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    James P. Witt

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    CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: History and the Application of the Second Amendment

    Posted by James P. Witt on Wed, Dec 15, 2021 @ 10:12 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 46 No 7

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                Historical background has always played an important role in the development of case law under the U.S. Constitution. With the emergence of original-intent theory, history, especially the legal history of England, has become even more influential. This point is exemplified by the continuing questions that arise over the interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, "Keeping and Bearing Arms—A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "

                The case law that has developed under the Second Amendment has largely focused on issues arising in the context of a state's right to raise and maintain a militia, with no U.S. Supreme Court decision dealing with the extent of an individual's right to bear arms. This changed in 2008, however, when Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), in which the Supreme Court affirmed the right of an individual to keep arms in the home for self-defense.

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    Topics: constitutional law, James P. Witt, second amendment, individual's right to bear arms, self-defense

    TAX: Sales Tax Pandemic—Facemasks

    Posted by James P. Witt on Mon, Sep 13, 2021 @ 12:09 PM

    The Lawletter Vol 46 No 5

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                In addition to the direct health issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, given the economic disruption the pandemic has caused, it is obvious that the pandemic will indirectly be giving rise to countless legal issues (for instance, in the construction/real estate field alone, with government mandates halting some projects and granting waivers as to others, and with issues related to supply chain, employee safety, construction disputes, defaults, loans, and leases, there will be important questions up for decision for a long time to come). As exemplified by the case of McLean v. Big Lots Inc., No. 2:20-CV-02000-MJH, 2021 WL 2317417 (W.D. Pa. June 7, 2021), however, there will also be COVID-19-related cases concerning far less momentous topics.

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    Topics: James P. Witt, sales tax, pandemic, face masks

    ESTATES: Multiple Wills—Reconciliation—Choice of Personal Representative

    Posted by James P. Witt on Tue, Feb 2, 2021 @ 11:02 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 46 No 1

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                Once in a while, the estate planning steps taken by a decedent make you wonder if he or she was intentionally leaving a mess. When Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, died as a result of pancreatic cancer at age 76 on August 16, 2018, no will was filed. Her family believed that she had died intestate. If that had been the case, her net estate would have simply been divided under Michigan law into four equal shares, one for each of her sons, Clarence, Edward, Ted, and Kecalf. In May 2019, however, the family discovered three wills written by Franklin, two from 2010 were found in a locked cabinet, and one from 2014 was found in a spiral notebook left under a couch cushion. The wills seemed fairly evenhanded as among the four sons, but there were questions raised as to the documents' validity by a number of contradictory provisions and the problem with deciphering some of the writing, not to mention numerous underlinings, strikeouts, and marginal notes; much of the writing seemed to be in a stream of consciousness mode.

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    Topics: James P. Witt, estate planning, multiple wills, reconciliation, personal representative

    CORONAVIRUS: Hoarding During the Pandemic

    Posted by James P. Witt on Fri, Dec 18, 2020 @ 11:12 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 45 No 6

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                While the as yet unexplained hoarding of toilet paper may be thought of as the light side of the coronavirus pandemic, on the not-so-light side is the hoarding of medical supplies, notably drugs and medical equipment such as masks and ventilators. The federal government has taken two steps in this regard—first, an Executive Order from the President, and, second, a warning from the Department of Justice.

                Executive Order No. 13910, 85 FR 17001, "Preventing Hoarding of Health and Medical Resources to Respond to the Spread of COVID-19" (Mar. 23, 2020), was announced under the authority of the Constitution and the Defense Production Act of 1950 (the "Act"), as amended (50 U.S.C. §§ 4501 et seq.).

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    Topics: James P. Witt, COVID-19, presidential orders, hoarding, Defense Production Act

    WILLS: Succession to the Estate of French Rock Star Johnny Hallyday

    Posted by James P. Witt on Thu, Aug 1, 2019 @ 10:08 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 44 No 5

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                Johnny Hallyday ("Johnny"), an iconic French rock star for six decades,  modeled himself on Elvis Presley and James Dean. He died on December 6, 2017, leaving an estate possibly worth over $100 million. Born Jean-Philippe Smet, he adopted the last name of an uncle and was survived by his fourth wife, Laeticia, whom he married in 1996 when she was 21. Johnny's first wife was Sylvie Vartan, who was one of a group of French popstars in the sixties known as the Yeh-Yeh Girls. He also had a liaison with French actress Nathalie Baye, with whom he had one of his two older children, Laura Smet. The other older child is David Hallyday. Two younger children were adopted from Vietnam by Johnny and Laeticia.

                A controversy arose concerning the proper jurisdiction over the estate. Johnny built a house in Los Angeles and spent a good portion of his last seven years in California, where he indulged his passion for motorcycles. He executed a will in California under which he left his entire estate to Laeticia, thereby disinheriting all of his children, apparently believing that his two older children were wealthy in their own right and that the younger ones would be well-provided for by Laeticia. Under California Probate Code § 21621, a parent may disinherit a child if that intention is manifested in the testamentary instrument.

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    Topics: wills, James P. Witt, succession, Johnny Hallyday, jurisdiction over estate

    TAX: Minimum Contacts Necessary for Taxation of Trust

    Posted by James P. Witt on Wed, Mar 20, 2019 @ 09:03 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 44 No 3

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                In Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust v. North Carolina Department of Revenue, ___ N.C. App. ___, 789 S.E.2d 645, aff'd, ___ N.C. ___, 814 S.E.2d 43 (2018), cert. granted sub nom. North Carolina Department of Revenue v. Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, No. 18-457, 2019 WL 166876 (U.S. Jan. 11, 2019) the court addressed the issue of whether North Carolina's taxation under North Carolina General Statutes § 105-160.2 of the income accumulated by the trust in question met the minimum contacts requirement of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution where the trust's only connection with North Carolina was the residence and domicile of the beneficiary.

