TaxProf Blog

The Good and the Bad in Sports

I am at my college-freshman son's conference soccer tournament this weekend, with an NCAA Division III Tournament bid on the line for the winning team.  It was been a long journey, from select and high school soccer through his first college game and this remarkable season.  Their pulsating win in the semi-final yesterday, 7-6 on penalty kicks after the game finished 0-0 through two overtimes, was hard-fought but thankfully nothing like the BYU-New Mexico conference tournament semi-final game:

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email":

RSS Feeds:  You can subscribe to one of three different feeds to receive TaxProf Blog posts through your RSS reader:

• All Posts will send you all blog posts
• Tax Posts will send you only tax-related blog posts
• Legal Education will send you only law school-related blog posts

Email:  You can subscribe to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email through one of two approaches:

• FeedBlitz:  Enter your email address here to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email, delivered to you either daily, every 12 hours, every 8 hours, every 4 hours, or hourly (at your option).
• TaxProf Blog Email Service:  Email me to be added to my twice daily (during the week) and once daily (on the weekend) emails to the TaxProf Discussion Group with titles and links to recent TaxProf Blog posts.

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email":

RSS Feeds:  You can subscribe to one of three different feeds to receive TaxProf Blog posts through your RSS reader:

• All Posts will send you all blog posts
• Tax Posts will send you only tax-related blog posts
• Legal Education will send you only law school-related blog posts

Email:  You can subscribe to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email through one of two approaches:

• FeedBlitz:  Enter your email address here to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email, delivered to you either daily, every 12 hours, every 8 hours, every 4 hours, or hourly (at your option).
• TaxProf Blog Email Service:  Email me to be added to my twice daily (during the week) and once daily (on the weekend) emails to the TaxProf Discussion Group with titles and links to recent TaxProf Blog posts.

Top 100 Most Influential People in Tax and Accounting

I am honored to be included on the list of  Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Influential People for the fourth year in a row. The magazine contains one-sentence explanations of why each of the folks made the list; here is mine:

Caron has built the leading tax blog on the Internet, with over 10 million page views since he created it in 2004.

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

Politicans:

• Sen. Max Baucus (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)
• Rep. Barney Frank (Chair, House Financial Services Committee)
• Sen. Chuck Grassley (Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee)
• President Barack Obama
• Rep. Charles Rangel (Chair, House Ways & Means Committee)

Government and Industry Group Officials:

• Robert Attmore (Chair, GASB)
• Ben Bernanke (Chair, Federal Reserve System) 
• Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury)
• J. Russell George (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)
• Robert Harris (Incoming Chair, AICPA)
• Karen Hawkins (Director, IRS Office of Professional Responsibility)
• Robert Herz (Chair, FASB)
• James Kroeker (Chief Accountant, SEC)
• Barry Melancon (President & CEO, AICPA)
• Nina Olson (National Taxpayer Advocate, IRS)
• Thomas Sadler (Chair, NASBA)
• Mary Schapiro (Chair, SEC)
• Douglas Shulman (Commissioner, IRS)
• David Tweedie (Chair, IASB)
• Edward Yingling (Chair, ABA)

CEOs of Major Accounting Firms:

• Timothy Flynn & John Veihmeyer (KPMG)
• Robert Moritz & Dennis Nally (PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
• Edward Nusbaum (Grant Thornton)
• James Quigley & Barry Salzberg (Deloitte)
• James Turley (Ernst & Young)

CEOs of Tax & Accounting Companies & Publishers:

• Jonathan Baron (Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting)
• Kevin Robert (Wolters Kluwer)
• Mike Sabbatis (CCH)
• Brad Smith (Intuit)
• Russ Smyth (H&R Block)

For more, see Accounting Today's List of Top 100 People Is Kinda Predictable.

The Reach of the Blogosphere

Yet another example of the reach of the blogosphere:  I went to my son's first college soccer game yesterday, and seized the opportunity to have lunch with my favorite accountant-tax blogger: Joe Kristan:

Joe beat me to the punch by blogging our lunch here.  It was wonderful to break bread and chat about tax law, blogging, and our families.  One question I forgot to ask:  does this make my trip tax deductible?

It was a real treat to watch my son's game (although it brought back long-suppressed memories of my first college baseball game -- I batted cleanup (for the only time) based on my performance against the fastball-throwing pitching machine during preseason practice, but struck out in my three at-bats (with nary a foul ball) against the curveball-throwing lefthander from Howard before the coach mercifully pinch-hit for me).

100 Best Blogs for Law Students

TaxProf Blog has been named one of the 100 Best Blogs for Law Students -- it was one of fourteen blogs named in the "Blogs From Professors" category.  Other categories are:

• Blogs From Law Students
• News and Information
• Blogs From Recent Law School Graduates
• Financial Aid and Scholarships
• Blogs About Internships
• Legal Specialties

TaxProf Blog Passes 7,500,000 Visitor Milestone

This morning, TaxProf Blog passed the 7,500,000 visitor milestone, after just five years in operation.  I am proud that TaxProf Blog is the most-visited law-focused blog edited by a single law professor. I am delighted that so many tax professors and students, tax lawyers in private practice and government, accountants, and others in the tax community find this blog useful enough to make it a part of their daily professional lives.

