Posts tagged as:

taxes

May 22 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 22, 2012

  • Lacey Act madness: might Feds be empowered to disrupt summer concerts by seizing musicians’ Gibsons? [Bedard, DC Examiner; earlier; recent Heritage Foundation work; reworded to reflect comment from "Density Duck," below]
  • Contributors to new “Privatization Blog” include friend of this blog Coyote, e.g. here and here;
  • “Big Government Causes Hyper-Partisanship in the Judicial Appointment Process” [Ilya Shapiro] Fuels Culture War, too: “The faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values” [Matt Welch]
  • Demagogy on expatriates: Schumer proposal for stiff tax on emigrants may have read better in original German [Ira Stoll, Roger Pilon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf]
  • Georgia high court considers $459 million fax-spam verdict [AJC, AP, my take] “Hot fuel” class actions enrich the usual suspects [PoL]
  • New rebuttal to trial lawyer/HBO movie “Hot Coffee” [Victor Schwartz et al, auto-plays video] Ted Frank crossed swords with Litigation Lobby on the movie in January, particularly on the question of coffee temperature and the Liebeck case [PoL]
  • Overlawyered “will become the first [law] blog teenager this summer” [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch] “I’ve been a fan of Walter Olson’s Overlawyered blog for years.” [Amy Alkon, Advice Goddess] Thanks!

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March 21 roundup

by Walter Olson on March 21, 2012

  • Shame on DoJ: “Systematic concealment” of evidence when feds prosecuted Sen. Ted Stevens [WaPo, Caleb Mason/Prawfs] NYT notes feds’ losing streak in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions [NYT, our latest]
  • Italy: tax officials stop luxury cars, demand drivers’ most recent tax returns [Secular Right]
  • Pinterest: casual users (perhaps especially casual users) might be opening themselves to copyright liability [DDK Portraits, WSJ Law Blog] And in case you needed a reminder not to publish photos grabbed from random web sources… [Webcopyplus]
  • In new Atlantic special report, Philip K. Howard collects papers on outdated government law and regulation from contributors Robert Litan, Julie Barnes, Mark Warner, Jim Cooper;
  • Institute for Justice sues IRS over its new licensing requirements for tax preparers [Ilya Shapiro and Chaim Gordon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Barton Hinkle]
  • “It is acceptable to refer to all court proceedings as a ‘trial,’ because seriously, you ever sat through one of those things?” [@FakeAPStylebook]
  • Christopher Booker series on child-snatching by UK authorities [Telegraph: first, second, third]

European roundup

by Walter Olson on February 2, 2012

  • Overseas press excoriates new FATCA tax-Americans’-foreign-earnings law; some foreign banks now turn away American customers [Dan Mitchell, Cato, Reason] “The Fatca story is really kind of insane.” [Caplin & Drysdale's H. David Rosenbloom, NYT via TaxProf] Will Congress back down? [Peter Spiro/OJ, more]
  • Important new book from James Maxeiner (University of Baltimore) and co-authors Gyooho Lee and Armin Weber on what the U.S. can learn from legal procedure overseas: “Failures of American Civil Justice in International Perspective” [TortsProf]
  • Don’t do it: British administration mulls further move away from loser-pays rule in search of — what exactly, a yet more Americanized litigation culture? [Guardian, Law Society]
  • Apparently in Norway it’s possible to lose one’s kids by feeding them by hand [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
  • Financial transaction tax? Ask the Swedes how that worked out [Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Business Insider]
  • Notes from conference on globalization of class actions [Karlsgodt] Related: Adam Zimmerman;
  • “Another conviction in Europe for insulting religion” [Volokh; Polish pop star] Campus secularists’ speech under fire in the U.K. as “Jesus and Mo” controversy spreads to LSE [Popehat] British speech prosecution of soccer star [Suneal Bedi and William Marra, NRO]

January 31 roundup

by Walter Olson on January 31, 2012

  • Latest of periodic Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin/Tillinghast) surveys: tort costs fell in 2010 excluding oil spill liability [Towers Watson]
  • “Will Newt Neuter the Courts?” [James Huffman, Defining Ideas] Obama’s high court appointees are fortunately friendlier toward civil liberties than he is [Steve Chapman]
  • Unanimous Cal Supremes: companies not legally responsible for other companies’ asbestos products used as replacement for theirs [Cal Biz Lit, Jackson, Beck, Mass Tort Prof]
  • Claim: jurors considered policy implications of verdict and you can’t have that [On Point; defense verdict in Baltimore, Maryland school-bullying case]
  • Airfare display mandate: “‘Protecting’ Consumers from the Truth About the Cost of Government” [Thom Lambert, TotM]
  • Critical assessment of AP-backed new copyright aggregator “NewsRight” [Mike Masnick] Promises not to be “Righthaven 2.0″ [Cit Media Law]
  • Restatement (Third) of Torts drafters vs. Enlightenment scientific views of causation [David Oliver in June]

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The official Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is menacing businesses with audits, “substantiation notices” and potentially stiff fines if they tell customers — even over the phone or in emails — that future price hikes on goods or services are the result of the nation’s newly adopted carbon tax. I discuss at Cato at Liberty (& Mark Hemingway, Weekly Standard).

