TaxProf Blog

Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), Is Tax Avoidance Immoral? A Catholic Lay Perspective:

My friend and UCLA colleague Steven Bank [presented] a very interesting paper ... at a faculty colloquium, entitled When Did Tax Avoidance Become Respectable? ...

I'm neither a tax lawyer nor a theologian, but this got me to wondering what the Church taught on the subject. ... [A letter written by 11 heads of national Catholic Conferences says]:

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September 10, 2017 in Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)

Following up on my previous posts:

• Wax & Alexander: Paying The Price For Breakdown Of The Country's Bourgeois Culture (Aug. 13, 2017)
• Reaction To Law Profs' Op-Ed On The Breakdown Of The 'Bourgeois Culture' (Aug. 25, 2017)

National Lawyers Guild, Penn Law Chapter, Penn NLG Statement on Professor Amy Wax:

While we do not challenge Professor Wax’s right to express her views, we question whether it is appropriate for her to continue to teach a required first-year course. The Penn Law administration has long been aware that her bigoted views inevitably seep into her words and actions in the classroom and in private conversations with students. We call on the administration to consider more deeply the toll that this takes on students, particularly students of color and members of the LGBTQIA community, and to consider whether it is in the best interests of the school and its students for Professor Wax to continue to teach a required first-year class. Exposure to a diversity of viewpoints is an essential and valuable part of any educational experience, but no student should have to be exposed to bigotry or abuse in the classroom.

Since Professor Wax is, as usual, scheduled to teach Civil Procedure this fall, and we know that is unlikely to change, we offer ourselves as a resource for first-year students in Professor Wax’s class. 1Ls in Professor Wax’s class: whether you need someone just to listen, to help you figure out how to get through the semester, or to advocate on your behalf, Penn NLG has your back.

In 2015, Professor Wax received the University of Pennsylvania's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (only three other Penn law professors have received the award in the past twenty years). 

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September 10, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (9)

One of my former tax students, Arian Behboodi (J.D & M.B.A. 2017, Pepperdine), has created a very cool app, GivnGo.  The app allows a user to register a credit or debit card and the app rounds up your purchases to the next dollar and distributes the change to the charity or charities of your choice.  For example, if you spend $15.75, then the next dollar up is $16.00, so GivnGo distributes 25 cents to your charity. The app is available on iTunes.

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September 10, 2017 in Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new #1 paper:

1. [545 Downloads]  Federal Tax Procedure (2017 Practitioner Ed.), by John Townsend (Houston)
2. [536 Downloads]  The Front Door Opens Wide for the Backdoor Roth IRA, by Philip Manns (Liberty) & Timothy Todd (Liberty)
3. [268 Downloads]  Is Efficiency Biased?, by Zachary Liscow (Yale)
4. [253 Downloads]  BEPS and European Union Law, by Sjoerd Douma (Leiden)
5. [187 Downloads]  When Did Tax Avoidance Become Respectable?, by Steven Bank (UCLA)

September 10, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax, Top 5 Downloads | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. The IRS Scandal, Day 1582: Is The IRS Scandal About To Break Wide Open?
2. How You Can Help Houston Law Students, Staff, And Faculty In The Wake Of Hurricane Harvey
3. The IRS Scandal, Day 1580: Conservative Group Hoping For 'Perp Walks' After Breakthrough In IRS Lawsuit
4. Aaron Taylor (St. Louis), A Little Bit Of Data Can Be A Lot Dangerous When It Comes To LSATs And Bar Passage
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), The Tax Consequences Of Hurricane Harvey (And Other Natural Disasters)
6. The 49 Law Schools With The Most Improved Employment Rates
7. Daniel Hemel (Chicago), Is Rothification Just A Budget Math Gimmick?
8. Jeff Lipshaw (Suffolk), A Personal Tribute To Judge Posner And The Life Of The Mind
9. The 100 Most Influential People In Tax And Accounting
10. California Bar Trustees Vote 6-5 To Give Supreme Court Three Bar Exam Cut Score Options: Keep It 144, Lower To 141.4 Or 139

September 9, 2017 in About This Blog, Legal Education, Tax, Weekly Top 10 TaxProf Blog Posts | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ABA Tax Section has released the J.D. Problem (rules; entry form) and LL.M. Problem (rules; entry form) for the 17th Annual Law Student Tax Challenge:

An alternative to traditional moot court competitions, the Law Student Tax Challenge asks two-person teams of students to solve a cutting-edge and complex business problem that might arise in everyday tax practice. Teams are initially evaluated on two criteria: a memorandum to a senior partner and a letter to a client explaining the result. Based on the written work product, six teams from the J.D. Division and four teams from the LL .M. Division receive a free trip (including airfare and accommodations for two nights) to the Section of Taxation 2018 Midyear Meeting, February 8-10, 2018 in San Diego, CA, where each team will defend its submission before a panel of judges consisting of the country’s top tax practitioners and government officials, including tax court judges. The competition is a great way for law students to showcase their knowledge in a real-world setting and gain valuable exposure to the tax law community. On average, more than 50 teams compete in the J.D. Division and more than 30 teams compete in the LL .M. Division.

IMPORTANT DATES

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September 9, 2017 in ABA Tax Section, Legal Education, Tax, Teaching | Permalink | Comments (0)

Martin Pritikin (Dean, Concord), Return on Investment: The Core Challenge for Legal Education and the Legal Profession:

The legal community is facing a myriad of serious challenges ― historically low law school enrollments and bar passage rates, exploding tuition costs and associated student debt and a stagnant job market ― that, if not addressed, will put it in peril. ...

