WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, June 7

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted gifts worth millions of dollars over 20 years, analysis finds (Gabriel Cortés & Kevin Breuninger, CNBC)
• US Supreme Court backs insurers’ right to speak up in bankruptcy (Dietrich Knauth, Reuters)
• Supreme Court sides with Native American tribes in health care funding dispute with government ( Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press)
• Retired judge David Tatel issues a stark warning about the Supreme Court (Ann E. Marimow, The Washington Post)
• Supreme Court Ethics Lapses Aren’t a Partisan Issue (Gabe Roth, Bloomberg)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 13, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:45 a.m. EDT.

OPINION ANALYSIS

Court sides with IRS on tax of shareholders’ life-insurance policies

Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion for a unanimous court on Thursday in Connelly v. Internal Revenue Service resolved a pedestrian estate-tax problem for closely held corporations. The case presented a routine estate-planning device for those corporations, which commonly purchase life insurance policies on the principal shareholders. With the proceeds of such a policy, the corporation can purchase the shares of a dying shareholder from the shareholder’s estate, ensuring that the corporation remains in the hands of the original family.

The problem here is what to do with the value of those life-insurance proceeds, which flow into the corporation immediately after death. Do they make the corporation worth more than it would be without the proceeds (because they are money that the corporation holds) or do they leave the corporation at the same value (because they flow into the corporation just before the corporation spends them to redeem the shares of the deceased shareholder)?

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Thursday, June 6

We expect one or more opinions from the court this morning at 10 a.m. EDT. Join us for live coverage. Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Thursday morning read:

• Special Ed clash at Supreme Court: Why one dad is asking to record school meetings (Maureen Groppe, USA Today)
• Fossil fuel allies ramp up calls for Supreme Court to crush climate cases (Lesley Clark, E&E News)
• The Supreme Court is poised to take one of Biden’s few tools on abortion access (Alice Miranda Ollstein & Megan Messerly, Politico)
• Concurrences Are All the Rage (Adam Feldman, Empirical SCOTUS)
• Corporate diversity programs could be headed toward the Supreme Court (Dan Primack & Emily Peck, Axios)

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Wednesday, June 5

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles, commentary, and other noteworthy links related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Wednesday morning read:

• X Corp. asks Supreme Court to review process that led Jack Smith to obtain Trump Twitter files (Kyle Cheney, Politico)
• Supreme Court Ethics Office Bill Proposed by House Democrats (Caitlin McLean, Bloomberg Law)
• Alito’s Flag Controversy Foreshadows Contentious US Supreme Court Rulings (Greg Stohr, Bloomberg)
• Justice Department condemns Supreme Court’s racist ‘Insular Cases’ (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• The Supreme Court remains the linchpin of Trumpworld’s push for power (Philip Bump, The Washington Post)

Coming up: On Thursday, June 6, the court expects to issue one or more opinions from the current term. We’ll be live at 9:45 a.m. EDT.

Petitions of the week

New York’s updated concealed-carry law returns to the court

The Petitions of the Week column highlights some of the cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

Last January, the Supreme Court refused to disturb an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that temporarily allowed New York to enforce a new concealed-carry law while multiple challenges to the law proceed. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote separately that the challengers return to the Supreme Court if the court of appeals did not move quickly to resolve the disputes. That dispute is now back before the court. This week, we highlight petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, whether the 2nd Circuit’s decision in December granting the state an early-stage victory in the litigation ran afoul of the Second Amendment.