As you might expect, the reaction in the tax and legal community to the Murphy vs IRS decision, ( also listed by some commentators as Murphy vs United States) has been been one of "shock and awe".
Most of the tax and legal community, not to mention industry lobbyists, were caught by surprise when this ruling came down last week, essentially declaring pain and suffering, mental anguish and other previously taxable elements of certain types of personal injury cases as having been unconstitutionally taxed and in violation of the 16th amendment. Certainly amazing stuff.
Since then there has been some instant analysis, some of it provided by our own commentators here on The Settlement Channel, such as the podcasts provided by national expert Attorney Robert Wood. Those podcasts are available by clicking here for part one, and clicking here for part two.
However, we don't have a corner on commentary and i've collected a few links i've found by cruising on Taxprof Blog, Google and other sites dedicated to tax policy.
Among them are some of the more powerful critiques as to why this is Bad Law, which I don't agree with but think you need to hear both sides on this. Also, a highly recommended academic paper by Georgetown Professor Stephen Cohen in which he had prior to Murphy argued against the status of taxing non-personal injury damages differently then physical injury cases. I don't usually get into reading about "human capital" and tax policy but I put this down as recommended reading.
Summary of blog commentary is available here on TaxProf Blog/