The 7,500,000th visitor came to the site this morning at 8:51 a.m. EST from Denver, Colorado.  He/she subscribes to TaxProf Blog's RSS feed and came to the site via Google Reader.  He/she came to read yesterday's post, Toni Braxton, Foxy Brown Have Tax Troubles, stayed 30 seconds (yes, Brian), and then left via the link in the post to learn more about Ms. Brown's singing career.

I am thrilled to welcome Aspen as a sponsor, helping us to keep the blog going for at least another year. 

   

TaxProf Blog Passes 10,000,000 Page View Milestone

Yesterday, TaxProf Blog passed the 10,000,000 page view milestone, after just five years in operation.  I am delighted that so many tax professors and students, tax lawyers in private practice and government, accountants, and others in the tax community find this blog useful.  And I am thrilled to welcome Aspen as a sponsor, helping us to keep the blog going for at least another year.

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email":

RSS Feeds:  You can subscribe to one of three different feeds to receive TaxProf Blog posts through your RSS reader:

• All Posts will send you all blog posts
• Tax Posts will send you only tax-related blog posts
• Legal Education will send you only law school-related blog posts

Email:  You can subscribe to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email through one of two approaches:

• FeedBlitz:  Enter your email address here to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email, delivered to you either daily, every 12 hours, every 8 hours, every 4 hours, or hourly (at your option).
• TaxProf Blog Email Service:  Email me to be added to my twice daily (during the week) and once daily (on the weekend) emails to the TaxProf Discussion Group with titles and links to recent TaxProf Blog posts.

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email":

RSS Feeds:  You can subscribe to one of three different feeds to receive TaxProf Blog posts through your RSS reader:

• All Posts will send you all blog posts
• Tax Posts will send you only tax-related blog posts
• Legal Education will send you only law school-related blog posts

Email:  You can subscribe to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email through one of two approaches:

• FeedBlitz:  Enter your email address here to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email, delivered to you either daily, every 12 hours, every 8 hours, every 4 hours, or hourly (at your option).
• TaxProf Blog Email Service:  Email me to be added to my twice daily (during the week) and once daily (on the weekend) emails to the TaxProf Discussion Group with titles and links to recent TaxProf Blog posts.

Government Opposes Sealing Finance Committee Staff Statements in G-I Holdings

Continuing my coverage of the taxpayer's attempt to have the district court reconsider its decision in In re G-I Holdings, 369 B.R. 832 (D.N.J. 2007), based on affidavits to be supplied by Senate Finance Committee staffers on the meaning of a tax transition rule:  the Government yesterday filed its Brief in Opposition to Debtors' Motion to Seal Finance Committee Staff Statements, which includes this statement:

The public’s interest is manifest in Rebecca Kysar’s discussion of GAF’s attempt to cite its lobbyist as legislative history in Listening to Congress: Earmark Rules and Statutory Interpretation, 94 Cornell L. Rev. 519, 565-567 (2009). Kysar was also the author of Kysar: Transition Rules and Statutory Interpretation in G-I Holdings, available on TaxProf Blog on April 28, 2009 (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/04/kysar-.html#more).

Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:

• Can Congressional Staff Testify on Meaning of Tax Law? (Apr. 20, 2009)
• Kysar: Transition Rules and Statutory Interpretation in G-I Holdings (Apr. 28, 2009)
• Government Files Brief in Opposition in G-I Holdings (Apr. 30, 2009)

Five-Year Anniversary of TaxProf Blog

Today (April 15) marks the 5-year anniversary of TaxProf Blog (and the 14-year anniversary of the TaxProf Email Discussion Group). I hope the blog has at least partially succeeded in its mission (announced in my very first post here) to provide both (1) permanent resources & links, and (2) daily news & information, of interest to law school tax professors and students, tax lawyers in private practice and government, accountants, and others in the tax community. The following chart shows the blog's dramatic across-the-board growth over these five years [click on chart to enlarge]:

     

During my five-year run, I have:

• Made over 13,400 posts, received over 13,000 comments from readers and over 3,000 trackbacks from other blogs
• Become the most-visited law-focused blog edited by a single law professor
• Enjoyed support from our sponsors (Thomson-West, Foundation Press, and LexisNexis in our first year, LexisNexis in our second year, and Thomson-Tax & Accounting, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press in our third, fourth, and fifth years)
• Launched a law school rankings web site with Brian Leiter
• Published weekly rankings by SSRN downloads of the Top 5 Tax Papers
• Published monthly rankings by SSRN downloads of the
  • Top 25 Tax Professors
  • Top 25 Tax Faculties
  • Top 15 Graduate Tax Faculties

I am especially delighted that our Law Professor Blogs Network has expanded to over 50 blogs:

