Trump Claims $557 Million in Income in 2015

By: David J. Herzig

Yesterday, Donald Trump filed his personal financial disclosure with the Federal Election Commission. This updated his initial financial disclosures. On his web site he claimed the disclosures were “the largest in the history of the FEC.” Unfortunately, he did not file his disclosures on-line like Hillary Clinton. Alas, we will have to wait a little bit to get to the details.

Nonetheless, according to Mr. Trump’s website he made $557 million in income in 2015. That number does not include “dividends, interest, capital gains, rents and royalties.” So, his real income should be substantially higher.

I have been writing about why a disclosure of Mr. Trump’s tax returns are necessary (at Forbes and the Wall Street Journal). Once I have a copy of the disclosures, I will give some updates (hopefully shortly) about various items that raise some red flags. From what I gather in innuendo and rumor about his disclosure, the calls for full disclosure of his tax returns to sort out facts from fiction will continue to gain steam.

The key reason the tax returns are needed is to permit a thoughtful discussion (hopefully more global tax policy discussions) between the relationship between his over $557 million in gross income and his taxable income.

[QUICK UPDATE: I was amazed how ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times all seemed to know what was in the not yet public disclosure. The rule according to the FEC is that the return is not public until they have approved it. However, despite the non-public disclosure, the FEC has apparently sent the disclosure out to certain news sources. It is amazing how a governmental agency can partake in such mishegoss!]

[UPDATE 7:45 pm] The Wall Street Journal put up Trump’s FEC disclosure. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/TrumpdisclosureMay2016.pdf?mod=e2twp

Harry Potter/Panama Papers Fan Fiction Alert (Rated: Fiction T)

By: Shu-Yi Oei

Confession: I love Mallory Ortberg, and after today, I might love her even more.

Here’s the latest from Mallory and The Toast: Harry Potter/Panama Papers Fan Fiction! This, after various news sources reported that Emma Watson was named in the Panama Papers data leak as having set up a BVI offshore company.

(Hat tip: Various friends on Facebook)

Perhaps my favorite line: “I used to be a lot of things,’ Hermione said decisively. ‘I have money now instead.’” Boom! Harry Potter meets Ayn Rand.

The fan fiction is very funny, but honestly, I am personally more taken by Ortberg’s beautifully crafted pseudo-legal disclaimer:

“*WITH THE IMPORTANT CAVEAT THAT THE OFFICIAL LINE RIGHT NOW IS THAT HER SHELL CORPORATION WAS CREATED SO SHE COULD PURCHASE PROPERTY PRIVATELY AND WITHOUT FANFARE, WHICH IS CERTAINLY POSSIBLE, I DON’T MEAN TO IMPLY SHE IS 100% A TAX DODGER BUT IT CERTAINLY RAISES SOME QUESTION, OKAY, BACK TO THE FAN FICTION NOW, AGAIN BEARING IN MIND THAT THIS IS JUST FOR THE SHEER DELIGHT OF PICTURING A LIBERTARIAN HERMIONE IN A SMOKY ROOM CREATING SHELL CORPORATIONS AND BUILDING TAX SHELTERS, ALSO HERE IS A QUICK PRIMER ON THE PANAMA PAPERS IF YOU’RE UNFAMILIAR OR READ A PRIMER A FEW WEEKS AGO AND THEN FORGOT”

The tone is so spot on, it made me weep.

In seriousness, though, the fact that the Panama Papers has made The Toast (which can generally be described as a feminist website with lots of literary and pop culture references) tells us something about how public opinions surrounding offshore tax evasion and structuring become disseminated throughout popular consciousness. Sure, organizations like Tax Justice Network and Oxfam write about tax havens and offshore evasion all the time and those venues tend to be more salient to us tax people. But public opinion surrounding convulsive events such as data leaks is also shaped in other popular fora as well—in this case, by Ortberg using the fierce set of tools at her disposal (humor, sarcasm, wit, movie references, an encyclopedic knowledge of random things like the history of the Protestant church, Greek mythology, and 19^th century Gothic romance novels, etc.). Whether and how these informal modes of opinion transmission actually affect legal and political outcomes is a question that needs systematic inquiry.

It’s Here! The #PanamaPapers Database

On April 3, 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, in partnership with a number of news organizations, announced that it had received a leaked trove of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonesca. Dubbed the “Panama Papers,” leak, the ICIJ documented how the wealthy and the powerful used Mossack Fonesca to move money around the world of tax havens and, at least sometimes, to hide it from their countries’ revenue agencies.

Originally, the ICIJ declined to make its data available, even to governments.[fn1] It explained that it is: Continue reading “It’s Here! The #PanamaPapers Database” →

EU State Aid Debate Lit Up the ABA Teaching Tax Session in DC

By: Diane Ring

As I blogged last week, the ABA Tax Section Teaching Tax Committee held a panel discussion Friday on the EU State Aid investigations on advance tax rulings. As I’ll discuss below, the panel was every bit as interesting as forecast. But first, a quick overview of what EU State Aid is all about:

EU State Aid Doctrine and Recent Controversy

Under Art. 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (as interpreted by the ECJ), if a member state provides state aid that distorts competition in the EU then the member must recover that aid from the benefiting entity to undo the distortive effects. Although this competition doctrine developed outside the tax context, it has previously been applied to tax benefits granted by a member state to a taxpayer. The European Commission oversees the investigation of state aid cases and issues the decisions.

