Taxation Law Books

This is really a book for specialists or those who have a particular interest in anti-trust consent decrees. The average person, not understanding the fine points or goals or methods or limits of the law will find themselves getting quite frustrated with some of the points Epstein is making. He has taken a look at several aspects of our law rather than pronouncing and the morality or the rightness or wrongness of the companies entering into these decrees.

Epstein lays out the legal theories around consent decrees and how they arose from our quite fuzzy anti-trust laws. And it is hard for the anti-trust laws to not be cloudy because as soon as they are specifically defined, companies will find a way around those rules to accomplish a very similar end (rent seeking behavior through market dominance) just outside the grasp of the law.

He presents short case studies from the past such as U.S v Swift, ASCAP-BMI, and United Shoe Machinery. These are all quite interesting and informative. Personally, I enjoyed reading these accounts.

We are then given longer chapter length accounts on the breakup of the Bell System and the consent decrees basically imposed on Microsoft. Epstein demonstrates what he was wrong with the Bell breakup. While those companies created after the breakup are all but united again, I think it is hard to believe that the old AT&T would have engaged or allowed all the innovation we have had since then. But then, AT&T was a monopoly that was created and protected by legislation, and that is a huge problem, in my view. There was competition on the way, but fought every step of the way with AT&T's massive firepower. Still, it is the process and method rather than the thing done that is Epstein's concern.

The author thinks better of what has been done with Microsoft, even if he finds much of the challenges against the company questionable or even resolvable in a "fair" way. For example, on page 103 the author discusses OS/2 and the damage done to it by Microsoft. Essentially, he concludes that since the operating system wasn't going be successful anyway, as demonstrated by its failure, it is hard to assign damages to Microsoft. This seems to me to be similar to an argument made by a thief who had stolen some crystal justifying himself by saying that since he believed the owner was going to drop and break the crystal anyway he really didn't steal anything of value.

Still, Epstein is right in showing the difficult of handling these things under tort law rather than as crimes. And if they were to be handled as crimes wouldn't that be too harsh in most cases? However, if companies know how hard it will be to do anything against them, all they need to do is calculate how much they can gain by every sharper business practices and subtract the likely costs of litigation with the government. If it is greater than zero, they should engage in the questionable (or more than questionable) business practices since there is no way to effectively deter them. (This is my conclusion, not Epstein's).

I think Epstein does point out some valuable lessons learned about these decrees and they should be kept in mind in future cases.

The majority of this text focuses on the pre-Chicago economics school of thought. This means that the majority of the cases are now overruled or obsolete/outlier cases. It gives you a great idea of the origins of antitrust law & the populist/public interest intents of earlier courts and congressmen.

It really needs to focus more on current trends in antitrust approaches. I guess that's what the supplement is for. But at the end of the class, our Professor advised us on how to approach our final exam: "Everything you learned in the book, ignore. It's all wrong now." HA!

If I had to suggest the purchase of this book I would recommend it. There is almost everything in the book about US antitrust. But some warnings are necessary. It's not for students. It's not for lawyers. Maybe scholars and judges can be interested. The author highlights what is not coherent in the body of untistrust legislation. He provides some solution but that solution turns out to be simple: stay put. On that we can debate, but for sure it's a useful check in the bugs of the system. Given the approach I would have given 5 stars if the author had provided some hints or quantitative analysis to the reader on the effects of some of the Supreme Court decisions on lower Courts and on the current management of antitrust law.

Any review of the changing nature of building codes requires an understanding of the underlying priciples of building codes. And it is better to have more than one opinion, when dealing with principles. I recomend this book, and Barry Yatt's "Cracking the Codes", and James Patterson's "Simplified Design for Building Fire Safety" to get a well-rounded understanding. If you're in a hurry try Frank Ching's "Building Codes Illustrated" which has lots o illustrations, but is not as deep on the history and concepts as the above books.

The recent history associated with the name "Arthur Andersen" might cause one to steer clear of this resource, but that would be a big mistake.

The Internal Revenue Service has made significant changes to regulations affecting nonprofits, shifting responsibility for compliance from the organization itself to the directors, staffs, and major donors as individuals. Most nonprofit board members and executives are only dimly aware of these changes, and fewer still are prepared with the documentation necessary to address issues of conflict of interest, private inurement, and disqualified persons.

One sentence from the book's introduction sums up the need for action: "The most important aspect of this legislation is that it empowers the IRS to impose punishment on individuals who violate the tax code by levying significant excise taxes initially and then more than quadrupling the penalty amount if remedy is not made to the [nonprofit] organization."

The solution, and the purpose of the book, is also summed up in one sentence in the introduction: "The key to protecting these organizations' officers and other interested parties from excise taxes is proper documentation."

The book is 3-ring bound and well-tabbed for easy reference and for copying of template forms and sheets that are included. In addition, the book ships with a companion PC diskette with forms in Microsoft Word 6.0/Word 95 format that should be usable by most current word processing programs.

This book is a valuable resource for nonprofit executives, consultants, attorneys, and others providing organizational development and counseling to nonprofits and charities.

The book does include examples and references to the health care field, but its content is equally applicable to all nonprofits.

The book's Table of Contents is as follows:

1. Overview of the Intermediate Sanctions Law 2. Establishing an Intermediate Sanctions Review Process 3. Disqualified Persons Determination 4. Diagnostic Review for Disqualified Persons 5. Diagnostic Review for Organization Manager Liability 6. Examining Revenue-Sharing Transactions 7. Rebuttable Presumption of Reasonableness

Appendices

-- Intermediate Sanctions Law -- Excerpt from House Ways and Means Committee Report on Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 -- Intermediate Sanctions Proposed Regulations -- IRS Model Conflicts of Interest Policy

In current high technology, there has arisen the open source movement. One of its motivating chants is that "information wants to be free". But what about copyright, not just of source code, but of writings in general? The distributed nature of the Internet and the ease of exact digital copying has led to an undergoing reexamination of what copyright might mean in our time.

This book helps by giving a historical perspective as to how copyright gained its current meaning. Rose traces copyright to the early 1700s. Which, in the history of civilisation, is relatively recent. Copyright revolves around the concept of author and authorial rights, which emerged then. Surprisingly to some, Shakespeare himself could never have claimed copyright of his writings, even if the concept had occurred to him. Most of his stories were not his original plots, but a brilliant rephrasing of plots handed down from the Middle Ages.

Rose traces the development of copyright to the rise of a mass market for printed books. Because without a printing press, copyright is irrelevant, for there is little of material substance to levy royalties. book.

Very well written textbook, easy to understand. Good real world examples listed in each chapter.

This book can serve as an introduction to taxes as related to real-estate transactions. It is a quick and easy read, and seems to be targeted at the least sophisticated possible investor. It does a good job of explaining the major points of the new tax laws, and is filled with short examples. (In my opinion, at least half the examples are so simple that they should be eliminated, for they illustrate nothing beyond what can be said in a single simple sentence). However, any slightly sophisticated investor will need more than this book can offer. The strategies offered are seldom beyond the obvious and unattractive ones (e.g. move into your intended for-sale property 2 years before selling, then do that over and over). In short, an easy read as an introduction, but leaves you wanting more.

This book was a helpful guide for figuring out some of the many nuances of the tax laws associated with working abroad.

The book shows how the early Coast Guard, as collector of the nation's revenue, combined the spirit of enterprise with acknowledgement of individual freedoms to establish respect for the new Constitution and the rule of law