• Adjunct Law Prof Blog (Mitchell Rubinstein (St. John's & NYLS))
• Administrative Law Prof Blog (Ted McClure (Phoenix), Kamina Pinder (John Marshall) & Lisa Tripp (John Marshall))
• ADR Prof Blog (Andrea Schneider (Marquette), Nancy Welsh (Dickinson), Michael Moffitt (Oregon) & Sarah Rudolph Cole (Ohio State))
• Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog (D. Daniel Sokol (Florida))
• Aviation Law Prof Blog (Brian Havel (DePaul) & Michael Jacobs (DePaul))
• Banking Law Prof Blog (Ann Graham (Texas Tech))
• BankruptcyProf Blog (M. Jonathan Hayes (University of West Los Angeles))
• Business Law Prof Blog (Dale Oesterle (Ohio State))
• Career & Professional Development Blog (Susan Gainen (Minnesota) & Mina Jefferson (Cincinnati))
• Chinese Law Prof Blog (Donald Clarke (George Washington))
• Civil Procedure Prof Blog (W. Jeremy Counsellor (Baylor) & Rory Ryan (Baylor))
• Clinical Law Prof Blog (Amy Graham (Michigan State) & Naima Manley (Michigan State))
• Constitutional Law Prof Blog (Steven Schwinn (John Marshall), Ruthann Robson (CUNY) & Nareissa Smith (Florida Coastal))
• ContractsProf Blog (Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Elder Law Prof Blog (Kim Dayton (William Mitchell))
• Environmental Law Prof Blog (Susan Smith (Willamette))
• EvidenceProf Blog (Colin Miller (John Marshall-Chicago))
• Family Law Prof Blog (Barbara Glesner Fines (Missouri-Kansas City))
• First Amendment Law Prof Blog (Kathleen Bergin (South Texas) & Josie Brown (South Carolina))
• Food Law Prof Blog (Donna Byrne (William Mitchell))
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati))
• ImmigrationProf Blog (Kevin Johnson (UC-Davis), Bill Hing (UC-Davis), Raquel Aklana (UNLV) & Leticia Saucedo (UNLV))
• International Law Prof Blog (Mark Wojcik (John Marshall) & Cindy Galway Buys (Southern Illinois))
• Land Use Prof Blog (Paul Boudreaux (Stetson))
• Law & Development (Tom Ginsburg (Illinois) & Veronica Taylor (U. Washington))
• Law & Econ Prof Blog (Jagdeep Bhandari (Florida Coastal) & Tom Ulen (Illinois))
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Butler County Law Library) & Ron Jones (Cincinnati))
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Rebecca Flanagan (Vermont) & Amy Jarmon (Texas Tech))
• Law School Innovation (Douglas Berman (Ohio State), Anupam Chander (UC-Davis), Gene Koo (CALI) & Mark Osler (Baylor))
• Law X,0 (Joe Hodnicki (Butler County Law Library))
• Legal Profession Blog (Alan Childress (Tulane), Michael Frisch (Georgetown), William Henderson (Indiana) & Jeffrey Lipshaw (Suffolk))
• Legal Writing Prof Blog (Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech), Sue Liemer (Southern Illinois), Coleen Barger (Arkansas) & Mark Wojcik (John Marshall))
• Leiter's Law School Reports (Brian Leiter (Chicago))
• Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog (Brian Leiter (Chicago))
• M&A Law Prof Blog (Steven Davidoff) (Wayne State))
• Mass Tort Litigation Blog (Byron Stier (Southwestern), Howard Erichson (Fordham), Alexandra Lafav (UConn), Elizabeth Burch (Florida State) & William Rudenstein (Harvard))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Native American Law Prof Blog (Timothy Pleasant (Concord) & Deena DeGenova (Concord))
• Nonprofit Law Prof Blog (David Brennen (Kentucky) & Darryll Jones (Stetson))
• Poverty Law Prof Blog (Ezra Rosser (American) & Lowell Hunt (Notre Dame))
• Products Liability Prof Blog (J. David Prince, Michael Steenson & Kenneth Ross (all of William Mitchell))
• PropertyProf Blog (D. Benjamin Barros (Widener))
• Reproductive Rightd Prof Blog (Caitlin Borgmann (CUNY))
• Science & Law Blog (David Faigman (UC-Hastings), David Kaye (Arizona State), Michael Saks (Arizona State), Joseph Sanders (Houston) & Edward Cheng (Brooklyn))
• Securities Law Prof Blog (Barbara Black (Cincinnati))
• Sentencing Law and Policy (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• Sexual Orientation and the Law (Sara Benson (Illinois) & Steve Sanders (Mayer Brown, Chicago))
• Statutory Construction Blog (David Hricik (Mercer))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Mark Giangrande (DePaul) & Marin Dell (Florida State))
• TortsProf Blog (William Childs (Western New England), Christopher Robinette (Widener) & Sheila Scheuerman (Charleston))
• Unincorporated Business Law Prof Blog (Gary Rosin (South Texas))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Ellen Podgor (Stetson))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech))
• Workplace Prof Blog (Richard Bales (NKU), Jeffrey Hirsch (Tennessee) & Marcia McCormick (Cumberland))

Our current sponsor -- Thomson-Tax & Accounting, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press -- is supporting our efforts to expand the network into other areas of law.  Please email me if you would be interested in learning more about starting a blog as part of our network. We provide you with a turn-key operation: we will create your blog for you and walk you through the very simple mechanics of posting.  Thomson's sponsorship enables us to provide modest stipends to our editors. 

