Comments on: Notes From All Over – for week ended May 9

By: Sam B.

Sam B. — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:59:57 +0000

Rob (3),
His analysis isn’t spectacular on a descriptive level–he takes the Code’s requirement that a tax-exempt organization not use a “substantial part of [its] activities” in lobbying and reads that as says that the tax-exempt not engage in substantial lobbying (and, ergo, that maybe a large tax-exempt that spends $1 million of its $10 million budget on lobbying may be per se out of bounds by virtue of spending a lot of money). He may have a normative argument there, but he frames it as being descriptive, which it clearly isn’t from the language of the Internal Revenue Code (although I admit that I haven’t gone much deeper on this point).

I also think his proposed valuation of goodwill doesn’t work, because he ignores the value of non-Prop. 8 stuff that the Church also tells us to do (which, admittedly, if there were an absolute cap, rather than a relative cap, the value of such other goodwill wouldn’t be terrible relevant).

So while I confess that this isn’t precisely my area, and I haven’t taken a ton of time to look into his arguments, it strikes me as not substantively correct. But I don’t know anything about the author of the piece, so I wouldn’t propose that he has an axe to grind.

By: Rob Perkins

Rob Perkins — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:24:11 +0000

#6 — Didn’t we see this article in the sidebar of T&S late last year?

Kaimi, I gotta wonder: Has the author of that legal analysis a point, or just a dull axe to grind?

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:25:03 +0000

I’ve just visited Vienna, but it struck me as being a terrific, under-rated city. I have lived near Zurich, near Frankfurt, and near San Francisco, and they all deserve the high rankings they got.
Good to see that Mormon Times finally mentioned the undocumented immigrant missionary topic.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:35:42 +0000

#7 – Best cities to live in. I’ve always loved Vienna. Great city. Nice to see it at the top of the list.

#36 – Huntsman. Apparently he is also feared greatly by the GOP… heh…

#45 – Al Gore on the Supreme Court. Poetic Justice indeed!