The big problem is return on educational investment, as those who would most logically serve the middle market can ill afford to do so. Annual tuition is about $50,000 at top-tier private law schools, where many graduates land $180,000 starting salaries. But the tuition is roughly the same at so-called “fourth-tier” law schools, where those lucky enough to secure employment typically make between $60,000 and $80,000. There’s a name for this economic model: it’s called broken.

Consider this: of the 205 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association, 199 are exempt from Department of Education requirements to report graduates’ debt-to-earnings ratios. Why? Because they operate as not-for-profits. As reported by the ABA Journal on January 11, 2017, of the six for-profit schools that recently reported their data for the first time, two failed outright and three others were found to be in the “zone,” that is, at risk of failing. Yet, based on available data, if the not-for-profits were subject to the same debt-to-earnings test, it appears at least half of them ― 100 schools ― would have failed as well. ...

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September 9, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)

• Letter from Stephen Boyd (Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice) to Kevin Brady (Chair, House Ways & Means Committee) & Peter Roskan (Chair, House Ways & Means Committee, Subcommittee on Tax Policy) (Sept. 8, 2017)
• ABC News, Trump DOJ Declines to Charge Key Figure in IRS Scandal
• Breitbart, Jeff Sessions' DOJ Will Not Investigate IRS Investigation
• CBS News, DOJ Denies GOP Request to Reopen Case Against Former IRS Official Lois Lerner
• Fox News, Trump DOJ: No Plans to Charge Lois Lerner in IRS Scandal
• Rick Hasen (UC-Irvine), Trump DOJ, After Reopening Lois Lerner IRS Investigation, Concludes No Criminal Charges Warranted
• The Hill, GOP Lawmakers Furious After DOJ Declines to Prosecute Ex-IRS Official Lois Lerner
• Independent Journal Review, DOJ Denies Request to Prosecute Ex-IRS Official Lois Lerner for Role in Targeting Conservatives
• Legal Insurrection, DOJ Standing by Decision Not to Prosecute Lois Lerner
• NBC News, Trump DOJ Disappoints Conservatives, Won’t Charge Key Figure in IRS Scandal
• Mediaiite, Fill The Swamp? Trump’s DOJ Decides Not to Pursue Charges Against Lois Lerner Over IRS Scandal
• Powerline,  Department of Justice: Lois Lerner Won’t Be Prosecuted
• Red State, Trump Gives Lois Lerner A Free Pass Despite His Past Outrage Over IRS Targeting
• The Resurgent, Fake Outrage From Fake GOP Over Lerner
• Slate, Today in Conservative Media: Lock Lois Lerner Up!
• Townhall, Trump DOJ: We're Not Going To Charge Lois Lerner Over IRS Targeting Scandal
• Washington Examiner, GOP Outraged After Trump Refuses to Consider Lois Lerner Prosecutio
• Washington Free Beacon, GOP Lawmakers Slam Sessions for Deciding Not to Prosecute Lois Lerner
• Washington Times, Trump’s DOJ Won’t Pursue Charges Against Lois Lerner

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September 9, 2017 in IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink | Comments (7)

This week, Sloan Speck (Colorado) reviews a new work by Lee Anne Fennell and Richard McAdams (Chicago), Inverted Theories.

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September 8, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax, Weekly SSRN Roundup | Permalink | Comments (0)

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), How You Can Help Houston Law Students, Staff, And Faculty In The Wake Of Hurricane Harvey
• E. Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Skills Supplements for Doctrinal Courses
• Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State) & Andrew Merritt (Independent), Agreements to Improve Student Aid: An Antitrust Perspective
• National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations For Positive Change

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September 8, 2017 in Legal Education, Weekly Legal Education Roundup | Permalink | Comments (0)

• Bloomberg, Progressives Prepare to Stop Tax Cuts Amid GOP Infighting
• Bloomberg, Tax Overhaul May Be Less Ambitious Than GOP Planned
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Federal Spending and Revenues Will Need to Grow in Coming Years, Not Shrink 
• The Nation, The GOP Tax ‘Reform’ Is Highway Robbery
• New York Magazine, House Conservatives Demand That Tax Reform Add to the Deficit

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September 8, 2017 in Tax, Tax Policy in the Trump Administration | Permalink | Comments (0)

Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State) & Andrew Merritt, Agreements to Improve Student Aid: An Antitrust Perspective, 67 J. Legal Educ. ___ (2017):

Law schools tie much of their scholarship money to LSAT scores and undergraduate grades. By awarding substantial discounts to students with above-median indicators, schools attempt to climb the U.S. News ranking ladder. This practice, as many educators recognize, reduces access to legal education for low-income and minority students. As a result, many schools would like to shift at least some of their scholarship funds to need-based awards. Schools, however, struggle to make that change unilaterally; they worry about losing ground in the rankings race.

Could law schools act collectively to reform their scholarship practices? Could the ABA reshape those practices by adopting an accreditation standard that limits the award of “merit” based aid?

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September 8, 2017 in Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today marks my 100th day as Dean of Pepperdine Law School.   Since my first day, I have loved working towards our shared goal to become the nation's premier Christian law school by combining academic and research excellence with a deep-rooted commitment to our Christian mission that welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds.  When I sought the deanship, I laid out my three priorities in achieving that goal.