Thank you for joining us during these five years. I hope you will stick around for what I hope will be many years to come. Please use the comments to share your thoughts on the blog as well as how we can serve you better in the future.

Subscribing to TaxProf Blog

In response to several requests, we have made some enhancements to make TaxProf Blog more useful to our readers.  We now offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email":

RSS Feeds:  You can now subscribe to one of three different feeds to receive TaxProf Blog posts through your RSS reader:

• All Posts will send you all blog posts
• Tax Posts will send you only tax-related blog posts
• Legal Education will send you only law school-related blog posts

Email:  You can now subscribe to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email through one of two approaches:

• FeedBlitz:  Enter your email address here to receive TaxProf Blog posts via email, delivered to you either daily, every 12 hours, every 8 hours, every 4 hours, or hourly (at your option).
• TaxProf Blog Email Service:  Email me to be added to my twice daily (during the week) and once daily (on the weekend) emails to the TaxProf Discussion Group with titles and links to recent TaxProf Blog posts.

Sharing TaxProf Blog

Continuing our series of enhancements to TaxProf Blog:  in response to several requests, we have made it easier to share TaxProf Blog content through various social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter, and through services such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Technorati.  At the bottom of each post, you can click on the "Share" button to send the post to these and other services.  We hope this new feature proves to be useful to you (and extends the reach of TaxProf Blog).

Tax Rascal Names TaxProf Blog the #1 Tax Blog

The Tax Rascal has named TaxProf Blog the #1 tax blog:

[I]f you want a tax blog that’s reliable, entertaining, and comprehensive, you’ll need to pay a visit to TaxProf. There is simply no other source that’s as thorough, informative, and insightful.

TaxProf Blog Wins Bronze Medal

I am thrilled that TaxProf Blog has been named to the ABA Journal's list of "the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal" -- the 2008 Blawg 100.  TaxProf Blog was one of fifteen blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category, and came in third place with 231 votes from ABA Journal readers, behind Jonathan Turley (670 votes) and Mirror of Justice (256 votes). Here is the ABA Journal's description of TaxProf Blog:

The University of Cincinnati’s Paul Caron covers all the tax law bases—what’s coming from the headlines, the law journals and the think tanks. Caron is also editor and publisher of the Law Professor Blogs Network, reflected in his extensive coverage of law schools and legal blogging generally.

I am thrilled that four other members of our Law Professor Blogs Network also were named to the Blawg 100:

• Brian Leiter's Law School Reports (9th of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Law School Innovation (14th of 15 blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category)
• Legal Profession Blog (14th of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Sentencing Law and Policy (3rd of 5 blogs nominated in the Crime Time category)

Voting Ends Jan. 2 in ABA Journal's 2008 Top 100 Blawg Poll

Voting ends January 2 in the ABA Journal's 2008 Blawg 100 contest.   In the 15-blog "professors" category, TaxProf Blog is currently in third place with 176 votes, trailing Jonathan Turley (531 votes) and Mirror of Justice (235 votes).  To vote, go here.

The Tax Canon Redux

Among the permanent left sidebar resources on TaxProf Blog is Vic Fleischer's 2003 listing of the Tax Canon -- ten articles (and a couple of books) that comprise "essential reading for those interested in developing a cultural literacy about tax policy." On Saturday, The Tax Lawyer’s Blog announced "the Online Tax Canon, a compendium of the top 10 free online sources of tax law, advice and information," one of which is TaxProf Blog:

TaxProf Blog - The only blog in the Canon, Professor Paul Caron posts several times a day providing readers with links to popular tax articles and papers and analyses of recent tax developments. A great one-stop-shop of all things taxation.

TaxProf Blog in 4th place in ABA Journal's Top 100 Blawg Voting

Robert J. Ambrogi gives an interim report on the voting in the ABA Journal's 2008 Blawg 100 contest.   In the 15-blog "professors" category, TaxProf Blog is currently in fourth place with 108 votes, trailing Jonathan Turley (333 votes), Mirror of Justice (202 votes), and Professor Bainbridge (109 votes).

To vote, go here (Voting ends January 2.)

TaxProf Blog Named Top 100 Law Blog by ABA Journal

 

I am thrilled that TaxProf Blog has been named to the ABA Journal's list of "the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal" -- the 2008 Blawg 100.  TaxProf Blog is one of fifteen blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category:

The law profs on these blogs are more conversational than you may remember them being in class. Some tackle legal issues with a purely academic focus, while others are more playful.

Here is the ABA Journal's description of TaxProf Blog:

The University of Cincinnati’s Paul Caron covers all the tax law bases—what’s coming from the headlines, the law journals and the think tanks. Caron is also editor and publisher of the Law Professor Blogs network, reflected in his extensive coverage of law schools and legal blogging generally.

I am thrilled that four other members of our Law Professor Blogs Network also were named to the Blawg 100:

• Brian Leiter's Law School Reports (one of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Law School Innovation (one of 15 blogs nominated in the Legal Theory category)
• Legal Profession Blog (one of 15 blogs nominated in the Niche category)
• Sentencing Law and Policy (one of 5 blogs nominated in the Crime Time category)

To vote, go here.  (Voting ends January 2.)

