Monday, February 01, 2021

How the IRS Should Fight the COVID-19 Economic Crisis

 The Silent Threat: The Impact of Fraud on UK National Security


Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland), How the IRS Should Fight the COVID-19 Economic Crisis, 166 Tax Notes Fed. 2067 (Mar. 30, 2020):

Tax Notes Federal (2020)In this article, Blair-Stanek reviews the IRS’s responses — some good, some flawed — to the 2007-2009 financial crisis and draws a clear lesson to guide the agency’s responses to the economic crisis sparked by COVID-19.

Conclusion
Warren Buffett famously observed, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” I could only speculate what economic fault lines the COVID-19 pandemic will reveal. But we will doubtless find that some harsh tax law requirements are worsening the economic crisis. Tax authorities like the IRS should not simply suspend enforcing those requirements; instead, they should temporarily move to a rule that requires taxpayers to compensate the government in proportion to their violation, thus preventing windfalls and abuse, and making broad, clear relief politically palatable.


Kaufman, Zachary D., Digital Age Samaritans (December 1, 2020). Boston College Law Review, Vol. 62, No. 4, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3741017

“Modern technology enables people to view, document, and share evidence of crimes contemporaneously or soon after commission. Electronic transmission of this material — including through social media and mobile devices — raises legal, moral, and practical questions about spectators’ responsibilities. In the digital age, will these actors be bystanders or upstanders? 

What role can and should the law play in shaping their behavior? This Article argues that certain witnesses who are not physically present at the scene of a crime should be held criminally accountable for failing to report specified violent offenses. Focusing on rape, police brutality, and other misconduct, this Article demonstrates that recent technological innovations create new opportunities and challenges to pursue justice and accountability. Such culpability centers on “Bad Samaritan laws”: statutes that impose a legal duty to assist others in peril through intervening directly (also known as “the duty to rescue”) or notifying authorities (also known as “the duty to report”). 

However, many of these antiquated laws arguably apply only to witnesses who are physically present, which limits their potential effectiveness today. Not all virtual witnesses should be subject to liability. To consider which categories of actors may warrant criminal punishment, this Article introduces a novel typology of bystanders and upstanders in the digital age. This typology draws on an original case study of the first known sexual crime livestreamed in the United States by a third party, which more than 700 people viewed. Harnessing insights from that case study and other episodes, the Article recommends that legislators should modernize, refine, and proliferate Bad Samaritan laws and that law enforcement should enforce these statutes or leverage them to obtain witness testimony. To that end, the Article proposes a model duty-to-report statute that includes features such as applicability to virtual presence and reasoned exemptions for noncompliance.”


In this Map of First Peoples Poetry you can begin anywhere. Each location marker reveals a Native Nations poet and features an image, biography, and a link to hear the poet recite and comment on an original poem. This body of work forms the foundation of a “Living Nations, Living Words” online collection in the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center.” [h/t Jackie Royce]




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