My top priority is to increase our students' return on their investment in a Pepperdine legal education in today's changed legal landscape.  As readers of this blog know, since 2010 law schools have suffered a 38% decline in applicants (and a 45% decline in applicants in the highest LSAT band Pepperdine seeks to attract), which has led to declining credentials in incoming classes and to declining bar passage and job placement results for graduates.  Most law schools have responded by reducing the size of their incoming classes.  This fall, with the full support of the university, Pepperdine reduced the size of our entering class by over 20% and increased our median LSAT (160) and UGPA (3.62).

We are right-sizing the law school in a financially sustainable way by paring our budget while investing in areas of excellence, ramping up our fundraising efforts, and expanding our non-J.D. enrollment in areas of our historic strength.  We are leveraging our #1 ranked (for 12 of the past 13 years) Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution by expanding our Masters and LL.M. degree programs. Last month, we launched a new LL.M. degree program in Entertainment, Media, and Sports Law to capitalize on the opportunities for our students in the Los Angeles market, the university's partnership with AEG, and our great faculty in those areas.  In addition, we are leveraging our faculty's nationally recognized strength in teaching through our new online master of legal studies program, which we launched in August with enrollment 67% higher than our projections.

We also have hit the ground running on my other priorities to:

• Pursue ambitious and accountable excellence in everything we do
• Build a community in which all students, faculty, and staff are loved, nurtured, and challenged to grow professionally, personally, and spiritually

Over the summer, my wife and I hosted 20 dinners with faculty and students, and will over the 2017-18 academic year host dinners for the entire first year class.  I met with staff departments to discuss the critically important ways they contribute to the school.  My Dean of Faculty, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and I met with each member of the faculty to discuss how we can support them to help achieve our shared ambitious goals for the school.

I am proudest of simply working on a daily basis over these first 100 days with an amazing collection of faculty, students, administrators, and staff.  Mine has been an unusual journey to the deanship, and my biggest surprise is how much I enjoy the new aspects of my life in alumni relations, advancement, and university administration. In fact, I can honestly say that I have loved every minute of the job, except one:

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September 8, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (3)

Edward Kleinbard (USC), The Right Tax at the Right Time, 20 Fla. Tax Rev. ___ (2017):

The companion paper to this (Capital Taxation in an Age of Inequality, 90 S. Cal. L. Rev. 593 (2017)) argues that a moderate flat-rate (proportional) income tax on capital imposed and collected annually has attractive theoretical and political economy properties that can be harnessed in actual tax instrument design. This paper continues the analysis by specifying in detail how such a tax might be designed.

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September 8, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

The McGill Faculty of Law is pleased to announce that Allison Christians has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor, effective September 1.

Professor Christians, who was recently renewed as H. Heward Stikeman Chair of Tax Law, coincidentally began her term as Associate Dean (Research) at the Faculty on the very same date for a three-year mandate.

Her research and teaching focus on national and international tax law and policy issues, with emphasis on the relationship between taxation and economic development and on the role of government and non-government institutions and actors in the creation of tax policy norms.

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September 8, 2017 in Legal Education, Tax, Tax Profs | Permalink | Comments (1)

Following up on my previous posts:

• Aaron Taylor (St. Louis), For Diversity: Lets Talk Less About Pipelines and More About Why Blacks Are Not Admitted
• Robert Steinbuch (Arkansas-Little Rock), The LSAT's 'Noteworthy' Correlation To Bar Passage
• Aaron Taylor (St. Louis), A Little Bit Of Data Can Be A Lot Dangerous When It Comes To LSATs And Bar Passage

Robert Steinbuch (Arkansas-Little Rock), Questionable Arguments About Serious Statistics:

I write to continue the interesting discussion with Aaron Taylor regarding the proper role of the LSAT in law school admissions. ...

Unfortunately, Taylor confuses some simple statistical truths, both in general and regarding LSAT scores and bar passage, specifically: First, correlations can be explained through any of the following: causation, reverse causation, or "third" variables. Second, nobody actually thinks that LSAT scores cause bar outcomes or vice versa. After all, how can a score on one exam cause a score on another? And, third, LSAT scores demonstrably help predict bar success due to at least one underlying common causal factor of both, i.e., likely some measure of skill. Empirical analysis is complex, and clichés and truisms do nothing to simplify it....

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September 8, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)

Daniel Hemel (Chicago) presents Easy on the SALT: In Defense of the Deduction for State and Local Taxes at Boston College today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series hosted by Jim Repetti, Diane Ring, and Shu Yi Oei:

Congressional Republicans and Trump administration officials have said that they plan to repeal the deduction for nonbusiness state and local taxes (SALT) as part of a comprehensive tax reform package. This essay critically examines the major arguments for repealing the SALT deduction. Repealing the deduction and using the resulting revenues to reduce federal rates across the board would likely lead to greater tax-induced deadweight loss overall. Repealing the deduction also would distort decisions about the financing of education and health care, which together account for more than half of all state and local government spending. Repeal would further encourage a shift from nonbusiness to business taxes at the state and local level, and potentially would result in more borrowing by subnational governments in the short and medium term.

