The Tax Reform Act of 1986: Impact On Hospitality Industries

In her discussion - The Tax Reform Act Of 1986: Impact On Hospitality Industries - by Elisa S. Moncarz, Associate Professor, the School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University, Professor Moncarz initially states: “After nearly two years of considering the overhaul of the federal tax system, Congress enacted the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The impact of this legislation is expected to affect virtually all individuals and businesses associated with the hospitality industry. This article discusses some of the major provisions of the tax bill, emphasizing those relating to the hospitality service industries and contrasting relevant provisions with prior law on their positive and negative effects to the industry. “On October 22, 1986, President Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA 86) with changes so pervasive that a recodification of the income tax laws became necessary…,” Professor Moncarz says in providing a basic history of the bill. Two, very important paragraphs underpin TRA 86, and this article. They should not be under-estimated. The author wants you to know: “With the passage of TRA 86, the Reagan administration achieved the most important single domestic initiative of Reagan's second term, a complete restructuring of the federal tax system in an attempt to re-establish fairness in the tax code…,” an informed view, indeed. “These changes will result in an estimated shift of over $100 billion of the tax burden from individuals to corporations over the next five years [as of this article],” Professor Moncarz enlightens. “…TRA 86 embraces a conversion to the view that lowering tax rates and eliminating or restricting tax preferences (i.e., loopholes) “would be more economically and socially productive.” Hence, economic decisions would be based on economic efficiency as opposed to tax effect,” the author asserts. “…both Congress and the administration recognized from its inception that the reform of the tax code must satisfy three basic goals,” and these goals are identified for you. Professor Moncarz outlines the positive impact TRA 86 will have on the U.S. economy in general, but also makes distinctions the ‘Act will have on specific segments of the business community, with a particular eye toward the hospitality industry and food-service in particular. Professor Moncarz also provides graphs to illustrate the comparative tax indexes of select companies, encompassing the years 1883-through-1985. Deductibility and its importance are discussed as well. The author foresees Limited Partnerships, employment, and even new hotel construction and/or rehabilitation being affected by TRA 86. The article, as one would assume from this type of discussion, is liberally peppered with facts and figures.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 : another answer to the Scottish land question

Peer reviewed

Environmental liabilities in insolvency:an area ripe for reform?

Purpose: The paper examines the question whether legislative reform is the ‘silver bullet’ for the problems generated by the failure of a company which is exposed to claims arising from the non-fulfilment of its environmental obligations. The limited capacity of the United Kingdom insolvency regime to facilitate the fulfilment of a debtor company's environmental obligations is often illustrated with reference to some significant judicial decisions. However, no real picture has emerged of the frequency with which these issues arise, based on which firm proposals for reform could be advanced. This paper argues that greater regard should be paid to existing mechanisms which provide a means of enabling insolvency risks to be managed or minimised, as these point towards the scope for these issues to be resolved through the environmental protection framework rather than through reliance on company and/or insolvency law. Design/methodology/approach: Research was conducted into the statutory and non-statutory regulations (such as statutory guidance), and case law principles, which underpin the treatment of the claims against an insolvent (or potentially insolvent) company resulting from its environmental activities. This included research into policies which have a bearing on this area, developed through governmental and civic consultations and studies. Findings: The paper concludes that the likelihood of a case for legislative reform being made out is weak, and the focus should accordingly shift to strengthening the effectiveness of existing law, policy and practice. Originality/value: This paper is the first (in the United Kingdom context) to challenge the perceived need for reform in this area, engaging with recent examples of such corporate failures and the impact of recent legislative and policy developments.

The Land of the Savior: Óscar Romero and the Reform of Agriculture

This study approaches Óscar Romero by attending to his intimate involvement in and concern for the problematic surrounding the reform of Salvadoran agriculture and the conflict over property and possession underlying it. In this study, I situate Romero in relation to the concentration of landholding and the production of landlessness in El Salvador over the course of the twentieth century, and I examine his participation in the longstanding societal and ecclesial debate about agrarian reform provoked by these realities. I try to show how close attention to agrarian reform and what was at stake in it can illumine not only the conflict that occasioned Romero’s martyrdom but the meaning of the martyrdom itself.

