Roberts Reviews Tax Boycotts on SSRN Roundup

Here's my latest offering to Tax Prof Blog, reviewing a new empirical work, Tax Boycotts.

This week, Tracey Roberts (Samford, Cumberland School of Law) reviews a new work by H. Scott Asay (Iowa),  Jeffrey L. Hoopes (North Carolina), Jacob Thornock (BYU), and Jaron H. Wilde (Iowa), Tax Boycotts (March 29, 2021).

In Tax Boycotts, the authors evaluate the widespread assumption among tax scholars that the key risk deterring corporations from engaging in greater levels of tax planning is the loss of corporate reputation. The authors undertake a systematic set of studies to determine whether U.S. consumers actually respond to news about corporate tax avoidance with boycotts of corporate products and stock purchases. The authors survey a representative sample of U.S. consumers concerning their perceptions of and actions with respect to corporate tax planning and then examine weekly scanner-level data on consumer purchaser, daily data on retail stock purchase activity, and data for ongoing boycotts. The authors conclude that tax planning and tax avoidance are not particularly important drivers of past boycott activity in the U.S. They also conclude that boycotts also pose no threat to future tax avoidance activity. [Read more.]
  

 

 

Whiskey Women and Tax

Last night, in conjunction with the Vulcan Museum and Park's exhibit "Right or Privilege? Alabama Women and the Vote" I gave a talk entitled (now available as a YouTube video) "Whiskey, Women and Tax."

 

Before they became the most famous pair of advocates in the U.S. women’s suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were temperance activists. Advocating for the prohibition of alcohol in a world in which women lacked both political and property rights, they sought to curb other social ills: family poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, and violent crime. Through the early 20th Century, however, the U.S. relied heavily on excise taxes, particularly those on liquor, to fund government operations. The passage and ratification of the 16th Amendment, authorizing a federal income tax, was needed before the 18th Amendment, prohibiting alcohol, could be passed. In turn, the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, was ratified, in part, on the strength of the time-honored argument that women should not face taxation without representation. Old enemies die hard, however. The ratification of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in access to the ballot required that suffrage activists counter the (then illegal) liquid advocacy of well-known whiskey distillers and brewers. This talk recounts the complex and interlocking history of women’s suffrage, prohibition, and the federal income tax.

Voting In-Person Absentee in Alabama

Voting In-Person Absentee is the easiest way to vote in the 2020 election in Alabama.

1. Find your absentee voting location (usually your county courthouse) at:
https://www.sos.alabama.gov/city-county-lookup/absentee-election-manager

2. Head to your county courthouse or absentee election manager's office. Bring your valid state-issued photo ID. Wear a mask!

3. Ask for an absentee ballot application. Fill it out. Check the box "I have a physical illness or infirmity which prevents my attendance at the polls" if you are voting absentee due to COVID-19 concerns.

4. Hand in completed application with your photo ID. Once your application is approved, you will be handed your ballot.

5. Mark your ballot!

6. Put your completed ballot in the secrecy envelope and then put the secrecy envelope inside the outer envelope.

7. Write your address on the outer envelope.

8. Check the box "I am physically incapacitated and will not be able to vote in person on election day." if you are voting absentee due to COVID-19 concerns.

9. Sign the outer envelope in front of a notary or 2 witnesses. Witnesses can be office employees.

10. Have the notary or 2 witnesses sign the outer envelope.

11. Ask the clerk to see if everything is in order.

12. If you need help call the Voter Protection Hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683). #VOTE

Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective is now available in paperback format

Cumberland School of Law introduces their "Interview with the Author" series with Professor Roberts discussing her co-authored work, Tax Law and the Environment.

Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the ways tax policy is used to solve environmental problems throughout the world. Environmental taxation involves using taxes to impose a cost on environmentally harmful activities or tax subsidies to provide preferred tax treatment to more sustainable alternatives. This book provides a detailed analysis of environmental taxation, with examples from around the world. As the extraction, processing, and use of energy resources has been a major cause of environmental harm, this book examines the taxation and subsidization of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. Its analysis of the past, present, and future uses of environmental taxation will help policymakers move economies toward sustainability, as well as inform students, academics, and citizens about tax solutions for pressing environmental issues.

Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield, has now published Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective in paperback format as of July 15, 2020. The hardback version was published in 2019.

https://www.amazon.com/Tax-Law-Environment-Multidisciplinary-Perspective/dp/1498559662

Flattening the Curve - What Climate Change Advocates Can Learn from COVID-10 Pandemic and Response

The ABA has posted the video for our June 30 webinar on "Flattening the Curve" - What Climate Change advocates can learn from the COVID Pandemic and response. The ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice hosted a panel discussion including Sara Bronin, the Faculty Director, Center for Energy & Environmental Law, University of Connecticut School of Law, Michael Gerrard, the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School; Faculty Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School, Adam Zipkin, Legislative Counsel, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, and me, TraceyRoberts – Associate Professor of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University. Lisa Benjamin, Assistant Professor of Law, Lewis & Clark Law School, moderated the panel.

Everyone has now heard of "flattening the curve," a call for collective action to limit the worst effects of COVID-19. Advocates of climate action have begun to note the uncanny similarities between unchecked climate change and the pandemic, including the challenges brought by exponential growth, increased public awareness of the problem, and the imperative of a unified public response. Both pandemics and climate change know no boundaries and have the most impact on vulnerable communities; but ultimately they affect us all. Both jeopardize the safety, well-being and inherent dignity of those affected. And both trigger legal and ethical obligations of governments and the private sector to protect and safeguard the civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights that pandemics and climate change threaten equally. Because climate change, like COVID-19, is a global problem with local consequences, addressing it will require a collaborative and coordinated set of solutions implemented locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. Attorneys have a major role to play by writing and advocating for meaningful change. Speakers will describe the lessons COVID-19 has taught us about the need for an effective global response; and they will identify a variety of legal actions governments and the private sector must take to "flatten the curve" and keep the worst effects of climate change at bay.

Poverty, Faith, and Justice: The SaveFirst Program Comes to Samford University

Exciting news at Samford University! Stephen Black, grandson of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, is bringing his course, Poverty, Faith, and Justice, and his SaveFirst program, to our undergraduate curriculum for the Spring of 2018.

Professor Black is the Director for the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility at the University of Alabama. Following his grandfather's footsteps, he is working to promote civic engagement and connection throughout the United States by connecting college students with concrete opportunities to make a difference in the lives of others.

High income households generally pay licensed tax professionals to prepare their tax returns. The cost of those services is usually below $175. Unfortunately, commercial preparation services charge low income households an average of $400 per return. The preparers are often untrained and fail to take the proper level of care. The cost of these services to Alabama families is $128 million per year.

Through the Poverty, Faith and Justice course, students examine policies and attitudes toward low-income families through readings, class discussions, lectures and work in the community. With no prior tax experience or knowledge, students have the opportunity to learn basic tax law, receive training to become certified as IRS-trained Volunteer Tax Preparers, and assist families in their communities throughout the state through high-quality tax preparation services. Since 2007, 5,418 SaveFirst volunteers have prepared tax returns for 63,154 families, helping them to claim $113.3 million in refunds, saving $20.7 million in fees.

Another ImpactAmerica program, FocusFirst, has screened pre-school age children for vision problems. Since 2004 3,557 student volunteers have screened 432,830 preschoolers, identifying 44,696 children with vision problems, and connecting them with optometrists and ophthalmologists to address their needs. Through Impact America, Professor Black has extended the geographic reach of the programs he developed with ImpactAlabama to Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Philadelphia.

Many thanks to the Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership for making this opportunity possible.

Tax Brackets and Why You Shouldn't Fear a Raise

I enjoyed a few seconds in the national spotlight this week when Adrienne Hill interviewed me for a piece on tax brackets for National Public Radio's Marketplace: Tax brackets and why you shouldn't fear a raise

For more on the history of the U.S. income tax system, tax brackets and rates, see my 2014 article, Brackets: A Historical Perspective.