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September 7, 2017 in Colloquia, Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)

William Byrnes (Texas A&M), Michael Hatfield (University of Washington), Leandra Lederman (Indiana-Bloomington), and Adam Thimmesch (Nebraska) participated in a panel on Tax Compliance and Tax Privacy: A U.S. Perspective at the 35th Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime yesterday at the University of Cambridge:

This panel of US tax academics explored cutting edge issues in tax compliance, information reporting, and tax privacy. The topics include recent developments in the behavioral economics and psychology of tax compliance, and the rapidly evolving use of technology and big data in tax enforcement and its impact on the privacy of taxpayers

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September 7, 2017 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloomberg Businessweek, How Top U.S. Law Firms Get Away With Paying Women Less:

In January 2014, the law firm Chadbourne & Parke hired Kerrie Campbell to work in its Washington office. After 27 years in the business, she’d finally reached the pinnacle of private law practice: partnership at a top-tier firm—a century-old stalwart of the elite New York bar. In a press release, Chadbourne said, “We are thrilled to welcome her.”

After two years, the thrill was gone. Chadbourne’s managing partner, Andrew Giaccia, and Abbe Lowell, its head of litigation, appeared together at Campbell’s office. Her time at the firm had been rocky. Still, she says she was shocked by what they had to say. The firm’s five-member, all-male management committee had decided that she didn’t “fit” at Chadbourne. She wasn’t being fired, exactly, but she ought to find a new job, they told her. To “incentivize” a swift departure, her compensation would be cut about 60 percent, to $9,000 a month, less than that of a first-year associate right out of law school. Giaccia and Lowell suggested that, to preserve her reputation, she leave quietly.

It felt like “someone smacking a baseball bat into your gut,” Campbell, 55, says. The firm denies her version of events.

Campbell—a “pit bull,” according to her son Tyler—did not leave quietly. She filed a sex-discrimination suit in August 2016 alleging that Chadbourne treated her like a second-class citizen, paid her much less than male partners, and—when she objected—showed her the door. Indignant, Chadbourne denied wrongdoing and lashed out. It said in court papers that Campbell lacked basic competence, alienated colleagues, and drank too much at firm social events—all accusations she denies.

For a profession dedicated to lofty concepts such as “equal protection” and “due process,” the practice of law has allowed unequal treatment of women to fester for decades. A 2016 survey of the 350 largest U.S. law firms found female partners on average received $659,000 in annual pay. Male partners, meanwhile, averaged $949,000, or 44 percent more.

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September 7, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leslie Book (Villanova), David Williams (Intuit) & Krista Holub (Intuit), Insights from Behavioral Economics Can Improve Administration of the EITC:

The IRS is a non-traditional but key player in delivering social benefits to the nation’s working poor. In fact, it administers one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty programs: the earned income tax credit (EITC). The EITC is generally praised for its role in reducing poverty and incentivizing low-wage work. While the credit has bipartisan support, the IRS continues to face strong criticism over EITC compliance issues.

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September 7, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Recorder, State Bar Leaves Reducing Exam Score for Supreme Court to Resolve: Bar Leaders Offer Justices a Range of Lower Scores, or Keeping It At 144:

California state bar trustees on Wednesday punted the fate of the bar exam pass score to the California Supreme Court, offering the justices a range of choices on the controversial issue, from leaving the score at 144 to lowering it to 139.

The trustees’ 6-5 vote endorsing the range reflected the contentious nature surrounding the pass score, or cut score. California law school deans, which have seen their students’ pass rates plummet in recent years, have pleaded with the bar and the Supreme Court reduce the cut score—now the second highest in the nation behind Delaware — to as low as 135. The Committee of Bar Examiners, however, endorsed maintaining the 144 score while additional studies are completed.

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September 7, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)

Readers will recall that Congress, in §32102 of the 2015 (FAST) Act, amended IRC §6306 to force the Service to outsource some collection inventory to private collection agencies.

Now, I have no doubt that readers of this blog are totally compliant in their taxes.   And if any happen to be delinquent in their taxes, I have no doubt they are not in the category of delinquent taxpayers who face collection from private collection agencies.   But I also suspect many readers have received questions about the program from clients, friends, family members, workplace colleagues, neighbors, and others.

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September 7, 2017 in Gov't Reports, IRS News, Tax, Tax Practice And Procedure | Permalink | Comments (0)

Harvard Law Today, Harvard Law School Unveils Memorial Honoring Enslaved People Who Enabled Its Founding:

On September 5, at the opening of its Bicentennial observance, Harvard Law School unveiled a memorial to the enslaved people whose labor helped make possible the founding of the school.

The plaque, affixed to a large stone memorial placed at the Crossroads in the center of the Law School’s plaza, reads:

In honor of the enslaved whose labor
created wealth that made possible
the founding of Harvard Law School

May we pursue the highest ideals
of law and justice in their memory

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September 7, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)

PJ Media, Is the IRS Scandal About to Break Wide Open?:

Lost emails, destroyed hard drives, foot dragging, stonewalling, and a smirking, sneering IRS commissioner doing his best to obscure the truth -- this has largely been the response by the Internal Revenue Service to investigations by Congress and FOIA requests from conservative groups trying to discover the truth about the IRS targeting scandal.

But one federal judge appears to be just as curious as the rest of us about what exactly the IRS was up to when it targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny in approving their tax-exempt status. ...

Although the arrogance of the IRS is breathtaking, it looks like they may have more than they can handle with Judge Walton. With the agency already proving that it tried to hide documents directly related to a FOIA request, how much nonsense will Walton put up with? He better have a low tolerance for word games and shenanigans by the IRS.