Recently, though, application of the state aid doctrine to tax rulings issued by member states to multinationals has become a subject of tremendous controversy. In the past two years, the EC has been investigating tax rulings granted by member states to multinationals, including U.S. multinational taxpayers. The concern is that the multinationals receiving these rulings are not getting “mere” clarification of the law, but rather are securing a distinct advantage that creates distortion in the market. The U.S., along with various commenters, has expressed concern that these investigations might be disproportionately targeting U.S. businesses. Others have questioned whether the state aid rules are the most appropriate tool for combatting transfer pricing and/or double nontaxation situations that the EU finds problematic.

The Panel Discussion

During the discussion, it became apparent that there was a notable gap between the way many (but not all) in the U.S. view the European Commission’s recent state aid investigations involving U.S. taxpayers, and the EC’s vision of the role of the state aid doctrine in addressing potential harm caused by tax rulings granted to U.S. multinationals with very low effective tax rates. Thus, I was not surprised to hear these divergent positions characterized during the panel as “ships passing in the night”. What I did not anticipate was hearing the phrases “legal science fiction” (applied to certain suggested challenges to EC state aid decisions) or “a horror movie” (applied to the unfolding state aid investigations and decisions).

But the energy in the room was only part of the story. The panel provided very rich insights into the many complicated issues surrounding the current state aid investigations. I could not do them all justice here but thought I would highlight those that were mentioned by various panelists that really caught my attention:

Continue reading “EU State Aid Debate Lit Up the ABA Teaching Tax Session in DC” →

ABA Tax Section May Meeting — Teaching Tax Panel: Government Speakers Will Debate EU-US Controversy Over State Aid (Friday, May 6, 3:00 pm)

By: Diane Ring

It’s already time for the May Meeting of the ABA Tax Section, in DC. and I wanted to highlight the session organized by the Teaching Tax Committee – it should prove to be immensely interesting.

As those who follow international tax know, there has been a been a controversy brewing between the U.S. and the EU regarding European Commission investigations into whether tax rulings that certain multinationals (most of which are U.S. corporations) received from EU member states constitute forbidden state aid. The U.S. has expressed concern that the investigations inappropriately target U.S. businesses, while the EU considers the inquiry a legitimate look at important tax rulings.

The panel discussion this Friday at 3:00pm will include the following government officials: Bob Stack, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary, International Affairs; Gert-Jan Koopman, Deputy Director-General State Aid, Directorate-General for Competition, European Commission; and Pierpaolo Rossi-Maccanico, European Commission.

I will be blogging about the panel later – but even better than reading about it will be attending and then reading the blog post!

For more information:

Continue reading “ABA Tax Section May Meeting — Teaching Tax Panel: Government Speakers Will Debate EU-US Controversy Over State Aid (Friday, May 6, 3:00 pm)” →

More on Income Share Agreements: Will Proposed Legislation Fix their Marketability Problem?

By: Diane Ring

Last week I blogged about the apparent resurgence of income share agreements (ISAs), noting for example, Purdue University’s planned offering to juniors and seniors this fall, and the $30 million capital infusion received by ISA provider Cumulus Funding. I discussed how regulatory uncertainty is one likely barrier to more widespread market interest in these instruments. This week I thought I would take a look at the current round of ISA-related legislation in the House and the Senate, which is aimed at addressing some of this uncertainty.

The current legislation is actually the second go round at legislating the consequences of some ISAs. In 2014, Senator Rubio and Representative Petri introduced the Investing in Student Success Act of 2014. That legislation went nowhere. In 2015, Senator Rubio introduced a revised version of his bill, following the introduction of a similar bill in the House by Representatives Todd Young and Jared Polis. Both 2015 bills have much in common, although the Rubio bill tracks the structure of his earlier version. The point of each bill is to clarify the legal and regulatory treatment for those ISAs that fall within the bill’s definition by providing affirmative legal treatment for covered ISAs. ISAs that don’t fall within the bill’s parameters aren’t necessarily barred—they just aren’t covered by the legislation and presumably are left in the same legal limbo in which all ISAs currently operate.

As my co-author Shu-Yi Oei and I have discussed elsewhere, trying to craft one set of rules to cover many types of ISAs is problematic, and as a result, the 2014 bill was both under- and over-inclusive. For example, although it might make sense to regulate ISAs used for education in a manner similar to student loans – such student loan treatment might be inappropriate for ISA funding used to start a business rather than for education. Also, we expressed concern about the possibility of long-term ISAs in which an individual effectively assigns away a significant percentage of future income for what might be virtually all of his or her working life (e.g., a 30 year ISA). The 2014 bill did not limit such agreements.

So, do the 2015 bills do any better?

