Edward Zelinsky- College Tuition

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa will serve as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee during the upcoming 115th Congress. Senator Grassley’s decision to lead the Finance Committee may have important consequences for the nation’s colleges and universities. Grassley, a Republican, has criticized increased tuition charges in the face of the pronounced, tax-free growth of many college endowments.

In light of his prior statements and the current political environment, a Grassley-led Finance Committee may scrutinize higher education endowments. On the committee’s agenda could be legislation aimed at the tax benefits such endowments enjoy and the benefits of tax-exempt entities more generally.

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Edward Zelinsky Taxing The Church

Does the new federal tax law, commonly known as the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA), tax churches as some have argued? If so, is this tax appropriate?

The answers are “yes” and “yes.” The TCJA provisions taxing qualified transportation fringes treat secular and religious employers alike, including houses of worship. In a world of imperfect choices, the TCJA reasonably treats all employers fairly without entangling church and state inordinately.

Churches (including all houses of worship such as synagogues, temples and mosques) pay more taxes than many people believe. Churches do not pay property taxes or basic income taxes. But churches do pay the employer portion of federal social security (FICA) taxes for their non-clergy employees. Churches also often pay or collect state sales taxes on the tangible personal property they sell or purchase. In most states, churches also pay real estate conveyance taxes like other real estate purchasers and sellers.

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Lets Debate 2

Lawyers John Richardson and Edward Zelinsky will present their views on Worldwide Citizenship Taxation on a live stream YOUTUBE event hosted by TaxConnections on Friday, May 17th 2019. The mission of this presentation is to provide important views on Worldwide Citizenship Taxation.

We have asked the following question to both speakers:

“Should The United States Impose Worldwide Citizenship Taxation And Reporting On People Who Are Residents Of Other Countries?”

TaxConnections Friday, May 17th Livestream Presentation Will Focus On:

1. Presenting two opposing perspectives on Worldwide Citizenship Taxation.

2. Educate taxpayers and tax professionals on worldwide citizenship taxation.

3. Provide perspective from taxpayers and tax professionals globally.

Please register to receive an invitation and updates on this very important and educational online event. You can help us by sharing this blog post with everyone you know who may be affected by Citizenship Based Taxation and who want to learn from two leading experts on the subject.

Register Here For Complimentary Invitation To Watch Live Stream

Citizenship Taxation: Is It Morally Justified Or Unjustified?

You are invited to a livestream YouTube event on Friday, May 17th 2019 hosted by TaxConnections. Two highly educated and lawyers will present opposing positions on Citizenship And Worldwide Taxation.

Date: Friday, May 17th
Time: 2:00PM EST/1:00PM CT/12:00PM MT/ 11:00AM PST
(World Time Zones)
Hosted By: TaxConnections Inc.
Moderator: William Byrnes
For Citizenship Taxation: Edward Zelinsky
Against Citizenship Taxation: John Richardson

Get A Great Education… It’s Free!

REQUEST YOUR FREE TICKET TO EVENT HERE

 

Edward Zelinsky ( Part 7)

1.Summary

Gaudreau and Civil Engineer highlight the resemblance between citizenship-based and residence-based taxation when residence is implicitly (as in Gaudreau) or explicitly (as in Civil Engineer) defined as domicile, the taxpayer’s permanent home. Both domicile and citizenship are measures of long-term permanent allegiance rather than short-term physical presence. Consequently, the outcomes in tax cases will often be the same whether in personam jurisdiction to tax on a worldwide basis is asserted in terms of an individual’s citizenship or in terms of her domiciliary residence.

Determining domicile – the taxpayer’s permanent home – is often a factually daunting challenge, as is demonstrated by Gaines- Cooper. Consequently, in tax cases, citizenship is an administrable proxy for domicile. From this vantage, the U.S. system of citizenship-based taxation is closer than is generally recognized to other nations’ residence-based tax systems: When residence is defined for tax purposes as the taxpayer’s domicile, citizenship-based and residence-based taxation converge, but citizenship based taxation reaches these similar results more efficiently by eliminating the need for factually intensive inquiries about domicile.

