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So far Richard Keyt has created 75 blog entries.

Too Often a Law Degree Today is a Bad Investment

Last week I read a blog post on a law professor’s blog in which he notified the world that the University of Alabama law school was starting a new  program offering lawyers a masters degree in law (LL.M.) in tax law.   Although the law school has offered a masters in tax degree since 1977, this new program will allow students to take all of the courses online over the internet. The ivory tower prof who wrote the post proudly announced not only the beginning of the new law school program, he also linked to a brochure about the new program, linked to a video about the new program, gave the class schedule and an email address at the University of Alabama where people could send messages for more information.  Makes me wonder why the prof is shilling so hard for the new program.  I suspect he thinks it is wonderful that more young lawyers will be able to  go deeper into debt to get a masters degree in tax law.  I’ve got news for him, the view from the ivory tower is much different than the view from the trenches where young lawyers must seek employment.

After reading the blog post on the new LL.M. in tax program I submitted a comment to the ivory tower guy’s post that was critical of the new masters in tax program, but he refused to publish my comment .   He probably didn’t want anybody to rain on his law school is  the greatest thing and masters in tax degrees are the ultimate parade.  A few days later I sent the prof a message asking why he would not publish my comment.  He didn’t have the courtesy to answer my question.  The following is the comment that I submitted to ivory tower guy that he refused to publish as a comment:

Adding a new LL.M. in tax program is absurd at this time.  There is no need for more tax LL.M.s  I’ve read recently that laws schools are graduating around 70,000 prospective lawyers a year, but the legal market is only hiring 40,000 new lawyers.  I have an LL.M. in tax from New York University, and I just don’t see the need for more lawyers with this degree. (more…)

Amazon Tax Signals Business Unfriendliness & Will Worsen Short-Term Budget Problems

In their never-ending thirst to raise tax money to pay for their unlimited spending habits, some states have adopted what is called the “Amazon” tax and others are considering it.  This is a tax on online companies that have no connection with a state, but are required to collect and pay sales taxes on sales within the state if the online company has affiliates within the state who earn commissions on in state sales.  It’s called the “Amazon” tax because Amazon is the most well known online business that makes sales using affiliates.

Currently New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Colorado have adopted Amazon taxes.  These laws are unconstitutional and violate the law of the United States expressed in the famous Supreme Court case called International Shoe Co. vs Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945) learned by every first year law student since 1945.  This case held that a state cannot tax an out of state business unless the out of state business has sufficient minimum contacts within the taxing state.  International Shoe established the concept of ‘nexus,” which means that an out of state business cannot be taxed within a state unless the out of state business has  minimum contacts within the state such as an office or a single employee that resides in the state or that goes into the state regularly on business.

The Tax Foundation published a detailed article on this topic called “Amazon Tax Signals Business Unfriendliness & Will Worsen Short-Term Budget Problems.”  This article begins:

Contrary to the claims of supporters, Amazon taxes do not provide easy revenue.  In fact, the nation’s first few Amazon taxes have not produced any revenue at all, and there is some evidence of lost revenue.  For instance, Rhode Island has seen no additional sales tax revenue from its Amazon tax, and because Amazon reacted by discontinuing its affiliate program, Rhode Islanders are earning less income and paying less income tax.

When I first heard about this type of tax I predicted that the result would be less tax revenue for the states that adopt it because the online businesses would terminate their affiliate programs with affiliates who reside in the taxing states with the result that the affiliate would no longer earn revenue and the taxing state would lose the income tax revenue on the lost income of the affiliate.  The Tax Foundation reports supports my earlier prediction.  It’s the law of unintended consequences that results from all legislation.  Frequently laws have an affect that is the opposite of the legislative intent.

Update:  See the interesting post made by the Tax Foundation on March 10, 2010, about the reaction to its Amazon tax paper and on these significant developments:

The Criminalization of Almost Everything

The Cato Institute published an article called “The Criminalization of Almost Everything.”  It discusses a subject that important in a free country, but it is ignored by the main stream media that is too busy stalking Tiger Woods and Paris Hilton.  The subject is that federal state and local governments have passed so many laws that is it impossible to live a normal life without constantly violating laws of which we are totally unaware.

For example, did you know that there is a federal law (the Lacey Act) that says it is a crime to possess certain types of wood?  See “Wood Police Raid Gibson Guitar Plant.”  Are you sure your home and office are free of all federally controlled woods such as wood from Madagascar?  Check your wood immediately before the feds swat team breaks down your door and arrests you for being a wood perp.  Just say no to Madagascar wood!  You say you and the rest of the citizens of the United States can’t tell Madagascar wood from Canadian wood, but that’s just tough tennis shoes.  The law is the law and ignorance is no excuse.  You will go to jail if the frame around the picture of your family is made from an illegal wood.

