As a member of the Tax Section, you will have numerous opportunities to research and learn more about tax policy problems that affect your daily practice. You can participate regularly in the preparation of our reports and commentaries. You’ll gain a broader perspective and help influence the law.
The best way for you to get deeply involved in the Tax Section’s work is by joining one or more of our 24 standing committees, listed below. Each committee analyzes issues and new developments within a particular area of the tax law. It is by joining a committee that you will become part of the group that is notified about, and can participate in preparation of, the Tax Section’s report in the area of the tax law that the committee oversees.
The members of a committee are notified each time the Tax Section begins work on a report that analyzes a topic that falls within the subject matter covered by that committee, and are given the opportunity to join the working group that will prepare the report. The areas covered by different committees may overlap, with the result that members of multiple committees often may work on the same report. By preparing reports and submitting them to Congress, the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the New York State Legislature, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, and the New York City Department of Finance, Tax Section members play a key part in improving the tax law.
The Tax Section’s 24 standing committees are listed below. For each committee, we have provided an illustrative list of the areas that the committee’s members review and analyze and for which they participate in writing reports:
You must be a member of NYSBA and the Tax Section prior to joining a committee.
Attributes – Calculation, adjustment, and limitation of the use of loss carryovers, tax credits, basis and other tax attributes.
Bankruptcy and Operating Losses – Tax treatment of corporations and other taxpayers that enter into bankruptcy, including protection of their tax attributes and special issues arising under the consolidated group rules for such taxpayers; cancellation of indebtedness income and related exemptions; and application of IRC section 382 “ownership change” rules to corporation’s net operating loss and capital loss carryovers.
Compliance, Practice & Procedure – Issues concerning examinations and investigations by tax authorities; professional requirements for tax advisors; standards for return preparation; and penalties and relief rules.
Consolidated Returns – Calculation of items included consolidated taxable income or loss; stock basis and earnings and profits of members of a consolidated group; deferred intercompany transactions and excess loss accounts; treatment of members entering or departing a group; and continuation or termination of consolidated groups.
Corporations – Questions concerning subchapter C, including the taxation of dividends, the dividends received deduction and limits on it, and adjustments to earnings and profits; treatment of the formation, liquidation and capitalization of corporations; requirements to qualify as, and treatment of, an S corporation; and other corporate tax issues.
Cross-Border Capital Markets – The U.S. withholding tax rules for dividends, interest and other payments; availability of a foreign tax credit for foreign taxes on payments; application of conduit and hybrid rules to capital markets transactions; and applicable information reporting and procedural rules.
Cross-Border M&A – Application of Section 367 and the inversion rules to cross-border acquisitions, mergers, spin-offs and joint ventures; tax considerations for cross-border acquisition financing; pre- and post-acquisition restructuring.
Debt-Financing and Securitization – Deductibility of interest; debt-equity analysis; classification and treatment of special purpose financing vehicles and security arrangements; and other issues related to financing transactions.
Estates and Trusts – Gift and estate tax, including rules on applicable exemptions, deductions and valuation; classification of trusts; and the treatment of transactions entered into by estates and trusts with related and unrelated parties.
Financial Instruments – The original issue discount rules and other regimes for computing interest income and expense and gain and loss with respect to debt instruments; treatment of options, forward contracts, swaps and other derivatives, including timing and character of income and loss; taxation of cryptocurrency and other digital assets; rules applicable to traders and dealers in securities and other financial instruments; and the wash sale rules and other loss limitations.
“Inbound” U.S. Activities of Foreign Taxpayers – BEAT and other rules limiting base erosion; U.S. withholding and branch profits taxes; FIRPTA; rules for determining the existence of a U.S. trade or business and calculation of effectively connected income; and application of treaties, including limitation on benefits clauses and other limits on availability of treaty relief.
Individuals – Deductions available to individuals and applicable limitations, including the federal deduction for certain state taxes and rules concerning pass-through entity taxes; passive activity loss and at risk rules; net investment income, employment, and self-employment taxes; and other issues of particular relevance to individual taxpayers.
Investment Funds – Formation and structuring of funds and their investments, including private equity and hedge funds; issues for fund sponsors; treatment of carried interest and incentive arrangements for sponsors and managers; and issues faced by limited partners, including U.S. tax-exempt investors, foreign governments, and foreign non-governmental investments.
New York City Taxes – New York City corporate and individual income tax, unincorporated business tax, MCTMT, real property transfer tax and other issues.
New York State Taxes – New York State nexus issues; P.L. 86-272; income sourcing, allocation and apportionment rules; availability and limitations on tax credits and other tax incentives; and procedures for conduct of examinations and collection of unpaid state tax.
“Outbound” Foreign Activities of U.S. Taxpayers – Rules applying to Subpart F income and GILTI; PTEP; stock basis adjustments for U.S. shareholders of controlled foreign corporations (CFCs); taxation of distributions by CFCs and other foreign corporations, including applicable dividends received deductions and foreign tax credit rules; passive foreign investment companies; treatment of corporate reorganizations involving foreign corporations; foreign branches and the FDII regime; foreign currency issues; and cross-border joint ventures.
Partnerships – Analysis of partnership allocations under Sections 704(b) and (c); treatment of transfers of property and services to and from partnerships, and treatment of partnerships under tax rules of general application, including Section 163 and the rules concerning clean energy and other tax credits; partnership mergers and divisions; cross-border joint ventures; PTPs; allocation of partnership liabilities; and the partnership antiabuse rule and related rules.
Pass-Through Entities – Treatment of a range of pass-through entities and holders of interests in those entities, including grantor trusts, S corporations, partnerships, REMICs, REITs, RICs and other vehicles that are transparent or provide generally for a single level of tax.
Real Property – Issues related to acquisition, ownership and disposition of interests in real property and vehicles owning those interests, including REITs; FIRPTA; treatment of foreign governmental investors; issues for tax-exempt investors including under Sections 512 and 514; and application of the passive activity loss and at risk rules.
Reorganizations – Treatment of domestic and foreign corporations participating in nontaxable reorganizations and their shareholders; treatment of boot and liability assumptions; issues faced by insolvent corporations; and the development and application of common-law requirements and principles and related issues.
Spin-Offs – Development and application of requirements and practice in corporate separation transactions governed by Section 355; “Morris Trust” transactions; issues for cross-border spin-off transactions; treatment of corporate attributes including earnings and profits, loss and credit carryovers and asset basis in spin-offs; and application of the consolidated return rules in the context of spin-off transactions.
Tax Exempt Entities – Qualification for and maintenance of tax-exempt status; reporting rules and penalties; UBTI and UDFI; joint ventures and other transactions between tax-exempt and taxable entities; and requirements for tax deductible donations.
Taxable Acquisitions – Consequences of domestic and cross-border stock and asset sales; issues related to Section 338(g), 338(h)(10) and 336(e) elections; treatment of earnouts and contingent liabilities and assets; application of Sections 168 and 197 in the acquisition context; and consolidated return rules related to taxable M&A transactions.
Treaties and Intergovernmental Agreements – U.S. and other model income tax treaties; existence of and attribution of income to permanent establishments; tax residence; limitation on benefits tests; anticonduit and other antiavoidance rules; relationship between treaties and U.S. tax statutes; nondiscrimination and related issues; and international information sharing and other agreements.