TaxProf: A "Gender Neutral" Tax Blog

Thanks to Joe Kristan (Macho Macho Tax Blogs), who alerted me to Gender Analyzer, whose tagline is "man or woman -- who is writing that blog?"  The site "uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a homepage is written by a man or woman."  See also Kay Bell's It's Still a Man's Tax Blogging World.

Here is the Gender Analysis for TaxProf Blog:

We guess http://taxprof.typepad.com is written by a man (52%), however it's quite gender neutral.

Here are the results for other blogs by Tax Profs:

• Jack Bogdanski's Jack Bog's Blog:  80% written by a man
• Mike Livingston's From Milan to Mumbai:  79% written by a man
• Ted Seto's Understanding Tax:  73% written by a man
• Jim Maule's Mauled Again:  68% written by a man
• Linda Beale's ataxingmatter:  67% written by a man
• Dan Shaviro's Start Making Sense:  61% written by a man 
• David Brennen & Darryll Jones' Nonprofit Law Prof Blog:  79% written by a woman

Tax Prof Vacation; Guest Bloggers Take the Reins

For the third time in 4 1/2 years, I am taking a week-long respite from blogging, as I leave tomorrow on a family mission trip with my wife and two kids to Monterrey, Mexico.  SInce I will be without Internet access for the week (shudder!), through the magic of TypePad's software I have written a couple dozen posts timed to publish on the blog while I am gone. (As the song says, How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?)  In addition, three Tax Profs have graciously agreed to guest blog in my absence:

• Neil H. Buchanan (George Washington) 
• Vic Fleischer (Illinois)
• Ruth Mason (UConn)

Top 100 Most Influential People in Tax and Accounting

I am honored (and surprised) to be included on the list of  Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Inluential People for the third year in a row. The magazine contains one-sentence explanations of why each of the folks made the list; here is mine:

One of the most widely read tax sites on the Internet, Caron's TaxProf Blog is frequently cited and linked to by other blogs, attracting an audience of faithful readers.

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

Politicans:

• Sen. Max Baucus (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)
• Sen. Charles Grassley (Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee)
• Rep. Charles Rangel (Chair, House Ways & Means Committee)

Government and Industry Group Officials:

• Ernest Almonte (Chair, AICPA)
• Robert Attmore (Chair, GASB)
• Christopher Cox (Chair, SEC)
• J. Russell George (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)
• Robert Herz (Chair, FASB)
• Barry Melanconi (President & CEO, AICPA)
• Mark Olson (Chair, PCAOB)
• Nina Olson (National Taxpayer Advocate, IRS)
• Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury)
• Douglas Shulman (Commissioner, IRS)

CEOs of Major Accounting Firms:

• Samuel DiPiazza (PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
• Timothy Flynn (KPMG)
• Edward Nusbaum (Grant Thornton)
• Barry Salzberg (Deloitte)
• James Turley (Ernst & Young)

CEOs of Tax & Accounting Companies & Publishers:

• Jonathan Baron (Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting)
• Kevin Robert (Wolters Kluwer)
• Mike Sabbatis (CCH)
• Brad Smith (Intuit)

TaxProf Blog Crosses 5,000,000-Visitor Mark

After less than 4 1/2 years in operation, TaxProf Blog has crossed the 5,000,000-visitor mark. (We crossed the 4,000,000-visitor mark less than six months ago.) To put that number in perspective, it is the most visitors to any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor, according to publicly-available traffic statistics. (It is also 4,993,422 more than the number of number of downloads of all of my articles!)  For more on law professor blog traffic data, see here and here.

I have made over 11,700 posts to the blog, readers have posted 9,000 comments, and other bloggers have linked to the blog over 2,800 times.

The 5,000,000th visitor came to TaxProf Blog from Los Angeles, California at 11:33 p.m. EST yesterday.

I am grateful to the growing number of regular readers and hope you are finding the blog helpful in your tax research, teaching, practice, and policymaking roles.

Tax Analysts Partners With TaxProf Blog

I am thrilled to announce that Tax Analysts has agreed to share some of its content with readers of TaxProf Blog. Each week, I will blog one article from three of Tax Analysts' publications: Tax Notes, State Tax Notes, and Tax Notes International. The full-text of each article will remain available on TaxProf Blog for one week after the post.

I hope this new service will be of interest to the tax community.

WKRP TaxProf Blog in Cincinnati

Fans of the WKRP in Cincinnati TV show might remember the theme song:

Dave Rifkin (Attorney-Advisor to Tax Court Judge Juan F. Vasquez; Adjunct Professor, Georgetown) welcomed me back from San Diego with this ode:

Baby, if you've ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I'm living on the net in Cincinnati,
TaxProf Blog in Cincinnati.

Got kind of tired packing and unpacking,
Town to town and up and down the rankings
Maybe you and me were never meant to be,
But baby click on me once in awhile.

I'm at TaxProf Blog in Cincinnati.