The Cato article begins:

When laws grow so voluminous and vague that they oppress those who live under them, society can become as unlivable as if it were lawless. Subject to the arbitrary scrutiny of prosecutors overcome by ambition for their own 15 minutes of fame, ordinary citizens face the horrors of becoming criminal defendants. At a Cato Book Forum in October, Harvey Silverglate, author of Three Felonies a Day, and Tim Lynch, editor of In the Name of Justice and director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice, discussed the growing threat of federal criminal law.

An average, busy professional gets up in the morning, gets the kids to school, goes to work, uses the telephone or e-mail, has meetings, works on a prospectus or bank loan, goes home, puts the kids to bed, has dinner, reads the newspaper, goes to sleep, and has no idea that, in the course of that day, he or she has very likely committed three felonies. Three felonies that some ambitious, creative prosecutor can pick out from that day’s activities and put into an indictment.

An excellent article on this topic is “Where were you when wood became a felony?”  See also “Confronting Big Cereal, unregulated garage sales, and other evils.”

Swiss to Vote on Giving Animals Legal Rights, Including the Right to Have a Government Lawyer if the Animal Cannot Afford One

Tomorrow the citizens of Switzerland will vote on whether to give all Swiss animals increased legal rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney.  I’m not kidding!  Switzerland currently gives  its animals more protections that perhaps any other country in the world.  If the referendum passes, all of Switzerland’s cantons (territorial divisions of the country similar to a city or county) will be required to pay for lawyers to represent animals.  Proponents of the new law say that if a person who has been accused of mistreating an animal is able to hire an attorney then the abused animal (the victim) should also be represented by a lawyer.  Does that mean that if a Swiss dog bites and injures a person, can the injured victim sue the dog who would have a court appointed lawyer and if the victim prevails in court, would the dog be liable for damages that would then be paid by the Swiss government?

Here are some eye-popping current requirements of Swiss animal law:

  • Before acquiring a dog, the prospective owner(s) must take a course on dogs that lasts four hours.
  • If an animal breed is social, i.e., needs companionship, the owner(s) of that type of animal must also have at least other animal of the same type so that the animals will have a companion.  Animals that must have companions include fish, birds and the ever popular yaks.
  • Fish aquariums and cages for birds are required to have not less than one side that is opaque so that the fish or bird feels safe.
  • You cannot simply kill a sick fish by throwing it in the trash or flushing it down the toilet, you must whack it with a killing head shot or poison it in water and  clove oil dissolved in alcohol.
  • Perps found guilty of cruelty to an animal can be sent to the big house for as much as three years.

Let’s hope that Congress and the U.S. trial lawyers don’t hear about the Swiss animal laws because if they do, we’ll have similar laws here.  Giving U.S. animals a right to a lawyer will put dollar signs in the eyes of the trial lawyers and give a lot of currently unemployed lawyers a job as animal rights specialists.  I can also see a boom in much needed animal rights seminars, books, tapes and law blogs.

Update:  By a huge margin, the Swiss voters rejected the animal rights law.

Unaware of the Laws of Economics, NJ Transit to “Fix” Declining Ridership by Increasing Fares 25% & Cutting Service

Pretend you are on the board of directors of a government owned transit system called NJT.  Times are tough and money is tight.  The board must make some hard decisions that are in the best interest of NJT and the public it serves to deal with the shortage of money.   The governor just reduced NJT’s annual state subsidy of $296 million by $33 million.  The number of people riding on your bus and train systems is down four percent this year.  Which of the following hard choices do you make:

  • reduce the pay of all rank and file employees
  • increase all fares by 25 percent
  • Cut 33 daily trains.
  • Eliminate 3 bus routes
  • increase the amount of time between buses and trains
  • cut 200 jobs
  • reduce contributions to employees’ retirement plans
  • reduce executives’ pay by 5 percent
  • eliminate some discounts and cap other discounts

Faced with the above facts, the New Jersey Transit decided to all of the above except the single one that would have had the biggest affect.  The NJT did not reduce the salary of its rank and file employees.   Are these employees union members?  If so, it would explain why their pay wasn’t reduced, which is what many for profit businesses would do when faced with a huge deficit problem. Instead, the NJT brain power decided to ignore the laws of economics (higher price means reduced sales volume) and give NJT riders the largest fare hike in the history of the NJT.

This reminds me of what the Arizona Diamondbacks did to its fans before the 2009 season.  Up until 2009, I had been a season ticket holder since opening day of the franchise’s first year.  I had four great seats on the bottom level thirteen rows up just beyond first base.  Each seat was $1,743 for the 2008 82 home game season.  For 2009, the Dbacks billed me $2,905, which was just over a 66 percent increase.  Instead of making a small price increase and collecting almost $7,000 from me and my group, we declined to renew the tickets we had held for ten years and the Diamondbacks got nothing from us.  Dbacks attendance was down in 2009 from 2008.  I know probably more than 20 people who were original Diamondback season ticket holders who no longer have season tickets.

Copyright 2009-2015 Richard Keyt
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