Tax treatment of cafeteria plans. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Treasury. Final regulations

This document contains final regulations relating to section 125 cafeteria plans. The final regulations clarify the circumstances under which a section 125 cafeteria plan election may be changed. The final regulations permit an employer to allow a section 125 cafeteria plan participant to revoke an existing election and make a new election during a period of coverage for accident or health coverage or group-term life insurance coverage.     

Tax policy as social policy: cafeteria plans, 1978-1985

Since the passage of Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code in 1978, cafeteria plans have offered employees a choice of tax-free fringe benefits. Although these plans have been popular with employers and employees, Treasury Department officials and many tax lawyers soon came to regard Section 125 as a mistake. The Treasury has tried to reclaim through regulation the revenue and the fundamental principles of tax law it had asked Congress to give away in 1978. This paper is a history of Section 125 that emphasizes its relationship to health policy. On the basis of interviews and printed primary sources, the paper argues that Treasury officials made a less than rigorous assessment of the impact of cafeteria plans because they were preoccupied with a larger agenda of making tax-free benefits more equitable. Moreover, they saw no reason to collaborate with the health policy community to plan this agenda; they saw themselves as implementing a social policy already in the Internal Revenue Code.     

Al Capone and the Internal Revenue Service: State-sanctioned criminology of organized crime

The story of Al Capone's rise and fall as a Chicago gangster has always depended upon selective dissemination of federal agency records, particularly records of the Internal Revenue Service. Capone history, therefore, is state-sanctioned history. The IRS view of the Capone organization, and of the tax evasion conviction, cannot be easily challenged without access to the corpus of the IRS records. Unfortunately, these records remain sealed from public access, despite the fact that selective releases were made prior to 1977 to journalists, popular authors, film producers and historians. Continued secrecy over the Capone records perpetuates a state-sanctioned criminology of organized crime. Calder v. Internal Revenue Service ¹ attempted without success to unlock the corpus of IRS-Capone records to investigate the state-sanctioned view.     

试论服务理念视角下的政府电子税务

电子税务是各级政府推行电子政务的一种体现,其宗旨是利用信息技术提高税收征管水平,降低征纳税成本,改善税收环境,为纳税人和社会各界提供优质的税收服务。它的实现方式是利用一切现有信息技术,打造全方位的一体化电子服务平台,不断提升服务质量和水平。从本质上,电子税务彰显了现代政府管理中的服务理念。本文从服务理念的角度就政府实施电子税务如何为纳税人服务、为税收管理服务、为基层服务、为机关服务、为领导决策服务等提出对策和建议。     

Antitrust, health care quality, and the courts

Antitrust law represents the principal legal tool that the United States employs to police private markets, yet it often relegates quality and nonprice considerations to a secondary position. While antitrust law espouses the belief that vigorous competition will enhance quality as well as price, little evidence exists of the practical ability of courts to deliver on that promise. In this Article, Professors Hammer and Sage examine American health care as a vehicle for advancing understanding of the nexus among competition, quality, and antitrust law. The Article reports results of a comprehensive empirical review of judicial opinions in health care antitrust litigation between 1985 and 1999, with specific attention to courts' handling of quality and other nonprice concerns. Professors Hammer and Sage conclude that, although antitrust law cannot be expected to serve as the sole oversight mechanism for industries as complex and quality dependent as health care, courts have been successful incorporating some nonprice factors into antitrust analysis.     

Occupational health ethics: OSHA and the courts

Recent court decisions have stressed the necessity for cost-benefit analysis in evaluating Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) standards, thus raising difficult ethical questions which this paper analyzes using classical approaches of deontology and teleology. Since both modes of analysis have deficiencies, the need for a synthesis using economic and noneconomic measures is suggested.     

Crime,public opinion and trial courts: An analysis of sentencing policy

Much recent research on public opinion and trial courts demonstrates a link between local attitudes and sentencing in highly visible criminal cases. However, such crimes are not typical of most trial court work. Our research examines relationships between public opinion, crime rates, and sentencing in routine cases, including armed and unarmed robbery, burglary, larceny, and possession of narcotics. The research includes over 6000 cases and measures public opinion in all twenty of Florida's trial court circuits. Except for possession of narcotics, no significant correlations were discovered between public opinion and sentencing, but high crime rates generally produced lenient sentences. The research questions the impact of public opinion on most litigation and suggests that judicial elites usually act without concern for local public opinion.     

Obesity, courts, and the new politics of public health

Health care politics are changing. They increasingly focus not on avowedly public projects (such as building the health care infrastructure) but on regulating private behavior. Examples include tobacco, obesity, abortion, drug abuse, the right to die, and even a patient's relationship with his or her managed care organization. Regulating private behavior introduces a distinctive policy process; it alters the way we introduce (or frame) political issues and shifts many important decisions from the legislatures to the courts. In this article, we illustrate the politics of private regulation by following a dramatic case, obesity, through the political process. We describe how obesity evolved from a private matter to a political issue. We then assess how different political institutions have responded and conclude that courts will continue to take the leading role.     