More names means more witnesses to be deposed under oath. Perhaps some promises of immunity are in order so that the truth can be wrung out of an agency that has been used to target the political opponents of a president and materially affect the ability of conservative groups to exercise their rights.

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September 7, 2017 in IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink | Comments (4)

Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina), Taxing the Gig Economy, 166 U. Pa. L. Rev. ___ (2017):

Due to advances in technology like mobile applications and online platforms, millions of American workers now earn income through “gig” work, which allows them the flexibility to set their own hours and choose which jobs to take. To the surprise of many gig workers, the tax law considers them to be “business owners,” which subjects them to onerous recordkeeping and filing requirements, along with the obligation to pay quarterly estimated taxes. This Article proposes two reforms that would drastically reduce compliance burdens for this new generation of business owners, while simultaneously enhancing the government’s ability to collect tax revenue.

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September 6, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following up on last week's post, The 49 Law Schools With The Most Improved Employment Rates: The National Jurist, Most Improved Employment Rates:

The National Jurist took into consideration all forms of post-graduation employment. The employment rates were weighted, giving the most heft to full-time jobs that require bar passage. Other jobs, such as J.D.-advantage jobs and positions in other professions, received less weight.

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September 6, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)

The National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olsen has a blog post here that is well worth your time to read.  It's about the Service's automated levy program called FPLP (Federal Levy Payment Program).  

One way the Service tries to collect unpaid taxes is by looking for people who owe the delinquent taxpayer money and snagging those payments.  That's called a levy.    FPLP is a computer program designed to snags payments owed by the federal government to delinquent taxpayers.  Now, some people consider it an irony that one hand of the federal government actually sends payments to many delinquent taxpayers who owe the federal government money. Notably, however, FPLP hits what are commonly viewed as "safety net" payments from Social Security and Federal Retirement programs.  So other people consider it an irony that one hand of the federal government would partially undo the safety net payments made by the other hand.

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September 6, 2017 in Gov't Reports, IRS News, Tax, Tax Practice And Procedure | Permalink | Comments (0)

David I. C. Thomson (Denver) & Stephen Daniels (American Bar Foundation), If You Build it, They Will Come: What Students Say About Experiential Learning:

In the Fall of 2013, soon after the reduction in applications that many law schools experienced in 2011-13, the University of Denver’s law school lead the way nationally in making a significant additional investment in experiential learning. Starting that fall, it provided the option for all incoming students to spend one entire year of law school in experiential learning courses and programs. While this commitment was being rolled out, the authors prepared a study of the impact of the program on enrollment and the educational experience of students. A three-year study — each year surveying 1Ls — also included follow up surveys of 2Ls and 3L/4Ls, with additional “look back” questions for the 3L/4L surveys. What we learned was that applicants chose Denver Law on several traditional factors (such as cost and location) but also strongly indicated that the experiential learning component was an important part of their decision. In the 3L/4L surveys, students reflected back on their law school education, and still ranked experiential learning as very important to them, while noting the importance of other practical concerns, such as employment outcomes for graduates.

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September 6, 2017 in Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am honored to be included on the list of Accounting Today's 100 Most Influential People in Tax and Accounting for the twelfth consecutive year:

Not only is Caron’s blog one of the most important in tax — it hit an alltime high of 1.5 million page views a month in 2016 — its prominence also helped elevate him to his new position as dean of his law school; proof, if any was needed, that thought leadership really does pay off.

I am honored to be on the Top 100 list with such high-powered people in the tax and accounting worlds, including:

• Karen Abramson (CEO, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting)
• Joe Baron (Managing Director, Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting)
• Wayne Berson (CEO, BDO)
• Kevin Brady (Chair, U.S. House Ways & Means Committee)
• James Doty (Chair, PCAOB)
• Lynne Doughtie (Chair & CEO, KPMG)
• Kimberly Ellison-Taylor (Incoming Chair, AICPA)
• Cathy Engelbert (CEO, Deloitte)
• George Farrah (Executive Director, Tax & Accounting, Bloomberg BNA)
• J. Russell George (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)

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September 6, 2017 in About This Blog, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)

New York Times op-ed:  When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer, by David Leonhardt:

A half-century ago, a top automobile executive named George Romney — yes, Mitt’s father — turned down several big annual bonuses. He did so, he told his company’s board, because he believed that no executive should make more than $225,000 a year (which translates into almost $2 million today). ...

Romney didn’t try to make every dollar he could, or anywhere close to it. The same was true among many of his corporate peers. In the early 1960s, the typical chief executive at a large American company made only 20 times as much as the average worker, rather than the current 271-to-1 ratio. Today, some C.E.O.s make $2 million in a single month.

The old culture of restraint had multiple causes, but one of them was the tax code. When Romney was saying no to bonuses, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent. Even if he had accepted the bonuses, he would have kept only a sliver of them.

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September 6, 2017 in Tax | Permalink | Comments (3)

National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations For Positive Change:

To be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer. Sadly, our profession is falling short when it comes to well-being. The two studies referenced above reveal that too many lawyers and law students experience chronic stress and high rates of depression and substance use. These findings are incompatible with a sustainable legal profession, and they raise troubling implications for many lawyers’ basic competence. This research suggests that the current state of lawyers’ health cannot support a profession dedicated to client service and dependent on the public trust.

