Law School

The United States federal state and local tax (SALT) deduction is an itemized deduction that allows taxpayers to deduct certain taxes paid to state and local governments from their adjusted gross income. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 put a $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction for the years 2018–2025. The SALT deduction reduces the cost of state and local taxes to taxpayers. It disproportionately benefits wealthy and high-earning taxpayers in areas with high state and local taxes. The Tax Policy Center estimated in 2016 that fully eliminating the SALT deduction would increase federal revenue by nearly $1.3 trillion over 10 years. Definition. For United States Federal Income Tax purposes, state and local taxes are defined in section 170(a) of the Internal Revenue Code as taxes paid to states and localities in the forms of: (1) real property taxes; (2) personal property taxes; (3) income, war profits, and excess profits taxes; and (4) general sales taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped the use of this itemized deduction at $10,000 ($5,000 for married persons who file separately). Effects. Tax savings from the SALT deduction flow disproportionately to those with high incomes. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2014 88% of the benefit of the SALT deduction accrued to those with incomes above $100,000 and only 1% accrued to those making less than $50,000. The SALT deduction primarily benefits those in high-tax states, which tend to be those with consistent Democratic legislative majorities. In 2016, the ten counties with the largest SALT deductions per filer (on average) were in New York, California, Connecticut and New Jersey. These ten counties are in the New York metropolitan area and San Francisco Bay Area, which have high concentrations of wealth and expensive real estate. Since the deduction was capped at $10,000 in 2017, many homeowners have been unable to deduct thousands of dollars that they previously could, beyond what they pay in property taxes, to state, county and local governments in these places. In 2017, only taxpayers in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey (the states with the first, second, third, and ninth highest GDP per capita) on average sent more than $1,000 each to the federal government above what the state received per capita. Capping the SALT deduction tends to increase this balance of payments deficit. Economic modeling by the economists Gilbert E. Metcalf and Martin Feldstein suggests that eliminating the SALT deduction would have "little if any impact on state and local spending". The economist Edward Gramlich has likewise concluded that eliminating the deduction would have little effect on state and local spending; he also finds that eliminating the deduction would likely not induce many high-income taxpayers to leave low-income communities. A use tax is a type of tax levied in the United States by numerous state governments. It is essentially the same as a sales tax but is applied not where a product or service was sold but where a merchant bought a product or service and then converted it for its own use, without having paid tax when it was initially purchased. Use taxes are functionally equivalent to sales taxes. They are typically levied upon the use, storage, enjoyment, or other consumption in the state of tangible personal property that has not been subjected to a sales tax.

In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated trier of fact, aims to achieve a resolution to their dispute. Types by finder of fact. Where the trial is held before a group of members of the community, it is called a jury trial. Where the trial is held solely before a judge, it is called a bench trial. Hearings before administrative bodies may have many of the features of a trial before a court, but are typically not referred to as trials. An appeal (appellate proceeding) is also generally not deemed a trial, because such proceedings are usually restricted to review of the evidence presented before the trial court, and do not permit the introduction of new evidence. Types by dispute. Trials can also be divided by the type of dispute at issue. Criminal. A criminal trial is designed to resolve accusations brought (usually by a government) against a person accused of a crime. In common law systems, most criminal defendants are entitled to a trial held before a jury. Because the state is attempting to use its power to deprive the accused of life, liberty, or property, the rights of the accused afforded to criminal defendants are typically broad. The rules of criminal procedure provide rules for criminal trials. Civil. A civil trial is generally held to settle lawsuits or civil claims—non-criminal disputes. In some countries, the government can both sue and be sued in a civil capacity. The rules of civil procedure provide rules for civil trials. Administrative. Although administrative hearings are not ordinarily considered trials, they retain many elements found in more "formal" trial settings. When the dispute goes to a judicial setting, it is called an administrative trial, to revise the administrative hearing, depending on the jurisdiction. The types of disputes handled in these hearings are governed by administrative law and auxiliarily by the civil trial law. Labor. Labor law (also known as employment law) is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees. In Canada, employment laws related to unionized workplaces are differentiated from those relating to particular individuals. In most countries however, no such distinction is made. However, there are two broad categories of labor law. First, collective labor law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Second, individual labor law concerns employees' rights at work and through the contract for work. The labor movement has been instrumental in the enacting of laws protecting labor rights in the 19th and 20th centuries. Labour rights have been integral to social and economic development since the industrial revolution. In criminal law, the right to a speedy trial is a human right under which it is asserted that a government prosecutor may not delay the trial of a criminal suspect arbitrarily and indefinitely. Otherwise, the power to impose such delays would effectively allow prosecutors to send anyone to jail for an arbitrary length of time without trial. Although it is important for the protection of speedy trial rights for there to be a court in which a defendant may complain about the unreasonable delay of the trial, it is also important that nations implement structures that avoid the delay.

Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the intent of winning something else of value. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season. The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; for example, a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the Nevada Gaming Control Board. However, this distinction is not universally observed in the English-speaking world. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission (not the Gaming Commission). The word gaming is used more frequently since the rise of computer and video games to describe activities that do not necessarily involve wagering, especially online gaming, with the new usage still not having displaced the old usage as the primary definition in common dictionaries. "Gaming" has also been used to circumvent laws against "gambling". The media and others have used one term or the other to frame conversations around the subjects, resulting in a shift of perceptions among their audiences. Gambling is also a major international commercial activity, with the legal gambling market totaling an estimated $335 billion in 2009. In other forms, gambling can be conducted with materials that have a value, but are not real money. For example, players of marbles games might wager marbles, and likewise games of Pogs or Magic: The Gathering can be played with the collectible game pieces (respectively, small discs and trading cards) as stakes, resulting in a meta-game regarding the value of a player's collection of pieces.

Criminal venue. The perceived abuse of English criminal venue law was one of the enumerated grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence, which accused George III of the United Kingdom of "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses." Article Three of the United States Constitution provides: "Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed." The "where the said Crimes shall have been committed" language refers to the locus delicti, and a single crime may often give rise to several constitutionally permissible venues. "he locus delicti must be determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it." Thus, venue may be constitutionally permissible even if an individual defendant was never personally present in the relevant state. For example, conspiracy may be prosecuted wherever the agreement occurred or wherever any overt act was committed. For the purposes of constitutional venue, the boundaries of the states are questions of law to be determined by the judge, but the location of the crime is a question of fact to be determined by the jury. The venue provision of Article 3 (regulating the location of the trial) is distinct from the Vicinage Clause of the Sixth Amendment (regulating the geography from which the jury pool is selected). The unit of the former is the state; the unit of the later is the state and judicial district. Unlike judicial districts under the Vicinage Clause, consistent with Article III, Congress may "provide a place of trial where none was provided when the offense was committed, or change the place of trial after the commission of the offense." A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread publicity about a crime and its defendants to another community in order to obtain jurors who can be more objective in their duties. This change may be to different towns, and across the other sides of states or, in some extremely high-profile federal cases, to other states. Forum non conveniens (Latin for "an inconvenient forum") (FNC) is a mostly common law legal doctrine through which a court acknowledges that another forum or court where the case might have been brought is a more appropriate venue for a legal case, and transfers the case to such a forum. A change of venue might be ordered, for example, to transfer a case to a jurisdiction within which an accident or incident underlying the litigation occurred and where all the witnesses reside. As a doctrine of the conflict of laws, forum non conveniens applies between courts in different countries and between courts in different jurisdictions in the same country. Forum non conveniens is not applicable between counties or federal districts within a state. A concern often raised in applications of the doctrine is forum shopping, or picking a court merely to gain an advantage in the proceeding. This concern is balanced against the public policy of deferring to a plaintiff's choice of venue in claims where there may be more than one appropriate jurisdiction. The underlying principles, such as basing respect given to foreign courts on reciprocal respect or comity, also apply in civil law systems in the form of the legal doctrine of lis alibi pendens. Forum non conveniens is not exclusive to common law nations: the maritime courts of the Republic of Panama, although not a common law jurisdiction, also have such power under more restrained conditions.

Restraints of trade is a common law doctrine relating to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business. It is a precursor of modern competition law. In an old leading case of Mitchel v Reynolds (1711) Lord Smith LC said, It is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion. A contractual undertaking not to trade is void and unenforceable against the promisor as contrary to the public policy of promoting trade, unless the restraint of trade is reasonable to protect the interest of the purchaser of a business. Restraints of trade can also appear in post-termination restrictive covenants in employment contracts. United States. In the US, the first significant discussion occurred in the Sixth Circuit's opinion by Chief Judge (later US President and still later Supreme Court Chief Justice) William Howard Taft in United States v Addyston Pipe & Steel Company Judge Taft explained the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 as a statutory codification of the English common-law doctrine of restraint of trade, as explicated in such cases as Mitchel v Reynolds. The court distinguished between naked restraints of trade and those ancillary to the legitimate main purpose of a lawful contract and reasonably necessary to effectuation of that purpose. An example of the latter would be a non-competition clause associated with the lease or sale of a bakeshop, as in the Mitchel case. Such a contract should be tested by a "rule of reason," meaning that it should be deemed legitimate if "necessary and ancillary." An example of the naked type of restraint would be the price-fixing and bid-allocation agreements involved in the Addyston case. Taft said that "we do not think there is any question of reasonableness open to the courts to such a contract." The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. During the following century, the Addyston Pipe opinion of Judge Taft has remained foundational in antitrust analysis.