Of course, the obvious question is who is my counterpart on the show -- I voted for Andy Travis or Dr. Johnny Fever; my wife and kids, alas, say its Les Nessman.

WKRP TaxProf Blog in Cincinnati.

Four-Year Anniversary of TaxProf Blog

Today (April 15) marks the 4-year anniversary of TaxProf Blog (and the 13-year anniversary of the TaxProf Email Discussion Group). I hope the blog has at least partially succeeded in its mission (announced in my very first post here) to provide both (1) permanent resources & links, and (2) daily news & information, of interest to law school tax professors and students, tax lawyers in private practice and government, accountants, and others in the tax community. The following chart shows the blog's dramatic across-the-board growth over these four years [click on chart to enlarge]:

During my four-year run, I have:

• Made over 10,500 posts and received over 2,600 comments from readers
• Become the seventh most popular blog edited by a law professor
• Enjoyed support from our sponsors (Thomson-West, Foundation Press, and LexisNexis in our first year, LexisNexis in our second year, and Thomson-Tax & Accounting, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press in our third and fourth years)
• Launched a law school rankings web site with Brian Leiter
• Published weekly rankings by SSRN downloads of the Top 5 Tax Papers
• Published monthly rankings by SSRN downloads of the
  • Top 25 Tax Professors
  • Top 25 Tax Faculties
  • Top 15 Graduate Tax Faculties

I am especially delighted that our Law Professor Blogs Network has expanded to over 50 blogs:

• Adjunct Law Prof Blog (Mitchell Rubinstein (St. John's & NYLS))
• Administrative Law Prof Blog (Drury Stevenson (South Texas) & Cynthia Quinn (Hawaii))
• ADR Prof Blog (Andrea Schneider (Marquette), Nancy Welsh (Dickinson), Michael Moffitt (Oregon) & Sarah Rudolph Cole (Ohio State))
• Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog (Shubha Ghosh (SMU) & D. Daniel Sokol (Missouri-Columbia))
• Aviation Law Prof Blog (Brian Havel (DePaul) & Michael Jacobs (DePaul))
• Banking Law Prof Blog (Ann Graham (Texas Tech))
• BankruptcyProf Blog (M. Jonathan Hayes (Univ. West L.A.)
• Business Law Prof Blog (Dale Oesterle (Ohio State))
• Chinese Law Prof Blog (Donald Clarke (George Washington))
• Civil Procedure Prof Blog (W. Jeremy Counsellor (Baylor) & Rory Ryan (Baylor))
• Civil Rights Prof Blog (Lynda Dodd (American))
• ContractsProf Blog (Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Elder Law Prof Blog (Kim Dayton (William Mitchell))
• Environmental Law Prof Blog (Susan Smith (Willamette))
• EvidenceProf Blog (Colin Miller (John Marshall-Chicago))
• Family Law Prof Blog (Barbara Glesner Fines (Missouri-Kansas City) & Nancy Ver Steegh (William Mitchell))
• First Amendment Law Prof Blog (Kathleen Bergin (South Texas) & Josie Brown (South Carolina))
• Food Law Prof Blog (Donna Byrne (William Mitchell)
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati))
• Higher Ed Law Prof Blog (James Castagnera (Rider) & Patrick Cihon (Syracuse))
• ImmigrationProf Blog (Bill Hing (UC-Davis) & Kevin Johnson (UC-Davis))
• International Environmental Law Prof Blog (William Burns (Santa Clara) & Richard Caddell (Bangor))
• Land Use Prof Blog (Paul Boudreaux (Stetson))
• Law & Development (Tom Ginsburg (Illinois) & Veronica Taylor (U. Washington)
• Law & Econ Prof Blog (Jagdeep Bhandari (Florida Coastal) & Tom Ulen (Illinois))
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati) & Ron Jones (Cincinnati))
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Daniel Weddle (UMKC), Elizabeth Stillman (Suffolk) & Amy Jarmon (Texas Tech)))
• Law School Innovation (Douglas Berman (Ohio State), Anupam Chander (UC-Davis), Gene Koo (CALI) & Mark Osler (Baylor))
• Law X,0 (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati)
• Legal Profession Blog (Alan Childress (Tulane), Michael Frisch (Georgetown) & Jeffrey Lipshaw (Tulane))
• Legal Writing Prof Blog (Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech), Sue Liemer (Southern Illinois) & Coleen Barger (Arkansas))
• Leiter's Law School Reports (Brian Leiter (Texas))
• Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog (Brian Leiter (Texas))
• M&A Law Prof Blog (Steven Davidoff) (Wayne State)
• Mass Tort Litigation Blog (Byron Stier (Southwestern), Howard Erichson (Seton Hall), Alexandra Lafav (UConn) & Elizabeth Burch (Cumberland))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Nonprofit Law Prof Blog (David Brennen (Georgia) & Darryll Jones (Stetson))
• Poverty Law Prof Blog (Ezra Rosser (American) & Lowell Hunt (Notre Dame))
• Products Liability Prof Blog (J. David Prince, Michael Steenson & Kenneth Ross (all of William Mitchell))
• PropertyProf Blog (D. Benjamin Barros (Widener))
• Reproductive Rightd Prof Blog (Caitlin Borgmann (CUNY))
• Science & Law Blog (David Faigman (Hastings), David Kaye (Arizona State), Michael Saks (Arizona State), Joseph Sanders (Houston) & Edward Cheng (Brooklyn))
• Search & Seizure Blog (Scott Fingerhut (Florida International))
• Secured Credit Blog (Larry Bates (Baylor) & Kristin Schroeder Simpson (Baylor))
• Securities Law Prof Blog (Barbara Black (Cincinnati))
• Sentencing Law and Policy (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• Sexual Orientation and the Law (Sara Benson (Illinois)
• State & Local Government Law Prof Blog (Judith Welch Wegner (North Carolina) & Phillip Sparkes (NKU))
• Statutory Construction Blog (David Hricik (Mercer))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Mark Giangrande (DePaul))
• TortsProf Blog (Bill Childs (Western New England), Christopher Robinette (Widener) & Sheila Scheuerman (Charleston))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Ellen Podgor (Stetson))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech))
• Workplace Prof Blog (Richard Bales (NKU). Paul Secunda (Mississippi) & Jeffrey Hirsch (Tennessee))