The legal profession is already struggling. Our profession confronts a dwindling market share as the public turns to more accessible, affordable alternative legal service providers. We are at a crossroads. To maintain public confidence in the profession, to meet the need for innovation in how we deliver legal services, to increase access to justice, and to reduce the level of toxicity that has allowed mental health and substance use disorders to fester among our colleagues, we have to act now. Change will require a wide-eyed and candid assessment of our members’ state of being, accompanied by courageous commitment to reenvisioning what it means to live the life of a lawyer.

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September 6, 2017 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Macroeconomic and Distributional Effects of Personal Income Tax Reforms : A Heterogenous Agent Model Approach for the U.S (IMF Working Paper):

This paper assesses the macroeconomic and distributional impact of personal income tax (PIT) reforms in the U.S. drawing on a multi-sector heterogenous agents model in which consumers have non-homothetic preferences and sectors differ in terms of their relative labor and skill intensity. The model is calibrated to key characteristics of the US economy. We find that (i) PIT cuts stimulate growth but the supply side effects are never large enough to offset the revenue loss from lower marginal tax rates; (ii) PIT cuts do “trickle-down” the income distribution: tax cuts stimulate demand for non-tradable services which raise the wages and employment prospects of low-skilled workers even if the tax cut is not directly incident on them;

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September 6, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

Daniel Hemel (Chicago), Is Rothification Just a Budget Math Gimmick?:

Trump administration officials and congressional Republican leaders are reportedly considering a proposal to “Rothify” retirement savings as part of a comprehensive tax reform package. The idea is that instead of excluding 401(k) contributions from taxable income in the year they’re made and then paying tax on withdrawals, individuals would pay tax on 401(k) contributions in the year they’re made and then be able to withdraw tax-free. The latter approach — already an option for individuals whose employers offer Roth 401(k) plans  —  would become mandatory with respect to some or all 401(k) savings. Similar changes on the IRA side would push individuals from traditional to Roth accounts.

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September 5, 2017 in Tax | Permalink | Comments (2)

FactCheck.org, FactChecking Trump’s Tax Speech:

In a speech on changing the tax code, President Donald Trump offered some political spin on the facts.

• Trump claimed “anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion” of profits are left overseas by U.S. companies to avoid U.S. taxes. But his own press office cites an estimate of $2.6 trillion in a fact sheet posted online the day of his speech. The group that published that number told us $5 trillion “seems impossibly high.”

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September 5, 2017 in Political News, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ian Holloway (Calgary) & Steven Friedland (Elon), The Double Life of Law Schools:

The law school of 2025 will soon appear around the corner. An increasingly asked question is what will legal education look like? Will it look like the Langdellian model of the past 120 years, centered on the coverage of appellate case reports, leavened by a modest degree of experiences and some tweaks? Or will its shape transmogrify, becoming a blend of technology, Carnegie, and a redesigned marketplace?

Our view is that by the year 2025, law school will indeed be dramatically different. But how different depends on who wins the war between the traditional education, tracing back to the days of Langdell in the 1870s, and the repositioned drivers influencing legal education today from inside and out. In a word, we are living in a time of struggle — struggle for control of the soul of legal education.

Until recently, law schools lived a very comfortable double life that straddled two worlds — the world of academia and the world of law practice. This double life was made possible by the Langdellian revolution in the late 19th century, rejecting the apprenticeship system and adopting a model based on the teaching of appellate cases.

The double-life can be described as part grand university, part Hessian craft guild. The grand university identity takes on a similar hue as a graduate liberal arts endeavor: offering a good background for its emphasis on critical thinking, whether students practice law or not. The Hessian craft guild, by contrast, trains students to learn the details of the skilled practitioner, to welcome clients into a specific domain.

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September 5, 2017 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Andrew Hanson (Marquette) & Ike Brannon (Cato Institute), Corporate Income Taxes and Labor: An Investigation of Empirical Evidence:

With the highest top marginal corporate tax rate among OECD nations and the third-highest in the world at 35 percent, it is not surprising that policymakers have long evinced a desire to lower the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate. Reducing the corporate income tax rate has implications for a wide-range of outcomes — from federal revenues to foreign direct investment, but the effects of such a change on workers is less understood. This paper examines the empirical literature on the effect of corporate income taxes on labor, specifically on employment and worker incomes.

In general, empirical work with the most robust results and controlling for factors of influence outside of corporate income taxes generally have an elasticity of employment with respect to the corporate income tax rate of between -0.2 and -0.4, with a wage/income elasticity near -0.5. In the context of recent tax reform discussions that propose a rate reduction between 30% to 57%, that would imply employment gains between 6% to 22% and wage increases between 15% to 28%. 

September 5, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (2)

I reached out to the deans at the three Houston law schools (University of Houston Law Center, South Texas College of Law Houston, and Thurgood Marshall Law School) to see how the law school community can best support their students, staff, and faculty in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Deans Baynes and Guter responded with links to websites set up by their schools for this purpose:

• University of Houston Law Center, Hurricane Harvey Fund For Students And Staff
• South Texas College of Law Houston, Hurricane Harvey Fund For Students
• South Texas College of Law Houston, Hurricane Harver Fund For Staff And Faculty

Here are the full responses I received:

From Len Baynes (Dean, University of Houston Law Center):

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September 5, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Service has put up a very useful and comprehensive webpage titled "Help for Victims of Hurricane Harvey."  The page contains excellent information about all the different actions the Service takes in response to a natural disaster and has links to all kinds of useful sites. 