Internet transactions. Through the Internet's history, purchases made over the Internet within the United States have generally been exempt from sales tax, as courts have followed the Supreme Court ruling from Quill Corporation v North Dakota (1992) that a state may only collect sales tax from a business selling products over the Internet if that entity has a physical location in the state. This decision was based on the Dormant Commerce Clause that prevents states from interfering in interstate commerce, unless granted that authority by Congress. Some retailers, like Amazon.com, had voluntarily started collecting sales tax on purchases even from states where they do not have a physical presence. Many states also have a line item on their tax returns allowing the payment of state sales tax when state income tax is filed by an individual or corporation. In May 2013, the Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to collect sales taxes for purchases made online. The legislation would give States the tools to collect sales taxes on cross-State sales transactions. The bill received support from retailers including Walmart and Amazon.com, who have claimed that it is unfair not to require online merchants to collect sales taxes. Groups like the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association have said that requiring online vendors to collect sales taxes will help make brick and mortar retailers more competitive. However, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner stated that it would be difficult to implement such a system due to varying tax codes in different states. The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) spoke out against the bill, along with The Heritage Foundation, which indicated that it would harm Internet commerce and small businesses. Online retailer eBay believes it will hurt some of its sellers and lobbied Congress to exempt businesses that have less than $10 million in out-of-state sales or fewer than 50 employees. The Act failed to pass in either the 112th or 113th Congress. In October 2017, the state of South Dakota petitioned the Supreme Court to abrogate the Quill decision, citing the ease that online retailers can now determine the location and appropriate sales tax for purchases compared to the state of the Internet in 1992. Several online retailers, including Wayfair, Overstock.com and Newegg, submitted petitions in opposition to South Dakota, stating that the impact will be difficult on small and medium-sized retailers that would not have ease of access to these tools. In January 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case South Dakota v Wayfair Incorporated in its 2018 term. Oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court on April 17, 2018. During oral arguments South Dakota's attorney general, Marty Jackley, and the U.S. Solicitor General's representative, Malcolm L Stewart, both posited that if the Court overturns the Quill decision that the ruling must be retroactive and not merely prospective. Several Justices were concerned about the burden that back taxes and ongoing sales and use tax compliance would place on small businesses. On June 21, 2018 the Supreme Court held that states may charge tax on purchases made from out-of-state sellers, even if the seller does not have a physical presence in the taxing state. The court's 5–4 majority decision overturned Quill, ruling that the physical presence rule decided by Quill was 'unsound and incorrect' in the current age of Internet services. Value added tax. There is no value added tax in the United States. There have been proposals to replace some Federal taxes with a value added tax.

Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or incarcerated, and results in the conviction or acquittal of the defendant. Criminal procedure can be either in the form of inquisitorial or adversarial criminal procedure. Basic rights. Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, as opposed to having the defense prove that they are innocent, and any doubt is resolved in favor of the defendant. This provision, known as the presumption of innocence, is required, for example, in the 46 countries that are members of the Council of Europe, under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and it is included in other human rights documents. However, in practice it operates somewhat differently in different countries. Such basic rights also include the right for the defendant to know what offense he or she has been arrested for or is being charged with, and the right to appear before a judicial official within a certain time of being arrested. Many jurisdictions also allow the defendant the right to legal counsel and provide any defendant who cannot afford their own lawyer with a lawyer paid for at the public expense. A fair trial is a trial which is "conducted fairly, justly, and with procedural regularity by an impartial judge". Various rights associated with a fair trial are explicitly proclaimed in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, as well as numerous other constitutions and declarations throughout the world. There is no binding international law that defines what is not a fair trial; for example, the right to a jury trial and other important procedures vary from nation to nation. Fair trial rights. The right to a fair trial has been defined in numerous regional and international human rights instruments. It is one of the most extensive human rights and all international human rights instruments enshrine it in more than one article. The right to a fair trial is one of the most litigated human rights and substantial case law that has been established on the interpretation of this human right. Despite variations in wording and placement of the various fair trial rights, international human rights instruments define the right to a fair trial in broadly the same terms. The aim of the right is to ensure the proper administration of justice. As a minimum the right to fair trial includes the following fair trial rights in civil and criminal proceedings: the right to be heard by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, the right to a public hearing, the right to be heard within a reasonable time, the right to counsel, and, the right to interpretation. States may limit the right to a fair trial or derogate from the fair trial rights only under circumstances specified in the human rights instruments.

