Tax Analysts Interview with Dan Berman, New Director of BU Grad Tax Program

I previously blogged Boston University's appointment of international tax lawyer Daniel M. Berman (Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner, Washington, D.C.) as Director of its Graduate Tax Program and Professor of the Practice of Tax Law, effective July 1, 2008.  (BU's Graduate Tax Program is ranked #6 in the latest U.S. News graduate tax rankings.)  Tax Analysts has posted online an interview with Dan by Lisa M. Nadal & Kristen A. Parillo, 2008 WTD 150-1, which will appear in Monday's Tax Notes International:

"I'm very excited about this new chapter in my life," Berman said, though he expressed sadness about leaving Washington, his home for the last 25 years. "BU law school has a great LLM program in tax. We're looking to expand and develop the program. We've been attracting students from all parts of the United States and from many countries around the world, and I'm looking forward to expanding that and increasing the visibility of the program."

Berman said most of his time will be spent running the program and developing the curriculum. He will not be teaching this fall, but will be in the spring. He is developing a course called "The Making of Tax Law," which will give students a perspective on how tax laws are actually made to help them interpret the tax law and interpolate between existing rules. "Not many people outside Washington understand how tax laws are made. . . . There's a lot that influences what really happens -- what the considerations are, the compromises that are made -- that would be helpful for students to understand when they look at the code and regulations, to understand how it got to be that way," he said.