Our current sponsor -- Thomson-Tax & Accounting, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press -- is supporting our efforts to expand the network into other areas of law.  Please email me if you would be interested in learning more about starting a blog as part of our network. We provide you with a turn-key operation: we will create your blog for you and walk you through the very simple mechanics of posting.  Thomson's sponsorship enables us to provide modest stipends to our editors. 

Thank you for joining us during these four years. I hope you will stick around for what I hope will be many years to come. Please use the comments to share your thoughts on the blog as well as how we can serve you better in the future.

TaxProf Blog Featured in Today's Wall Street Journal

TaxProf Blog is featured in the Blog Watch column in today's Wall Street Journal (page R8):

Paul L. Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and the author of numerous books, writes this influential and popular blog, which includes coverage of tax-reform legislation with extensive explanations.

Recent posts include a discussion of flat-tax systems, which have been adopted by more and more countries, and which Prof. Caron argues have generated impressive results, often leading to higher tax revenue because of income growth and better compliance.

Prof. Caron culls excerpts from reports, conference papers and other publications, and provides updates on Internal Revenue Service investigations, tax legislation and policy proposals.

Two other tax blogs are featured:  TaxVox and Don't Mess With Taxes.

TaxProf Blog Crosses 4,000,000-Visitor Mark

After less than four years in operation, TaxProf Blog has crossed the 4,000,000-visitor mark. (We crossed the 3,000,000-visitor mark eight months ago.)  To put that number in perspective, it is the most visitors to any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor, according to publicly-available traffic statistics. (It is also 3,994,000 more than the number of downloads of all of my articles!)  For more on law professor blog traffic data, see:

• More on Law Prof Blog Rankings (2/21/08)
• Law Prof Blog Rankings (2/19/08)
• Are Scholars Better Bloggers?, 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1025 (2006)

I have made over 10,350 posts to the blog, readers have posted 7,000 comments, and other bloggers have linked to the blog over 2,600 times. 

The 4,000,000th visitor came to TaxProf Blog from Lagrange, Georgia at 5:23 p.m. EST yesterday. 

I am grateful to the growing number of regular readers and hope you are finding the blog helpful in your tax research, teaching, practice, and policymaking roles.

China Blocks Access to TaxProf Blog

Tax Prof Ann Murphy (Gonzaga), in China on a Fulbright Scholarship, reports that the government has decided to block all access to TaxProf Blog:

I had hoped it would not happen, but the Chinese government has decided to block your [blog]. I am so bummed!! I'm hoping it's a temporary thing. I still get your emails, but can't access the site. They block a lot of blogs, so I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to happen.

(Ann is to the left in the picture taken at the Great Wall (to the right is Ann's Gonzaga colleague, Mary Pat Treuthart). See here and for a discussion of the problem.

Update:  Jack Balkin notes that some other law prof blogs (e.g., Althouse, Balkinization, Chicago Faculty Blog, Conglomerate, and Leiter Law School reports) are also banned in China, but that others (e.g., Becker-Posner, BlackProf, Business Associations, Concurring Opinions, Election Law, Feminist Law Professors, How Appealing, InstaPundit, Lessig, Mirror of Justice, PrawfsBlawg, SCOTUSBlog, and Volokh Conspiracy) are not.

TaxProf Blog Reader Poll

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Stagnation in the Law Prof Blogosphere?

Orin Kerr (George Washington) on The Volokh Conspiracy:

In the 2003-06 period, it looked like the blawgosphere -- the part of the blogworld devoted to law blogs -- was expanding rapidly and becoming more and more important. As 2007 comes to an end, however, I think we can see a very different picture for 2007. For the most part this was a year of little growth or even a slight decline among law blogs. ...

Most of the major blogs have kept going, and readership on the whole has been roughly stable. But my sense is that there hasn't been a lot of growth in overall law blog postings and readership. What happened?