Continue reading “More on Income Share Agreements: Will Proposed Legislation Fix their Marketability Problem?” →

Stuck in the Middle With . . . the IRS?!?

By Sam Brunson

Pity the IRS.[fn1] It is, right now, stuck in the middle of a battle over religion. See, churches, like other public charities, are exempt from tax under section 501(c)(3). But the exemption comes with certain limitations, including an absolute prohibition on supporting or opposing candidates for office.

This prohibition has become something of a culture wars battleground, at least with respect to churches. Some churches argue that they have a moral and religious obligation to support candidates whose actions are in line with their beliefs, or, alternatively, to oppose candidates whose actions violate their beliefs. As such, they claim this prohibition violates their Free Exercise rights, and is unconstitutional, at least as applied to churches.

The funny thing is that, as best I can tell, only one church has ever lost its tax exemption for violating this campaigning prohibition. Continue reading “Stuck in the Middle With . . . the IRS?!?” →

Dark Days: Blindfolding Nonprofit Regulators

By: Philip Hackney.

The Ways and Means Committee voted Thursday in favor of a bill, H.R. 5053, that would seriously hamper the ability of the IRS to enforce charitable tax law and nonprofit tax law generally. It is a bad-no-good-bill, that comes from folks who champion protection from the IRS, but whose real motive is to make it possible for wealthy individuals to act without hindrance in influencing political campaigns and politics generally. It emanates not from a place of conservatism, but a place of reactionarism and plutarchism (neither of which are words, but both of which probably should be :)). The Koch brothers support this bad bill for a reason.

The Bill will harm IRS regulation and make our already relatively secret-and-subject-to-corruption political contribution system more secret and more subject to corruption (the issue that democrats and interest groups focused upon in attacking the bill). The harm though can be expected to extend to the ability of the federal government and states to regulate individuals using nonprofits to accomplish their ends. Sometimes people running nonprofits do bad things. It will increase the dark in which our regulators try to police the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, the IRS leant a hand to those trying to give donors greater secrecy as high level officials discussed eliminating schedule B back in December 2015. It is still not clear to me what they were thinking, but I genuinely hope we do not make such a foolish choice. As explained below, we have long recognized a regulatory need for this particular information.

What does this dastardly, seemingly well-intentioned, bill do? Continue reading “Dark Days: Blindfolding Nonprofit Regulators” →

Grading the Candidates’ Tax Disclosure (Updated)

By Sam Brunson

Nearly two months ago, guesting on Prawfsblawg, I wrote about the state of the presidential candidates’ disclosure of their tax returns. Since then, they’ve gone through several more primaries, and we have a better idea of where each candidate stands in the electorate. So, as the semester winds up and my focus shifts to grading, I thought I’d warm up by grading the candidates on their level of tax disclosure.

A caveat before we begin: as tax historian Joseph Thorndike has noted (here and 150 Tax Notes 591 (2016)), while there’s a strong norm for candidates’ releasing their tax returns (consistently since 1980, and sporadically for at least a decade before that), they are under no legal obligation to do so. If we really care about seeing candidates’ tax returns, we should encourage Congress to make disclosure mandatory.

That said, my grades aren’t based on legal obligation. They’re based on some combination of the quality and quantity of the disclosure. Continue reading “Grading the Candidates’ Tax Disclosure (Updated)” →

John Kasich’s Tax Plan: 2008 Was Great!

Last week I wrote about Donald Trump’s dumbfounding decision, as the Republican frontrunner, to advocate for increasing taxes on the wealthy. I left for today commentary on the amazing interview Ohio Governor John Kasich did with the Washington Post Editorial Board. Essentially Gov. Kasich believes that we can obtain economic growth through spending cuts. (Just to be clear why this is on a tax blog: spending and taxes go together like peanut butter and jelly).

It seems most pundits are speculating that there will be a contested Republic convention in Cleveland. It has also been speculated that in that environment, a wildcard like, Gov. Kasich or Rep. Ryan, might end up the nomination. Both Gov. Kasich and Rep. Ryan appear to hold the same position that spending cuts are good. They believe that spending cuts plus tax cuts (I will address the tax cuts issue in a later post) will actually increase overall tax revenues through overall economic growth. It is not surprising that the two Republican establishment figures would hold such a belief. This principle is alignment with popular thinking: polls show many Americans think spending cuts will have an economic benefit by a 55 to 18 percent margin.

I think, therefore, it is worth exploring why spending cuts as related to growth (economic and job) is not at all mainstream economic thinking. But like all issues, here we have a complicated discussion. It may be true that spending cuts help balance the budget which may grow the economy in other dimensions. But spending in a recession, as most economic data seems to show, is the main way forward for job growth and to exit the recession. Most mainstream economists believe: (1) that spending increases job growth on a temporary basis; (2) a reduction in spending will unwind the growth back to the baseline without spending; and (3) job growth will grow the economy. However, in no way is there permanency attached to spending as related to job growth. (This is the reason that Bernie Sander’s forecasts are of job growth in his plan are incorrect. See this study.)

Continue reading “John Kasich’s Tax Plan: 2008 Was Great!” →