                The Trust, the Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, was established by Joseph Lee Rice III, with William B. Matteson as trustee. The situs of the trust was New York. The primary beneficiaries of the trust were the settlor's descendants (none of whom lived in North Carolina at the time of the trust's creation).

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    Topics: trusts, tax law, minimum contacts, taxing jurisdiction

    ESTATES: Succession to the Estate of Charles Manson

    Posted by James P. Witt on Mon, Nov 12, 2018 @ 10:11 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 43 No 6

    Jim Witt—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                In 1971, Charles Manson (“Manson”), the leader of the Manson Family cult, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of nine people in July and August 1969. He was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life with the possibility of parole after the suspension of the death penalty under both California and federal law (California's adoption in 1978 of a death penalty that qualified under federal guidelines and the sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole could not be applied retroactively to Manson). After 46 years of incarceration, Manson died on November 19, 2017 of acute cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, and colon cancer. What has ensued, however, is an estate proceeding that has been complicated by a number of factors:

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    Topics: estates law, domiciliary at death, rights to assets, conflicting wills, Charles Manson

    CONTRACTS:  Obligation to Support Parent Under Taiwanese Law

    Posted by James P. Witt on Mon, Apr 9, 2018 @ 15:04 PM

    The Lawletter Vol. 43 No. 2

    Jim Witt, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

         There is no question that law of a particular country develops in the context of the country's culture, religion, and customs.  A case recently decided by the Supreme Court of Taiwan illustrates this point.  See https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3332521.  The plaintiff, identified as Luo (surname), brought a contract action against her second son, Chu, alleging that he owed her nearly US$1 million for raising him and financing his training at dental school (Chu's brother also completed dental training; he settled a similar claim with the plaintiff).  She claimed that she and her husband had run a dental clinic but that, after the couple's divorce, she raised her sons as a single mother.  As she was concerned that her sons would not provide for her in her old age, she had each son, at age 20, sign a written agreement, providing that her sons would pay her 60% of their net profits until the total reached 50 million new Taiwanese dollars (nearly US$1.7 million).  It is implicit in the Confucian tradition of filial piety that children support their aging parents.

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    Topics: breach of contract, written agreement, Taiwanese customs, children supporting aging parents, financial support agreements

    TAX: U.S. Tax Court Quotes Show Business Celebrity

    Posted by James P. Witt on Fri, Oct 20, 2017 @ 13:10 PM

    The Lawletter Vol 42 No 8

    Jim Witt, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                It is not often, if ever, that the U.S. Tax Court quotes a show business celebrity in its opinions, but it did so in a summary opinion filed on August 16, 2017, in the case of Omoloh v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2017-64, 2017 WL 3530853. The case turned on whether the taxpayer, Wilfred Omoloh, was age 59½ at the time that he took a distribution from his individual retirement account ("IRA"). I.R.C. § 72(t) ("10-percent additional tax on early distributions from qualified retirement plans") provides in subsection that (1) if the taxpayer receives a distribution from a qualified retirement plan such as an IRA, the taxpayer's income tax liability for the year will be increased by an amount equal to 10% of the portion of the distribution includible in gross income. However, under subsection (2), the 10% penalty of subsection (1) shall not apply if the distribution is made on or after the date on which the taxpayer attains age 59½.

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    Topics: tax, distribution, tax liability, taxpayer's age, IRA account

    TAX:  Corporate Income Tax Reform

    Posted by James P. Witt on Fri, May 26, 2017 @ 11:05 AM

    The Lawletter Vol 42 No 4

    Jim Witt, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                The one area of taxation that is recognized on both sides of the political aisle as badly needing reform is the federal corporate income tax.  One fact that signals the need for reform is that the maximum tax rate for the ordinary income of U.S. corporations is at 35% on taxable income exceeding $10 million (Internal Revenue Code of 1986, § 11(b)(1)(D)), among the highest marginal rates in the world (e.g., Ireland 12.5%; Germany 29.65%). As a result, and as prominently reported in recent months, a number of U.S. corporations (notably Apple and Alphabet (Google)) have shifted the locus of intangible assets and/or corporate headquarters to countries with favorable tax rates (a procedure known as a "corporate inversion"). United States corporations are subject to federal income tax on their global profits, but by not repatriating their profits attributable to a foreign situs, those corporations avoid paying taxes by simply not bringing those profits back to the United States.

                The central feature of the current proposals for corporate income tax reform is to change the incidence of the tax from one on the corporation's profits to a tax on the corporation's cash flow, regardless of the location of the corporation's headquarters or intangible assets. The tax, characterized as a "destination cash flow tax with border adjustment" or a "border adjustment tax" (“BAT”), would eliminate any benefit now gained by a corporation's parking its profits in a favorable tax jurisdiction (the tax would be imposed in the year of the sale, not in the year of the repatriation of profits). It is the border adjustment feature of the tax that becomes the key. The determining factor becomes where the corporation's products are sold.

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    Topics: tax law, U.S. high rate on taxable income, corporate income, tax reform, location of corporate headquarters

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