Understanding Romero’s involvement in the debate about agrarian reform requires sustained attention to how it takes its bearings from the line of thinking about property and possession for which Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum stands as a new beginning. The enclyclical tradition developing out of Leo’s pontificate is commonly referred to as Catholic social doctrine or Catholic social teaching. Romero’s and the Church’s participation in the debate about agrarian reform in El Salvador is unintelligible apart from it.

What Romero and the encyclical tradition share, I argue, is an understanding of creation as a common gift, from which follows a distinctive construal of property and the demands of justice with respect to possessing it. On this view, property does not name, as it is often taken to mean, the enclosure of what is common for the exclusive use of its possessors—something to be held by them over and against others. Rather, property and everything related to its holding derive from the claim that creation is a gift given to human creatures in common. The acknowledgement of creation as a common gift gives rise to what I describe in this study as a politics of common use, of which agrarian reform is one expression.

In Romero’s El Salvador, those who took the truth of creation as common gift seriously—those who spoke out against or opposed the ubiquity of the concentration of land and who clamored for agrarian reform so that the landless and land-poor could have access to land to cultivate for subsistence—suffered greatly as a consequence. I argue that, among other things, their suffering shows how, under the conditions of sin and violence, those who work to ensure that others have access to what is theirs in justice often risk laying down their lives in charity. In other words, they witness to the way that God’s work to restore creation has a cruciform shape. Therefore, while the advocacy for agrarian reform begins with the understanding of creation as common gift, the testimony to this truth in word and in deed points to the telos of the gift and the common life in the crucified and risen Lord in which it participates

Major new mental health law long awaited

Opinion and Analysis: Major new mental health law long awaited

An Evidence-Based Approach to Access Reform (Working Paper 22)

In August 2000, the federal government began an internal review of the Access to Information Act (ATIA). The ATIA gives Canadians a qualified right of access to records held by federal institutions. Decisions about reform should be based on good evidence about the operation of the Act and the likely impact of proposed reforms. This paper describes how data on ATIA operations is collected by federal institutions and provides a guide to academic researchers interested in conducting empirical research on the operation of the law. It constructs a small dataset that describes the processing of a sample of 663 requests received in 1999, and uses this dataset to illustrate the potential of an evidence-based approach to ATIA reform. The dataset can be downloaded from http://evidence.foilaw.net. The project was supported by a $4,800 grant from the Principal’s Development Fund of Queen’s University awarded in May 2001. Comments should be sent to the principal investigator, Alasdair Roberts, at roberts@policystudies.ca.

US Asset-Backed Securities – Regulatory Reform, Dodd-Frank and Final Rules

This chapter examines the new rules proposed under regulatory reform since the credit crisis of 2008-09, including the major proposals of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 and some of the Final Rules thereto.

Migrant domestic workers, vulnerability and the law: immigration and employment laws in Cyprus and Spain

The intersection of gender, welfare and immigration regimes has been one of the main focus of a rich scholarship on paid domestic work in Europe. This article brings into the discussion the nexus of employment and immigration law regimes to reflect on the role of legal regulation in structuring and reducing the vulnerability of domestic workers. I analyse this nexus by looking at the cases of Cyprus and Spain, two states falling under the cluster of Southern Mediterranean welfare regimes, that share certain characteristics in terms of immigration regimes, but have substantially different employment law regulation models. The first part sketches the debate on the employment law regulation of domestic work. The second part starts by giving an overview of the immigration regimes of Cyprus and Spain in relation to migrant domestic workers and then proceeds to analyse the two countries’ models and substance of employment law regulation in domestic work. The comparison of these two divergent approaches informs the debate on how the legal regulation of domestic work should be best structured. In Spain there have been recent dynamic legislative changes in the employment law regulation of domestic work. The final part of the article traces these changes and reflects on why such processes have not taken place in Cyprus.