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October 27 roundup

by Walter Olson on October 27, 2011

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So maybe it’s time to find a new way of expressing the idea of our Byzantine tax code, the Byzantine regulations of federal agencies, and so forth. [Brian Palmer, Slate; link fixed now, thanks reader Bob]

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The new patent reform bill may end, or at least restrict, the odd practice of asserting patents on ways to reduce tax liability. [Legal Ethics Forum, earlier here, here, etc.]

August 4 roundup

by Walter Olson on August 4, 2011

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Chris Edwards, Cato: The President in his speech last night “supported repealing an idiotic IRS requirement in the 2010 health care law that mandated hundreds of millions of additional 1099 tax forms. … Now it’s the GOP’s job to get him legislation to repeal this provision tomorrow.”

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I’ve got a post up at Cato at Liberty on the Freddie-Mac-versus-IRS litigation that Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil calls the “stupidest lawsuit ever.”

P.S. And welcome Mickey Kaus readers (“Stupidest lawsuit ever? Tough category”).

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October 9 roundup

by Walter Olson on October 9, 2010

  • Update: “Tax Panel Rejects Lawyer’s Bid to Deduct Spending for Sex” [NYLJ, William Barrett/Forbes, earlier] And: “Musings on laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other ‘vice’ industries” [Meeting the Sin Laws blog]
  • Mississippi: judge jails lawyer for not saying Pledge of Allegiance [Freeland]
  • More on much-written-about Israeli “rape by fraud” case [Volokh, more, earlier here and here]
  • “Tribune bankruptcy talks complicated by emergence of pugnacious hedge fund” [Romenesko; earlier on involvement of hedge funds in bankruptcies]
  • More disturbing tales from Connecticut probate court [Rick Green, Hartford Courant, earlier]
  • Marc Williams of the Defense Research Institute responds to Ted Frank’s criticism of many defense lawyers [PoL]
  • Advice for Australians: to fix your litigation system, look to Germany’s success [Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald]
  • Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.) & ’70s band Orleans threaten suit against GOP remix ["Orleans Reunion Tour"]

September 30 roundup

by Walter Olson on September 30, 2010

  • “Sexting” Wisconsin prosecutor to resign [AP, AtL] Was bar discipline too lax? A contrarian view [Esenberg]
  • Update: jury finds “caffeine killer” guilty in wife’s death [CBS, earlier]
  • Not an Onion story: “New Orwellian Tax Scheme in England Would Require All Paychecks Go Directly to the Tax Authority” [Dan Mitchell, Cato]
  • “The Fight Over Fire Sprinklers in New Homes” [Popular Mechanics via Fountain, earlier]
  • Pre-Miranda interrogation of (no relation) Jimmy Olsen [another legally-themed comic book cover from the series at Abnormal Use]
  • Slow customer service at pizza restaurant deemed “sabotage” in employment suit [Fox, Jottings]
  • Website offers defendants’ perspective on some of the Enron prosecutions [Ungagged.net via Kirkendall]
  • Pedestrian killed by out-of-control driver, and jury awards $37 million against California municipality for not having built sidewalks [six years ago on Overlawyered]

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Citizenry as suckers

by Walter Olson on September 3, 2010

Should the North Carolina tax department really behave as if it regards them as that? [Patrick at Popehat]

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Because even if the government can’t maintain a paid informer on every street corner, it can at least try to maintain one in every family. [Connecticut Law Tribune]

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August 26 roundup

by Walter Olson on August 26, 2010

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August 5 roundup

by Walter Olson on August 5, 2010

  • Wouldn’t it be nice if Congress lifted the ban on Internet gambling [Steve Chapman]
  • Design of New Orleans shotgun houses is an adaptation to tax laws [Candy Chang]
  • Lawyer-enriching Costco class action settlement draws an objection from a blogger often linked in this space [Amy Alkon]
  • “Fourth Circuit slaps down N.C. attorney general’s suit against TVA” [Wood/PoL, Jackson]
  • South Carolina jury’s $2.375 million award based on premise that Nissan should have followed European, not U.S. crashworthiness standards [Abnormal Use]
  • City of Cleveland won’t take no for answer in dumb lawsuit against mortgage lenders [Funnell]
  • Charles H. Green at TrustMatters hosts Blawg Review #275;
  • Duke lacrosse fiasco: Nifong’s media and law-school enablers [three years ago at Overlawyered]