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Edward Zelinsky (Part 6)
Administrability, Residence, And Citizenship – Overview

As noted earlier, tax mavens often invoke ability-to-pay considerations to justify the worldwide taxation of an individual’s income and assets by the nation in which she resides. The country in which an individual lives exercises in personam jurisdiction over that individual. In addition to such personal jurisdiction, the nation of her residence is often the country in which an individual works (at least in significant part), earns some (often much) of her investment income, and maintains some (often much) of her assets. By virtue of her presence in the country of her residence, that country, the argument goes, is best positioned to measure and tax an individual’s overall capacity to pay by aggregating her worldwide income and assets and by enforcing against this resident the taxation of her aggregate income and assets. These ability-to-pay considerations, combined with the substantial public benefits the nation of residence provides to its residents, underpin the near universal practice of worldwide income taxation by the nation in which an individual lives.

At first blush, this argument for residence-based taxation leaves no room for a defense of citizenship-based taxation. If residence-based taxation of worldwide income and assets is the proper way to measure and tax an individual’s overall abilityto- pay and if such residence-based taxation correctly reflects the governmental benefits bestowed on individuals by virtue of their respective residences, it is the nation in which a U.S. citizen lives which should tax her worldwide income and holdings. If a  U.S. citizen lives abroad, it follows from this argument, the nation of residence, rather than the United States, is best positioned to assess such citizen’s ability to pay by aggregating and taxing her worldwide income and assets. Moreover, the nation in which an individual lives is also properly compensated for the public benefits it provides to its residents by taxing globally such residents’ income and assets.

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Edward Zelinsky ( Part 4)
  1. Implementing Citizenship-Based Taxation

As a final preliminary to evaluating the United States’ citizenship-based taxation of individuals, we must explore the Code’s implementation of such taxation. Recall, in this context, that the Code currently prescribes three different income tax treatments for the foreign taxes paid by U.S. citizens and residents. Foreign income taxes levied against foreign-source income are fully creditable against U.S. income taxes to the extent such foreign taxes are equal to or less than the U.S. taxes assessed against such foreign-source income. 124 All foreign taxes paid in connection with trade, business, and investment activity are deductible for U.S. income tax purposes, as are foreign real property taxes. 125 Other foreign taxes, such as general sales taxes levied by foreign nations, are neither creditable nor deductible. 126 As a result of this disparate treatment of different foreign taxes, otherwise similarly situated U.S. citizens who reside abroad pay different U.S. taxes depending upon the types and amounts of the taxes levied by the countries in which they live and earn their incomes.

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TaxConnections is privileged to announce the upcoming event on Citizenship Taxation will be hosted by William Byrnes of Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. Our very distinguished speakers are John Richardson of Citizenship Solutions in Toronto, Canada and Edward Zelinsky of Cardozo School of Law in New York, New York. Mr. Zelinsky will speak in support of Citizenship Taxation and Mr. Richardson will speak out against Citizenship Taxation. Given the large number of expatriates who come to TaxConnections to discuss and seek answers to questions on FATCA and Citizenship Based Taxation, we are delighted to have these legal experts educate our expatriate and tax professional audience.

The Future of Citizenship Taxation

Citizenship Taxation: Is It Morally Justified Or Unjustified?

The future of Americans Abroad is greatly impacted by Citizenship Taxation. You are invited to a livestream YouTube event hosted by TaxConnections with two highly educated and distinguished lawyers discussing their position on Citizenship Taxation.

Date: Friday, May 17th
Time: 2:00PM EST/1:00PM CT/12:00PM MT/ 11:00AM PST
(World Time Zones)
Hosted By: TaxConnections – Meet The Experts
Moderator: William Byrnes
For Citizenship Taxation: Edward Zelinsky
Against Citizenship Taxation: John Richardson

Get A Great Education… It’s Free!

REQUEST YOUR FREE TICKET TO EVENT HERE

 

 

Edward Zelinsky ( Part 3)
  1. Three Theories of Citizenship

In this Part, I identify three conceptions of U.S. citizenship that help to evaluate the propriety of citizenship-based taxation. Some commentators describe citizenship in terms different from those identified in these three models. 65 Whatever the value of these alternative conceptions of citizenship in other contexts, for the issue explored in this Article – the propriety of taxing on the basis of citizenship – these three models are the useful approaches to citizenship and the benefits defense of citizenship based taxation.