Proposals from Berlin and Paris – Intermediary Liability in European Copyright Law

Two very different proposals on copyright policy – one a privately drafted document, the other a governmental report – are published in this edition of JIPITEC. There is an interesting point of intersection between them because they both consider the difficult question of the liability of online intermediaries for users’ infringements. The first document is “The Berlin Gedankenexperiment on the Restructuring of Copyright Law and Authors Rights”. This is a wide-ranging proposal for a complete recasting of the legal system that promotes the production of, and controls the use of, creative goods. The second policy document has a more limited focus. The French High Council for Literary and Artistic Property (“CSPLA”)’s Mission to Link Directives 2000/31 and 2001/29 – Report and Proposals (“Mission Report”) aims to provide a persuasive intervention in current policy discussions at European Union level concerning the liability or, more appropriately, the non-liability, of online intermediaries for copyright infringement. In this brief introduction, I outline the scope of both proposals and reflect briefly on their recommendations.

The distinctive politics of campaign finance reform

This article presents a unified theory explaining several conflicting empirical observations in the politics of campaign finance. It identifies those circumstances that foster or frustrate the enactment of financing laws that increase the competitiveness of elections. I argue that the competitiveness of financing laws is a result of three strong incentives when they operate in differently structured party systems. First, lawmakers have an incentive to make laws to protect their incumbency from competitors. This incentive generally overwhelms the (weaker) incentive to enact popular, competition-enhancing reforms. Secondly, lawmakers, when they act through political parties, have an incentive to cooperate with rivals to reduce the costs of political defeats. Thirdly, lawmakers seek to enact reforms that are consistent with their normative goals. These incentives combine with several party system variables to determine when campaign finance reform is likely to occur and how it will impact on the competitiveness of elections.

Has the Financial Services Reform Act fixed the problems with the regulation of securities and derivatives?

The Financial Services Reform Act 2001 (Cth) introduced new definitions of“derivative” and “financial product” into the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), andreplaced the separate regulatory regimes governing futures contracts andsecurities with a single financial markets authorisation regime and a singleintermediary licensing regime. This article examines the reforms to evaluatewhether they have been successful. It is argued that there are definiteimprovements resulting from the reforms, and the scope for regulatoryarbitrage has been greatly reduced. However, numerous problems remain.There are significant differences in the regulation of securities and deriva-tives. The distinction between securities and derivatives is still based on legalcharacteristics, not economic function. There is uncertainty as to the exactscope and interaction of the definitions, particularly with respect to equityderivatives, warrants and options. The current law has thus not fullyaddressed many of the problems that existed prior to the reforms.

Nonprofit Boards in Australia: A Distinctive Governance Appoach

This article reports the findings into patterns of governance on nonprofit boards in Australia. The research surveys 118 boards, upon which serve a total of 1405 directors. The findings indicate that nonprofit boards can mimic some aspects of a shareholder approach to governance. But nonprofit boards, in the main, indicate priorities and activities of a stakeholder approach to governance. The features of `isomorphism' that arise largely stem from legislative requirements in corporate governance. Generally, nonprofit directors are influenced by agenda and motivations that can be differentiated from the influences upon director activity in the corporate sector. The study indicates that nonprofit boards prize knowledge and loyalty to the sector when considering board composition. The survey suggests nonprofits ``compensate'' for the demands placed upon them about fiduciary duty and due diligence responsibilities with the diverse intellectual expertise of non-executive directors. Nonprofit boards possess greater diversity than boards in the corporate sector; they include more women as directors than corporate boards and they include a greater proportion of directors from minority groups. While strategic issues feature significantly as a task of the nonprofit board, they distinguish themselves from their corporate counterparts by engaging in operational management. The findings indicate that, in the main, directors on nonprofit boards deliberate and operate in ways distinctive from their corporate counterparts. Such findings offer a contribution to the reform of Corporations Law in other countries and the likely consequence on boards outside the corporate sector.