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No-Knock Warrants: Protective or Predatory for North Carolinians?
Full text linkMuch ink has been spilled on arguments for restraining law enforcement’s use of no-knock warrants. In 2020, the issue was thrust into the national spotlight with the tragic death of Breonna Taylor at the hands of the Louisville Metro Police Department. While national attention focused on the federal response, Oregon, Florida, Virginia, and other states sprang into action by critically reexamining the justifications offered for the use of no-knock warrants and, in some cases, finding these justifications wanting. The Comment suggests that the justification of safety that no-knock warrants share with their predecessor, the venerable knock-and-announce rule, is not borne out in practice. Accepting that law enforcement must have adequate discretion with which to root out crime, North Carolina need not tether its law on exigent circumstances to the federal “floor.” Instead, with constitutional liberties and lives themselves at stake, North Carolina should join Oregon, Florida, and Virginia in banning no-knock warrants outright or by limiting their use through heightened pre-issuance requirements
Trafficking-In and Harvesting Tax Benefits May Be Subject to Restrictions and Limitations
Full text linkTrafficking in and harvesting preexisting or manufactured tax losses and credits may be both beneficial and lucrative, but it may be subject to restrictions and limitations. Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) Section 269 generally provides that acquisition of control of a corporation to gain the benefit of a deduction, credit, or other allowance is prohibited. Does the Section 269 prohibition present a concrete barrier or is it just a smoke screen? This article examines the business purpose and economic substance doctrines to explain ways to circumvent Section 269. Then, this article analyzes IRC Section 382 to describe its impact and limitations when an “ownership change” is involved. Finally, this article discusses whether Section 382 applies to S corporations
After All This Time: An Analysis of the Recent Trend to Extend Truth-in-Lending-Style Disclosures to Commercial-Financing Transactions
Full text linkThe Truth in Lending Act of 1968 (TILA) was designed to protect consumers by implementing uniform disclosures for consumer financing transactions and by creating substantive consumer protections. While TILA has been amended over the past fifty years to reflect modern needs, it has always remained a consumer financing law. Over the past few years, however, states have challenged that notion by passing laws which require TILA-inspired disclosures for certain commercial-financing trans-actions. And at the federal level, a bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives (House Bill) that would expand TILA to commercial-financing transactions falling below a certain threshold. This Article contends that extending consumer-financing protections to small businesses will likely have unintended negative effects, and that although neither state nor federal expansion is advisable, of the two, a uniform fed-eral approach would be less harmful. After reviewing the commer-cial-financing disclosure requirements in the House Bill and in the three key states of California, New York, and North Carolina, the Article con-siders the effects on small businesses and consumers of an expansion of TILA and Regulation Z. The Article concludes by suggesting several revi-sions to ameliorate the negative impact of importing a consumer-financing disclosure regime into small-business commercial financing
Agriculture on the Move: Proposed Actions to Bolster Local Food Systems
Full text linkA movement to consume fewer processed goods and obtain food from local and regional sources has gained popularity in the last two decades. Local food systems offer several benefits; however, they are not wellsupported by the federal government. The USDA has administered a system of federal agricultural subsidies for nearly a century, but that system powerfully supports a limited group, usually the largest industrial farms growing a small number of crops—none of which include fruits and vegetables. Correspondingly, consumers have gradually shifted their diets to incorporate increasing amounts of subsidized crops and those crops’ byproducts to the detriment of overall national health. One must wonder, could federal agricultural subsidies be employed in a way that better promotes citizens’ best interests by supporting local food systems? This Comment explores the food system structures currently in place, the origin of federal agricultural subsidies, and the USDA’s stated goals for its own direction as an agency. This Comment goes on to propose a reallocation of subsidy resources and other actions that could both accomplish the USDA’s organizational aims and promote national health by bolstering local food systems
Restoring Balance to the Federal Tax-Exemption Regime’s Treatment of Hospitals: Let Their Actions Speak Louder Than Their Charters
Full text linkThe tax-exemption system for American hospitals was created both to optimize care for those who cannot afford it and to encourage good deeds by hospitals. But despite well-intentioned attempts by the IRS to implement these lofty policy goals, for-profit hospitals today pay taxes despite at times providing more public benefit than their nonprofit brethren while nonprofit hospitals are incentivized to seek profit rather than provide free care. This rise of this state of affairs coincides with changes by the IRS to the standards required to obtain the exemption. Originally, the nonprofit system operated on a quid pro quo model, where hospitals were thought to relieve a burden on the government and receive tax exemption in return. But in 1969, the IRS migrated to the ambiguous “promotion of health” model introduced in Revenue Ruling 69-545. With its enactment, the IRS effectively freed nonprofit hospitals from accountability to the original policy goals behind nonprofit status and introduced the problems above. To fix the imbalance faced by hospitals today, this Article proposes a modification to federal policy that returns to the quid pro quo model but keeps the flexible attitude of Revenue Ruling 69-545 towards community benefit. Under this suggested approach, all hospitals must provide a threshold amount of community benefit to receive tax exemption, but they will have sufficient flexibility in the means to reach that goal. This places all hospitals on a level playing field and will hopefully increase charitable services provided to the needy
