The Case for Taxing Away Unsustainable Profits
Allison Christians & Tarcísio Diniz Magalhães | 91 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 697 | When businesses offload environmental and social costs on the public, the resulting profits are windfalls extracted from current and future taxpayers. Prevailing regulatory and tax remedies have not only failed to eliminate such profiteering, but they have in fact incentivized it. To prevent some from receiving windfalls while everyone else bears the costs, profits can be distinguished between sustainable profits, when costs are internalized, and unsustainable profits, when costs are externalized. While the former would remain subject to the traditional corporate income tax, the latter should be completely taxed away with a surtax. A viable way to achieve this is to combine advanced mechanisms for measuring environmental and social damage across supply chains with classic and emerging legal techniques for differentiating categories of income for tax purposes. Mobilized through the income tax system, these tools can be used to design a cutting-edge windfall tax on unsustainable profits. This Article makes the normative and practical case for doing so.
Severe or Pervasive Meet Petty or Trivial: Lowering the Standard for Establishing a Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment Claim Under Title VII
Caroline Sinegar 91 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 755 Legislators across the country have passed state and federal statutes to provide relief to victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. At the state level, there is little uniformity regarding how victims are protected or what kind of behavior constitutes a hostile work environment sexual harassment claim.... Read More
A Plaintiff’s Cryptonite: Charting a Path Forward for Minimum Contacts in the Cryptocurrency Era
Mallory Mecklenburg 91 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 785 American interest in cryptocurrency has gone to the moon. As of November 2021, sixteen percent of American adults have invested in or traded cryptocurrency. But interest is not projected to stop there—continued use will more than triple the international cryptocurrency market by 2030. Indeed, new research has... Read More
Involuntary Work Program: Imposing Liability on Immigration Detention Center Contractors
Molly Muoio's ('23) Note argues that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Voluntary Work Program violates international law and explores a theory of liability for forced labor under the Alien Tort Statute.
Biden v. Nebraska: The President Cannot Cancel Student Loans
The majority held that the President and Secretary of Education lacked authority to cancel student debts. They could have stopped there. They did not.
After the Students for Fair Admissions Cases, Affirmative Action Is Unconstitutional in Both Public and Private Schools
The immediate effect is that affirmative action is now unconstitutional. The ripple effects will unfold over a period of decades.
Plaintiffs and Precedent Win the Day in Norfolk Southern Case
Despite its unexpected path to the high court, Norfolk Southern strengthens plaintiffs’ ability to sue companies in the forum of their choice, and provides a surprise boost to the beleaguered doctrine of stare decisis.
Santos-Zacaria v. Garland: Amid Little Fanfare, the Court Allows Transgender Asylum Seeker to Continue Her Bid for Protection
A legal victory for transgender asylum seeker Estrella Santos-Zacaria.
Sackett v. EPA: The Court Delivers Another Massive Blow to Federal Environmental Law
The current Supreme Court is not a friend of the administrative state.
Multilevel Madness: Regulating Unfair Business Practices in Multilevel Marketing
Jessica Ke 91 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 537 Multilevel marketing businesses (“MLMs”) sell everything from makeup to protein shakes, from dietary supplements to legal services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people facing income insecurity who wished to work from home turned to the social-media driven MLM business model in droves. Most MLM participants, however, make little,... Read More