The Texas State Comptroller has a similarly useful webpage that describes the state and local tax relief (such as exemption from hotel taxes).

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September 5, 2017 in IRS News, Tax, Tax Practice And Procedure | Permalink | Comments (2)

Washington Examiner, Conservative Group Hoping for 'Perp Walks' After Breakthrough in IRS Lawsuit:

One of the groups that sued the Internal Revenue Service over its targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups believes there has been a breakthrough that will help them draw a more complete picture of what went on behind the scenes at the agency, four years after it took its case to court.

In a lawsuit involving True the Vote, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the IRS last week to release the names of employees involved in targeting conservative and Tea Party groups. Walton also told the IRS to explain why groups were targeted and search for additional records in agency databases from May 2009 to March 2015.

The IRS has until Oct. 16 to complete its records search.

Walton's order was a turning point for True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht in her legal battle with the IRS that began in 2013.

"We've come so far, and I believe that we are going to bring this thing to a head," Engelbrecht told the Washington Examiner. "I believe we will see the IRS correct its ways, and as to accountability, I'd love to see some perp walks." ...

Engelbrecht ... said just learning the names of those involved isn't enough for her. Instead, she wants the IRS to enact a policy prohibiting viewpoint discrimination. "That's our whole goal — it's to make sure this viewpoint discrimination can never occur again. It is procedurally prohibited," Engelbrecht said. "That they admit what they did was unconstitutional and won't happen to an organization, an individual, doesn't matter your political party preference. The IRS has been weaponized and needs to be put back in the box."

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September 5, 2017 in IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink | Comments (5)

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Golden Gate Seeks To Hire A Faculty Director Of Its Tax & Estate Planning LL.M. Programs
• WSJ: What Tops The Agenda For A New Space Colony? A Debate Over Taxes

Sunday:

• Death Of Lesley McAllister
• The Top Five New Tax Papers
• Pepperdine's New LL.M. In Entertainment, Media, And Sports Law

Labor Day:

• A Personal Tribute To Judge Posner And The Life Of The Mind
• The Evilness Of Section 6511
• A Little Bit Of Data Can Be A Lot Dangerous When It Comes To LSATs And Bar Passage

September 5, 2017 in Legal Education, Tax, Weekend Roundup | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in September 2004, when I was still the general counsel of a corporation, I had begun to dip my toes into legal academia some twenty-five years after graduating from law school.  I eventually told some of that story in How Not to "Retire and Teach" (and its sequel six years later).  I didn't include it in the essays, but I have occasionally told friends this heretofore unpublished story involving Judge Posner.

The great change between 1979 and 2004 was, of course, the rise of interdisciplinarity in legal scholarship. It didn't take me long to figure out that law-and-economics and Judge Posner's contribution were the models par excellence of the shift in emphasis from doctrine to theory.  My first re-introductions to the theoretical perspective came from books like The Problematic of Moral and Legal Theory and The Problems of Jurisprudence.  I didn't necessarily agree with them; my experience was too many other factors intervened to make microeconomics meaningful in the extension from transactions to subjective decision making.  Indeed, from the beginning, I was more interested in what was going on in the head of the utilitarian "rational frog" (Judge Posner's wonderful coinage in Economic Analysis of Law) whose decision-making could be plotted on a curve.  Clearly, I thought moral theory was less problematic.

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September 4, 2017 in Legal Education, Miscellaneous, News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week, in Borenstein v. Commmissioner, 149 T.C. No. 10 (Aug. 30, 2017), the Tax Court was asked to apply Section 6511 contrary to its very, very intricate terms.  The Court declined to do so.  That meant that a taxpayer lost out on a $30k+ refund.   Ms. B. had paid about $112k in taxes by the due date of her 2012 return (April 15, 2013), but she did not file the return.  While she did get the 6 month extension she still failed to file a return by October 15, 2013.  The months went by — 22 of them— before the Service was kind enough in June 2015 to send her an NOD but was unkind in slamming her with an asserted $1.2m deficiency.   You know that drill.  Ms. B. then quick-like-a-bunny filed a return that September, showing a $79k liability.  The Service said "oh, ok, that's good" and accepted her return as accurate.  So she now only needed to get her refund, right?  Wrong.  See below the fold for why.

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September 4, 2017 in New Cases, Tax Practice And Procedure | Permalink | Comments (4)

Following up on last month's post, The LSAT's 'Noteworthy' Correlation To Bar Passage:  The National Jurist op-ed:  A Little Bit of Data Can Be a Lot Dangerous, by Aaron Taylor (St. Louis; Executive Director, AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence):

I recently penned a commentary titled, For Diversity: Let’s Talk Less About Pipelines and More About Why Blacks Are Not Admitted. In it, I argue that the law school admission process disproportionately excludes Black people from legal education for reasons that are unsupported by relevant data. In making my point, I referenced research conducted by a few law schools showing the measurable, but limited, value of the LSAT in predicting bar exam performance and the acquisition of lawyering skills.

I received many responses to my inbox. Some favorable. Some not. I am writing though to address a public rebuttal by Robert Steinbuch, a law professor at Arkansas-Little Rock. Steinbuch challenged my thesis by presenting a data table showing that graduates of his law school who entered with lower LSAT scores passed the bar exam at lower rates.

