said, it “inappropriate(ly)” selected these conservative groups’ applications for tax exemption for scrutiny based on name alone rather than legal cause.

An NPR report by Peter Overby concludes about the new information: “Whatever the IRS meant to do, this hodgepodge of a list illustrates how the agency bollixed the nonprofit application process.” In this post, I examine this seemingly “common-sense” claim and find it wanting. Additionally, because I have written publicly about this matter both at the time and more recently. I re-examine my conclusions in those writings in light of this new information.

Early on, I assumed that only about 1/3rd of the organizations caught in the IRS net were conservative. I made this assumption based on the TIGTA report because it noted that 96 of 298 applications, or 1/3rd of the organizations, were Tea Party, Patriot or 9/11 groups. I left wiggle room in my writing, but in the back of my mind, this was my assumption. I assumed TIGTA would have reported every conservative group that was in the lot. But, it turns out that about 2/3rds of the organizations were conservative. Thus, my assumption was wrong. The vast majority of the organizations caught in the net were conservative. Nevertheless, I don’t think this new information demonstrates some additional level of bungling by the IRS that was hitherto unknown. And, frankly, a list like this with little context does nothing to tell us about whether the IRS was fair or not.¹ Continue reading “IRS Scrutinized Mostly Conservative Nonprofits: Evidence of Targeting?” →

Tying the IRS’s Hands. Even Tighter

By Sam Brunson

Yesterday, the House Committee on Appropriations reported H.R. 2995 to the House of Representatives. H.R. 2995, the Financial Services and General Government Oversight Appropriations Bill for FY 2017, if passed, would continue the trend of reducing the IRS’s budget, this time by $236 million.

It is undoubtedly worth looking at what exactly the bill does, but I’m interested in an amendment added yesterday by Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). Section 135 of the bill would make it even harder than it already is for the IRS to audit churches. Continue reading “Tying the IRS’s Hands. Even Tighter” →

Uncle Sam as Danish Tax Collector

By: Diane Ring

Who says that real global tax cooperation is dead? During a very interesting conference on international tax held in Boston a couple of weeks ago, a recent U.S. tax case was discussed and caught my attention: Torben Dileng v. Commissioner (D.Ct. N. Ga., Jan. 15, 2016). In that case, a U.S. District Court ruled that the IRS could collect $2.5M of Danish taxes owed by a Danish citizen who was resident in the U.S.

IRS as Danish tax collector– what was this all about? Continue reading “Uncle Sam as Danish Tax Collector” →

Sugin: Rhetoric and Reality in the Tax Law of Charity

Linda Sugin (Fordham) has a new article out Rhetoric and Reality in the Tax Law of Charity, 84 Fordham L. Rev. 2607 (2016) that looks essential to anyone who is interested conceptually in the place of charity in state law and tax law. The abstract:

“The rhetoric of public purposes in charity law has created the mistaken impression that charity is public and fulfills public goals, when the reality is that charity is private and cannot be expected to solve the problems that governments can solve. The rhetoric arises from a combination of charity-law history and tax expenditure analysis. The reality follows the money and control of charitable organizations. On account of the mismatch of rhetoric and reality, the tax law of charity endorses an entitlement to pre-tax income and (ironically) creates a bias against taxation. This article reorients the project of defining public and private in the tax law by starting from a normative theory of government responsibility.

It challenges the conventional economic justifications for the charitable deduction and exemption, arguing for a more philosophical approach that makes affirmative demands on government to distribute the returns to social cooperation. Under this approach, the appropriate role of private organizations is residual; they must achieve what governments cannot. The article concludes by arguing that current law’s tax benefits for charity are easily justified in this new understanding.”