Most of us share a vague intuition that the rich, sophisticated, well-advised, and politically connected somehow game the system to avoid regulatory burdens the rest of us comply with. The intuition is correct; this Article explains how it’s done. Regulatory gamesmanship typically relies on a...

This case study, intended as a teaching exercise, highlights the problems of contracting in a world of great uncertainty. Streetwatch is a startup company seeking financing, and the CEO has received two offers for investment, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The case highlights...

This mercifully short article discusses the growing importance of web logs (called "blogs") and describes "A Taxing Blog," the tax policy blog recently created by Victor Fleischer and Jeffrey Kahn. Recent blog topics include corporate inversions, the Vice President's tax return, the Bush...

This amicus curiae brief in Altera Corporation v. Commissioner supports the government's position and the view of the majority in a 9th Circuit opinion issued on July 24, 2018 and later withdrawn. Amici are tax law professors who conclude that the stock-based compensation cost sharing...

A new innovation on the IPO landscape has emerged in the last two decades, allowing owner-founders to extract billions of dollars from newly-public companies. These IPOs — labeled supercharged IPOs — have been the subject of widespread debate and controversy: lawyers, financial experts,...

In Tax Legislation in the Contemporary U.S. Congress, Michael Doran describes an equilibrium of gridlock punctuated by the occasional passage of strikingly clean, non-particularistic legislation. This Commentary explores how the mundane, unseemly, and largely unnoticed legislative ritual of...

The purpose of this brief is to correct and respond to two arguments in Petitioner-Appellee Altera's petition for rehearing en banc and briefs of amici supporting the petition for rehearing. First, Treasury's regulation requiring cost sharing of stock-based compensation and the Ninth Circuit...

The Treasury Department should issue regulations treating the allocation and distribution of partnership profits in private equity funds — carried interest — as payments for services. My suggested “tax arbitrage” approach uses the presence of tax-exempt limited partners in the investment...