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September 4, 2017 | Permalink | Comments (10)

Lesley McAllister, an environmental law professor at San Diego (2005-13) and UC-Davis (2013-), died on August 30 at the age of 47 after a four year battle against cancer.  She leaves behind her husband Andrew and two young children, Erin and Nathan.  A Celebration of Lesley's Life is being held today at 4:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis.  In lieu of flowers, charitable contributions in Lesley's honor may be made to Camp Kesem, a camp that helps children whose parents have cancer.

I got to know Leslie during my many summers at USD, and we often were neighbors in a suite of faculty offices.  I prevailed on her to take over our network's Environmental Law Prof Blog, which she did with her customary élan.

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September 3, 2017 in Legal Education, Obituaries | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new #1 paper and a new paper debuting on the list at #5:

1. [501 Downloads]  The Front Door Opens Wide for the Backdoor Roth IRA, by Philip Manns (Liberty) & Timothy Todd (Liberty)
2. [495 Downloads]  Federal Tax Procedure (2017 Practitioner Ed.), by John Townsend (Houston)
3. [238 Downloads]  BEPS and European Union Law, by Sjoerd Douma (Leiden)
4. [226 Downloads]  Is Efficiency Biased?, by Zachary Liscow (Yale)
5. [157 Downloads]  When Did Tax Avoidance Become Respectable?, by Steven Bank (UCLA)

September 3, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax, Top 5 Downloads | Permalink | Comments (0)

A nice write up of Pepperdine's new LL.M. program in Entertainment, Media, and Sports Law in Lawyer & Statesman, Entertainment, Media and Sports Law: Becoming an Expert:

The practice areas of entertainment, media and sports law are multidisciplinary, global and challenging. Lawyers that establish expertise in these fields work with entertainers, athletes, production companies and other businesses that support these international industries.

Practicing attorneys who want to gain specialized legal knowledge of the entertainment, media or sports industries should consider an LL.M. program designed to develop a higher level of expertise. ...

Starting fall of 2017, Pepperdine Law offers an LL.M. in Entertainment, Media and Sports Law. The program is designed to provide practicing attorneys with a holistic understanding of the sports industry.

“The program will give students access to the industry, hone skills specific to sports law, and provide unique networking opportunities, said Victoria Schwartz, co-director of the LL.M. and Certificate Programs in Entertainment, Media and Sports Law at Pepperdine Law.

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September 3, 2017 in Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. The IRS Is Mining Taxpayer Data On Social Media In Violation Of Federal Privacy Law
2. Law Prof Who Sued Dean For Assault Loses Round 2
3. The IRS Scandal, Day 1576: Will Justice Come For IRS Lawbreakers At Last?
4. Florida Increases Median LSAT And GPA Of Entering Class, Fueling Rise Toward The Top 35
5. The IRS Scandal, Day 1572: Why Did It Go Away?
6. The Top 100 Law Schools, Based On 5-, 10-, And 15-Year Rolling Average U.S. News Rankings
7. How Stephen Ross' $33 Million Gift To The University Of Michigan Ended Up In Tax Court
8. Former Charlotte Law Prof's Whistleblower Lawsuit Claims School Bilked $285 Million From Taxpayers
9. California Mulls Taxing Robots
10. California Bar Law School Council Recommends Lowering Cut Score to 135-139; Bar Examiners Recommend Keeping It At 144

September 2, 2017 in Legal Education, Tax, Weekly Top 10 TaxProf Blog Posts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Golden Gate University School of Law is seeking to hire a Director of its LL.M. in Taxation and LL.M. in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law programs:

This position is a full time, tenure or tenure-track position. Our LLM in Taxation has provided 40 years of instruction and has 1,600 plus alumni and is consistently ranked as the best LLM in Taxation in California. We are also proud of our newest LLM in Estate Planning which started in 2015 and is the first LLM in Estate Planning west of the Mississippi River. We welcome the opportunity to work with a director to help shape these programs to best meet the needs of lawyers seeking to enhance their learning and training in these specialty areas. 

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September 2, 2017 in Legal Education, Tax, Tax Prof Jobs | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wall Street Journal, What Tops the Agenda for a New Space Colony? A Debate Over Taxes:

It’s tough enough to create a nation in space. There’s the Earth-orbiting colony to plan, the provisioning to figure out and the technical challenge of launching thousands of people.

On top of that, you have to make folks get along before they even rocket up there.

The scale of the human task is dawning on Russian businessman and scientist Igor Ashurbeyli, who last year drew headlines with his plan for a peaceful democratic utopia dubbed Asgardia above the stratosphere.

More than 300,000 people from 217 countries and territories signed up online to be Asgardians — among them starry-eyed dreamers, sci-fi fans and political idealists — and 110,000 of them are now officially citizens.

While Dr. Ashurbeyli’s lofty plan involves launching “Space Arks” into lower Earth orbit by 2025, he has found himself caught up in earthly debates among his people about pesky details such as the space nation’s constitution and potential taxes.

Not to mention its prospective shortage of women.

Among problems facing Asgardia, “the biggest is self-organization,” said Dr. Ashurbeyli, 53, “because no one has ever tried organizing … what is today 100,000 citizens from 200 countries who don’t know each other and live in different places on Earth.”...

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September 2, 2017 in Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week, Orly Mazur (SMU) reviews a new work by Brian Galle (Georgetown), How to Save Unemployment Insurance, forthcoming in the Arizona State Law Journal.

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September 1, 2017 in Scholarship, Tax, Weekly SSRN Roundup | Permalink | Comments (0)