13203 research outputs found
Sort by
On the Eve of Destruction : Courts Confronting the Climate Emergency
Get PDFIn the dim and smokey twilight, with only bare necessities in tow, a family rushes to escape the wildfire racing toward them. Elsewhere, a household evacuates just ahead of a category five hurricane, perhaps not for the first time. Along the coastlines, countless others are resigned to looking on as their homesites erode into the inexorably rising surf. At this moment, millions of Americans are forced to reckon with the horrors of the climate catastrophe, and the number of such people who now viscerally grasp our grim climate reality grows every day. Even the judges of this nation prove no exception to this trend. Enveloped by smoke from a recent wildfire, a Washington appellate court judge remarked to a government attorney in an atmospheric trust litigation case: “I can’t go outside. If I go outside, I’m threatening my life. I have asthma, so I have to stay inside with the windows shut—I don’t have an air conditioner. Why isn’t that affecting my life and my liberty?” Amidst a full-blown climate emergency in which the fate of Humanity rests, this Article argues that our judiciary system is equipped—and is Constitutionally duty-bound—to provide the people of our nation a remedy for the extraordinary governmental malfeasance that has brought our nation, and indeed the world, this climate calamity
Tax Now or Tax Never: Political Optionality and the Case for Current-Assessment Tax Reform
Get PDFThe U.S. income tax system is broken. Due to the realization doctrine and taxpayers’ consequent ability to defer taxation of gains, taxpayers can easily minimize or avoid the taxation of investment income, a failure that is magnified many times over when considering the ultra-wealthy. As a result, this small group of taxpayers commands an enormous share of national wealth yet pays paltry taxes relative to the economic income their wealth produces—a predicament that this Article condemns as being economically, politically, and socially harmful.
The conventional view among tax law experts has assumed that the problems created by the realization doctrine can be fixed on the back end by adjusting the rules that govern taxation at the time of realization. Specifically, most tax scholars have favored reform proposals that would retain the realization doctrine while aiming to impose taxes in a way that would erase or reduce the financial benefits of deferral. Examples include retrospective capital gains tax reforms, progressive consumption tax reforms, and more incremental reforms such as ending stepped-up basis.
However, this Article argues that these future-assessment reform proposals ignore a crucial additional problem of deferral—political optionality. If there is a many-year or longer gap between when either income is earned or wealth is accrued and when tax is assessed, then any number of things can happen in the interim to undermine the eventual assessment and collection of tax. This Article explains three sets of pressures that tend to erode future-assessment reforms over time: (1) policy drift and the need for incremental bolstering of tax reforms, (2) the time value of options, and (3) federal budget rules and related political incentives.
By contrast to future-assessment reforms, this Article explains how current assessment reforms—like wealth tax or accrual-income tax reform proposals— are relatively resistant to these pressures. As this Article demonstrates, both theory and historical experience reveal that future-assessment reforms are fragile and often fail—and that ultra-wealthy taxpayers are well aware of this. Therefore, accounting for the implications of political optionality, only current assessment reforms are likely to succeed at meaningfully taxing the ultra-wealthy and fixing the personal tax system
Possessing Intangibles
Get PDFThe concept of possession is currently considered inapplicable to intangible assets, whether data, cryptocurrency, or NFTs. Under this view, intangible assets categorically fall outside the purview of property law’s foundational doctrines. Such sweeping conclusions stem from a misunderstanding of the role of possession in property law. This Article refutes the idea that possession constitutes—or even requires—physical control by distinguishing possession from another foundational concept, that of thinghood. It highlights possession’s unique purpose within the property process: conveying the status of in rem claims. In property law, the concept of possession conveys to third parties the allocation of property rights and related duties. As such, possession builds upon the concept of thinghood; it is a subsequent analytical step through which the law can normatively and efficiently expect individuals to comply with their duty to not interfere with the property of others. Given its centrality in property law, then, possession should not be so quickly discarded in the context of intangibles.The Article dissects the relationship between property, possession, and thinghood, deriving a new tech-neutral theoretical model of possession grounded in information theory. By unpacking the process through which the social institution of property emerges, this Article provides the rationale for a new theory of possession. This theory aims to be more descriptively accurate, analytically coherent, and parsimonious in the face of an ever more diverse set of assets that are subject to resource governance regimes. It also highlights the importance of distributed, accessible information. Clearly conveying the allocation of rights and duties is critical for the success of any resource governance regime, digital or otherwise.Ultimately, property law relies on possession’s communicative function to ensure that the enforcement of rights and duties is fair and expected. The theory of possession proposed in this Article provides a robust way for property law to retain these same benefits in the age of digital and crypto-assets
Dean\u27s Desk: Staff Excellence is Institutional Excellence
Get PDFWhen it comes to the student experience, the people that our students interact with most frequently are our staff, and demands on staff have been particularly high as we’ve navigated the pandemic. In short, being one of the nation’s top public law schools requires staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes, who care deeply about student success and who provide high-quality help. In Bloomington, we’re fortunate that we have the best, with long-serving staff who are truly exceptional.
In this Dean’s Desk, I thought I’d pause to recognize a few staff members at the law school and highlight why they are so critical to our success
Evidence Law: A Student\u27s Guide to the Law of Evidence as Applied in American Trials. 5th ed.
No full textIn clear and engaging prose that makes concepts accessible without oversimplification, this Treatise explains the Federal Rules, selected state variations, major cases, essential doctrines, and important underlying policies. Frequent practical examples drawn from courtroom practice introduce students to courtroom procedure, provide a context in which evidence problems arise, and acquaint them with the language of the courtroom. This volume can serve as background for beginning students and as a one-stop refresher for those taking advanced courses. Professors can assign various sections to track the syllabus or simply recommend this book as useful background reading.https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facbooks/1291/thumbnail.jp
Two New Faculty Members, Three Visiting Professors Join Indiana Law in 2022-23
Get PDFThe Indiana University Maurer School of Law is proud to welcome Andrew Hammond to the faculty beginning in January 2023.
Hammond is currently an associate professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he writes and teaches in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and poverty law
Race and Civil Procedure
No full textQuintanilla\u27s chapter discusses how race, racism, and structural inequalities are central to understanding the day-to-day operation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), and are yet obscured from most first-year Civil Procedure courses.https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facbooks/1313/thumbnail.jp