Lifting the cover on drug courts: evaluation findings and policy concerns

Drug treatment courts emerged in 1989 as a court-based solution to an enormous increase of drug-related arrests. Since their inception, drug treatment courts have been subject to empirical and process evaluations to provide quantitative and qualitative data regarding their effectiveness. This article reviews the extant literature on the effectiveness of drug treatment courts and discusses findings regarding various components of the criminal justice system. It is argued that based on empirical evaluation findings, drug treatment courts have achieved success in lowering rates of recidivism among drug offenders, despite problematic methodological and analytical concerns. This article also presents key components and agents of drug treatment courts and discusses their impact and relevance to policy creation and adaptation. It is suggested that when combined with empirical evaluations, process evaluations provide great insight into the drug-treatment-court dynamic. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of drug treatment courts for justice policy.     

Patients as consumers: courts, contracts, and the new medical marketplace

The persistent riddle of health-care policy is how to control the costs while improving the quality of care. The riddle's once promising answer--managed care--has been politically ravaged, and consumerist solutions are now winning favor. This Article examines the legal condition of the patient-as-consumer in today's health-care market. It finds that insurers bargain with some success for rates for the people they insure. The uninsured, however, must contract to pay whatever a provider charges and then are regularly charged prices that are several times insurers' prices and providers' actual costs. Perhaps because they do not understand the healthcare market, courts generally enforce these contracts. This Article proposes legal solutions to the plight of the patient-as-consumer and asks what that plight tells us about market solutions to the health-care quandary.     

Continuation coverage requirements applicable to group health plans. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Treasury. Final rule

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) added health care continuation requirements that apply to group health plans. Coverage required to be provided under those requirements is referred to as COBRA continuation coverage. Proposed regulations interpreting the COBRA continuation coverage requirements were published in the Federal Register of June 15, 1987 and of January 7, 1998. This document contains final regulations based on these two sets of proposed regulations. The final regulations also reflect statutory amendments to the COBRA continuation coverage requirements since COBRA was enacted. A new set of proposed regulations addressing additional issues under the COBRA continuation coverage provisions is being published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register. The regulations will generally affect sponsors of and participants in group health plans, and they provide plan sponsors and plan administrators with guidance necessary to comply with the law.     

税收法定主义原则与政府税收立法权的界定

税收法定主义原则是税法的首要原则。根据这一原则,税收要素、税收程序基本方面的立法权都应由议会机关保留。政府部门只有对税收程序中的具体问题制定行政法规的权力。即使在授权立法的情况下,对政府部门的授权也只能针对个别、具体的事项。     

Mental health courts: serving justice and promoting recovery

This article begins and ends with a call for more empirical research to understand the connection between societal views of mental illness and the legal system. The author asserts that changing social perceptions of mental illness certainly affect legal outcomes and commitment levels, but the degree remains unknown. This article explores the above two topics through the framework of the Circuit Court 'split' regarding the Constitutional rights of persons committed to state mental health institutions. A main facet of the 'split' is centered on the Circuits' disagreement about whether or not all mentally ill patients committed to institutions deserve the same Constitutional protections.     

Research, policy, and the National Health Service

The National Health Service is a system designed to bring about a rational use and distribution of resources yet which largely ignores the contribution of the research community. With a relatively closed health policy arena, there are few customers for policy-oriented research. With responsibility for funding research concentrated at the center and responsibility for delivering services at the periphery, the research community finds itself in limbo. In comparison to both the U.S. and Canada, Britain therefore offers an example of research both underfinanced and undervalued. However, research has made some significant contributions in areas where there has been a perceived use for its findings to support service developments. And the changes now being introduced in Britain's NHS are likely to create a new market for research as the system adopts some North American ideas and becomes less consensual and more pluralistic.     

论统筹区域发展的财政税收立法

统筹区域发展是艰巨、复杂、长期的事业,亟需以科学发展观为指导,借鉴国际经验,以法律来保障其实施。现行财政税收法律在统筹区域发展上存在不足,需要从立法宗旨和基本原则、立法结构和主要内容、法律执行、法律监督以及法律责任等几方面共同构建统筹区域发展的财政税收法律。     

Tax policy as a lifeline: encouraging blood and organ donation through tax credits

This article, the second concerning the organ donation crisis, proposes the use of tax policy to encourage blood and organ donation. After critiquing the ethical and logistical problems posed by other commercial and non-commercial solutions, the author demonstrates how tax credits can be used as an effective and ethical solution to address the shortage of donors. The author also offers two model statutes that provide guidance as to how a nonrefundable tax credit for blood and organ donation might operate in the tax code.     

Assessing the effectiveness of mental health courts: A quantitative review

Purpose

The purpose of this review is to quantitatively review the accumulating MHC studies that have been conducted of both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed studies. The primary objective of the current study is to provide a clearer picture as to whether MHCs are an empirically efficacious intervention for a significant health and criminological problem.

Methods

This study used meta-analytic techniques to assess the effectiveness of MHCs. A systematic search of the literature and electronic databases through July 2009, as well as an e-mail survey of mental health court program directors, generated 18 studies.

Results

Aggregate effects for recidivism outcomes revealed a mean effect size of -0.54 and -0.55 among quasi-experimental studies analyzed separately. There was a positive improvement among a limited number of clinical outcomes.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that MHCs are an effective intervention but this assertion is not definitive. Methodologically, many of the studies are not as strong as would be ideal thus limiting our conclusions.