David Herzig

The Wall Street Journal — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced in an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday that his tax returns would not be released before November and, even then, only if his audits have been completed. Mr. Trump suggested that voters don't care about what is on his tax returns. He may be right that some voters don't-but Election Day is still months away, and many people are interested in what his returns would reveal. There is more to the question of a candidate's tax returns than potential hidden time bombs, as some have speculated.

Forbes — Could a President Trump create leverage in an IRS audit for his personal gain? The short answer is yes, since the IRS and the Tax Court are both under the executive branch.

Forbes — Whatever his estate says his catalog and right of publicity are worth, IRS auditors are likely to say they're worth more---unless, that is, Prince left it all to charity.

Forbes — What if there were a better way to file our taxes? Clearly, there has to be a better system. As we are all painfully aware, especially today, we wade through volumes of instructions and forms to try our best to finish a complete and accurate return. Even for experts in the field, there is little clarity and a lot of hair pulling. Against this backdrop, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has introduced the Tax Filing Simplification Act of 2016. (Full disclosure: I am one of the many law professors who signed a letter in support of the bill.) The idea behind the bill is to put the burden on the government, rather than the taxpayer, for preparation of the initial return.

Washington Post — Thursday's Republican debate surprisingly featured the intersection of religion and taxes, an issue many see intertwined with larger religious freedom debates. Whether it was businessman Donald Trump stating he was audited because he was a "strong Christian" or radio host Hugh Hewitt asking questions about religion-based tax exemptions, the issue of religion and taxes continues to gain much needed attention. The IRS's official position on the reason for Trump's audit will remain unclear, as they cannot comment on audits of individual taxpayers. But the likelihood of an audit based on his "strong Christian" belief for 12 consecutive years seems rather farfetched.

Forbes — Should ordinary investors worry about the drop in price of Yahoo YHOO -1.42% stock? Basically, yes. The greatest source of investor concern generally is not daily, monthly, or quarterly variations in the price of a single stock. But Yahoo seems to be dropping because of news that appears to be unrelated to the fundamentals of the company. Changes in price based solely on noise are dangerous.

Washington Post — For people who voluntarily decided to part with some $45 billion, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are getting absolutely skewered in the press. I guess Joey Tribbiani was right when he said on "Friends;" there is no unselfish good deed. Maybe the backlash is directed at the Jesse Eisenberg version of Zuckerberg as written by Aaron Sorkin. After all, we know that version better than the real Mark Zuckerberg. If you can callously cut out your friends, then this "donation" must also stink. Their actions have led to "hot takes," on the announcement claiming it is either a "public relations coup" or Zuckerberg and Chan are not "paying their own taxes."

Forbes — Donald Trump sure knows how to pour gasoline on the dying embers of an issue—in this case, the carried interest tax loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to be taxed at lower income tax rates than say, doctors, lawyers, or ordinary workers. “The hedge fund guys didn’t build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky,’’ Trump said last month on Face The Nation. He later added, “The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder. They’re making a tremendous amount of money. They have to pay taxes.” On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, Trump doubled down stating, “I don’t want to have certain people on Wall Street getting away with paying no tax.” “A year ago no one was talking about this,” Professor Victor Fleischer, who wrote an influential law review article on carried interest in 2008, told The New York Times. Now, it is all anyone seems to be talking about. One intriguing aspect to all this is that thanks to Trump, talk of repealing the carried interest loophole has overshadowed Washington discussion of eliminating another questionable tax giveaway: section 1031. Section 1031 has long been an unsupervised real estate tax boondoggle, one from which Trump has most likely benefited.

Forbes — Many people think there are too many tax-exempt entities. Every time news breaks that there are tax-exemptions for fraternities, golf clubs, and social clubs there seems to be general outrage. So most people welcomed the National Football League’s announcement that it was giving up its tax-exempt status, seeing the announcement as the end of an unnecessary taxpayer subsidy. It turns out, though, that it is not that simple. Either the NFL was not providing a public good and should not have been granted the status in the first place, or if the NFL wants to be for profit, then the benefits of the tax exemption should be recaptured, e.g., with an exit tax.

Slate — The video of an inexcusable racist chant by members of the University of Oklahoma chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity came as a shock to most viewers. The fraternity's national headquarters acted swiftly to close the chapter, and the university quickly removed the fraternity from its campus. But the discussion seems to end there. Treating this as an isolated incident, rather than as a symptom of a larger problem, is shortsighted. It was not that long ago that the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority made the news for its discriminatory actions in recruiting new members. We are not cherry-picking a couple of isolated incidents.

Slate — For years people have been trying to predict what the Supreme Court will do about same-sex marriage. That speculation has intensified now that the Supreme Court has decided to hear marriage cases originating in the 6th Circuit that upheld the state-level bans against same-sex marriage and recognition. How will the Supreme Court decide this crucial issue? In fact, it has already tipped its hand on the outcome. To understand why, you have to understand tax law. Back in June of 2013, the Supreme Court held that for federal purposes it was impermissible to limit the term marriage to a man and a woman.