  1. The Minimalist Model

For Professor Bickel, a minimalist conception of U.S. citizenship both describes the reality of U.S. law and embodies a normatively desirable state of affairs: “Happily,” Professor Bickel wrote, “the concept of citizenship [*1304] plays only the most minimal role in the American constitutional scheme.” 66 Prior to the adoption of the post-Civil War Amendments, the U.S. Constitution “contained no definition of citizenship and precious few references to the concept altogether.” 67 Citing the First and Second Amendments, Professor Bickel noted that “the Bill of Rights throughout defines rights of people, not of citizens.” 68 Thus, “the original Constitution presented the edifying picture of a government that bestowed rights on people and persons, and held itself out as bound by certain standards of conduct in its relations with people and persons, not with some legal construct called citizen.” 69

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Edward Zelinsky (Part 2)

1. An Overview of U.S. Citizenship-Based Taxation of Individuals

There are two bases on which nations may exercise the jurisdiction to tax: source and political allegiance. 4 Under the heading of source, a nation taxes in rem income or assets located (“sourced”) within its borders regardless of where the owner of such income or assets lives. On a theoretical level, source-based taxation reflects the claim of the nation in which income arises or assets are held that such nation provides the benefits [*1294] within its territory that protect such income or assets. 5 On a pragmatic level, source-based taxation reflects the practical ability of the nation in which income or an asset is located to impose tax before such income or asset is remitted to the owner abroad.

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Lets Debate

TaxConnections CEO Kat Jennings is happy to announce that both John Richardson and Edward Zelinsky have agreed to present their views on Citizenship Taxation on a live stream YOUTUBE event on Friday, May 17th 2019. The mission of this presentation is to provide both sides of the views on Citizenship Taxation.

We have asked the following question to both speakers:

“Should The United States Impose Worldwide Taxation And Reporting On People Who Are Residents Of Other Countries?”

TaxConnections Mission In This Livestream Presentation:

1. Presenting two opposing perspectives on FATCA compliance.

2. Educate taxpayers and tax professionals on FATCA and Foreign Assets.

3. Receive input and perspective from taxpayers and tax professionals.

4. Educate U.S. Congressional Representatives on the impact of FATCA.

5. Provide ideas and solutions to fix the problems associated with Citizenship Taxation on those who do not reside in U.S.

Please register for a complimentary invitation and updates on this very important and educational event for all. You can help us by sharing this blog post with everyone you know who may be affected by Citizenship Taxation or who want to learn from two leading experts on the subject.

Register Here For Complimentary Invitation To Watch Live Stream

https://www.taxconnections.com/livestream

 

 

Edward Zelinsky- Defining Residence

Introduction

In this paper, I place the United States’ adherence to citizenship-based taxation in the context of the states’ tax systems. Fortyone states impose general income taxes on the worldwide incomes of their respective residents. 1 These state tax systems are important repositories of experience that confirm the administrative benefits of citizenship-based taxation. Domicile today plays an important role in state tax systems as a gap-filler when more objective statutory residence laws fail to assign any state of residence to the taxpayer. Citizenship is an administrable proxy for domicile and serves a similar gap-filling role in the taxation of individuals whose income and activities straddle national boundaries.

For income tax purposes, most states today define residence as either domicile (the traditional definition) or as statutory residence, typically formulated as an individual’s satisfaction of an objective test such as 183 days spent in the state. 2 In contrast to the relatively objective nature of statutory [*272] residence laws, the fact-intensive domicile inquiry focuses upon the taxpayer’s intent to return to the taxing state and his permanent allegiance to that state, rather than his immediate physical presence in the state. 3 As the domicile inquiry is factually complex, it is both manipulable by the taxpayer and difficult for the tax collector to enforce. The contemporary domicile standard is best understood as a gap-filler invoked by the states when the more objective test of statutory residence fails to assign the taxpayer to any state of residence.

The states’ difficulties enforcing domicile-based taxation highlight the administrative benefits of citizenship-based taxation. As long as residence is understood for tax purposes in terms of domicile, citizenship is an efficient proxy for such domicile. The states’ experience defining residence supports the United States’ citizenship-based approach to federal income taxation. Under the Internal Revenue Code, citizenship serves as an administrable proxy for domicile and fulfills the same gap-filling function played by domicile under the states’ income taxes.

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