In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (for example, a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (for example, a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim. As a civil wrong. In common law jurisdictions, as a civil wrong, fraud is a tort. While the precise definitions and requirements of proof vary among jurisdictions, the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim. Proving fraud in a court of law is often said to be difficult as the intention to defraud is the key element in question. As such, proving fraud comes with a "greater evidentiary burden than other civil claims." This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that some jurisdictions require the victim to prove fraud by clear and convincing evidence. The remedies for fraud may include rescission (for example, reversal) of a fraudulently obtained agreement or transaction, the recovery of a monetary award to compensate for the harm caused, punitive damages to punish or deter the misconduct, and possibly others. In cases of a fraudulently induced contract, fraud may serve as a defense in a civil action for breach of contract or specific performance of contract. Similarly, fraud may serve as a basis for a court to invoke its equitable jurisdiction.

In personam is a Latin phrase meaning "against a particular person". In a lawsuit in which the case is against a specific individual, that person must be served with a summons and complaint (E&W known as Particulars of Claim (CPR 1999) to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the judgment applies to that person and is called an "in personam judgment". In personam is distinguished from in rem, which applies to property or "all the world" instead of a specific person. This technical distinction is important to determine where to file a lawsuit and how to serve a defendant. In personam means that a judgment can be enforceable against the person wherever he or she is. On the other hand, if the lawsuit is to determine title to property (in rem) then the action must be filed where the property exists and is only enforceable there. In rem jurisdiction ("power about or against 'the thing'") is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property (either real or personal) or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in rem assumes the property or status is the primary object of the action, rather than personal liabilities not necessarily associated with the property. A quasi in rem legal action (Latin, "as if against a thing") is a legal action based on property rights of a person absent from the jurisdiction. In the American legal system the state can assert power over an individual simply based on the fact that this individual has property (bank account, debt, share of stock, land) in the state. Quasi in rem jurisdiction does not have much function in the United States any longer. However, in very specific cases, quasi in rem jurisdiction can still be effective. A quasi in rem action is commonly used when jurisdiction over the defendant is unobtainable due to their absence from the state. Any judgment will affect only the property seized, as in personam jurisdiction is unobtainable. Of note, in a quasi in rem case the court may lack personal jurisdiction over the defendant, but it has jurisdiction over the defendant's property. The property could be seized to obtain a claim against the defendant. A judgment based on quasi in rem jurisdiction generally affects rights to the property only between the persons involved and does not "bind the entire world" as does a judgment based on "jurisdiction in rem".

Insurance bad faith is a tort unique to the law of the United States (but with parallels elsewhere, particularly Canada) that an insurance company commits by violating the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" which automatically exists by operation of law in every insurance contract. In common law countries such as Australia and the UK, the issue is usually framed in the context of a failure of the duty of utmost good faith originating in English insurance law, which does not constitute a tort but rather provides the insured a contractual remedy unique to insurance law. If an insurance company violates the implied covenant, the insured person (or "policyholder") may sue the company on a tort claim in addition to a standard breach of contract claim. The contract-tort distinction is significant because as a matter of public policy, punitive or exemplary damages are unavailable for contract claims, but are available for tort claims. In addition, consequential damages for breach of contract are traditionally subject to certain constraints not applicable to compensatory damages in tort actions. The result is that a plaintiff in an insurance bad faith case may be able to recover an amount larger than the original face value of the policy, if the insurance company's conduct was particularly egregious. Historical background. Most laws regulating the insurance industry in the United States are state-specific. In 1869, the Supreme Court of the United States held, in Paul v Virginia (1869), that the United States Congress did not have the authority to regulate insurance under its power to regulate commerce. In the 1930s and 1940s, a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions broadened the interpretation of the Commerce Clause in various ways, which led the U.S. Supreme Court held that federal jurisdiction over interstate commerce did extend to insurance in United States v South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n (1944). In March 1945, the United States Congress expressly reaffirmed its support for state-based insurance regulation by passing the McCarran–Ferguson Act which held that no law that Congress passed should be construed to invalidate, impair or supersede any law enacted by a state regarding insurance. As a result, nearly all regulation of insurance continues to take place at the state level. Such regulation generally comes in two forms. First, each state has an "insurance code" or some similarly named statute which attempts to provide comprehensive regulation of the insurance industry and of insurance policies, a specialized type of contract. State insurance codes generally mandate specific procedural requirements for starting, financing, operating, and winding down insurance companies, and often require insurers to be overcapitalized (relative to other companies in the larger financial services sector) to ensure that they have enough funds to pay claims if the state is hit by multiple natural and man-made disasters at the same time. There is usually a department of insurance or division of insurance responsible for implementing the state insurance code and enforcing its provisions in administrative proceedings against insurers. Second, judicial interpretation of insurance contracts in disputes between policyholders and insurers takes place in the context of the aforementioned insurance-specific statutes as well as general contract law; the latter still exists only in the form of judge-made case law in most states. A few states like California and Georgia have gone farther and attempted to codify all of their contract law (not just insurance law) into statutory law.