Most leading law professor blogs indeed have had stable traffic in 2007 as measured in monthly page views (e.g., Balinization, Business Law Prof Blog, Concurring Opinions, Conglomerate, ContractsProf Blog, CrimProf Blog, Discourse, Election Law, Family Law Prof Blog, Ideoblog, Jurisdynamics, Legal Profession Blog, MoneyLaw, OpinioJuris, PrawfsBlawg, Sentencing Law & Policy, Volokh Conspiracy, White Collar Crime Prof Blog).  A few, however, have bucked the trend and experienced significant traffic gains in 2007 (e.g., Empirical Legal Studies, Leiter's Law School Reports, M & A Law Prof Blog, Madisonian, Religion Clause, TaxProf Blog, TortsProf Blog, WorkplaceProf Blog).  At our Law Professor Blogs Network, the number of blogs and monthly page views have increased over 33% in 2007.

Of the huge non-law focused blogs run by law professors, Althouse and Hugh Hewitt have had stable traffic in 2007 while InstaPundit has experienced sizeable traffic gains.  Although many of the popular law blogs run by non law professors (like David Lat's Above the Law and the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog) do not have publicly available Site Meters, others do -- How Appealing has had stable traffic in 2007, while De Novo and Legal Underground have had declining traffic.

For further discussion of Orin's post, see:

• Concurring Opinions
• InstaPundit
• Legal Blog Watch
• Leiter's Law School Reports
• New York Personal Injury Law Blog
• Simple Justice

For earlier thoughts and data on law professor blogs, see:

• Paul Caron, Are Scholars Better Bloggers?, 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1025 (2006).
• Dave Hoffman, The Flat Legal Blogosphere, and What To Do About It (7/10/07).

TaxProf Is TypePad's Featured Blog

TaxProf is TypePad's Featured Blog this week.

Caron Interview on Law Crossing

Check out my interview on Law Crossing where you will learn, among other things:

• My connection to Bill Clinton
• My favorite ice cream
• The last book I read
• The contributions of my three mentors

Welcome to the Blogosphere: Nonprofit Law Prof Blog

We are delighted to announce the launch of a new Nonprofit Law Prof Blog, edited by David A. Brennen (Georgia) & Darryll K. Jones (Stetson), as part of our Law Professor Blogs Network.  As readers of this blog know, David and Darryll are leaders in the nonprofit law world -- they are the coauthors (with Steven Willis (Florida) & Beverly Moran (Vanderbilt)) of a leading casebook (The Tax Law of Charities and Other Exempt Organizations: Cases, Materials, Questions and Activities (West Group, 2d ed. 2007)) and the co-editors of the SSRN e-journal (Nonprofit & Philanthropy Law) in the area. The blog is enriched by Contributing Editors Susan Gary (Oregon), Vaughn E. James (Texas Tech), Robert A. Katz (Indiana-Indianapolis), Lloyd H. Mayer (Notre Dame) & Alice M. Thomas (Howard).

Nonprofit Law Prof Blog joins more than fifty other blogs in our network:

• Adjunct Law Prof Blog, by Mitchell Rubinstein (St. John's & New York Law School)
• Administrative Law Prof Blog, by Drury Stevenson (South Texas) & Cynthia Quinn (Hawaii)
• Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog, by Shubha Ghosh (SMU) & Daniel Sokol (Missouri-Columbia)
• Aviation Law Prof Blog, by Brian Havel (DePaul) & Michael Jacobs (DePaul)
• Banking Law Prof Blog, by Ann Graham (Texas Tech)
• Business Law Prof Blog, by Dale Oesterle (Ohio State)
• Chinese Law Prof Blog, by Donald Clarke (George Washington)
• ContractsProf Blog, by Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan)
• CrimProf Blog, by Mark Godsey (Cincinnati)
• Elder Law Prof, by Kim Dayton (William Mitchell)
• Environmental Law Prof Blog, by Susan Smith (Willamette)
• EvidenceProf Blog, by Colin Miller (John Marshall)
• Family Law Prof Blog, by Barbara Glesner Fines (Missouri-Kansas City) & Nancy Ver Steegh (William Mitchell)
• First Amendment Law Prof Blog, by Kathleen Bergin (South Texas) & Josie Brown (South Carolina)
• Food Law Prof Blog, by Donna Byrne (William Mitchell)
• Health Law Prof Blog, by Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati)
• Higher Ed Law Prof Blog, by James Ottavio Castagnera (Rider) & Patrick Cihon (Syracuse)
• ImmigrationProf Blog, by Bill Hing (UC-Davis) & Kevin Johnson (UC-Davis)
• International Environmental Law Blog, by William Burns (Santa Clara) & Richard Caddell (Wales, Bangor)
• Land Use Prof Blog, by Paul Boudreaux (Stetson)
• Law & Development Blog, by Tom Ginsburg (Illinois) & Veronica Taylor (Univ. of Washington)
• Law & Econ Prof Blog, by Jagdeep Bhandari (Florida Coastal) & Tom Ulen (Illinois)
• Law Librarian Blog, by Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati) & Ron Jones (Cincinnati)
• Law School Academic Support Blog, by Daniel Weddle (Missouri-Kansas City) & Elizabeth Stillman (Suffolk)
• Law School Innovation, by Douglas Berman (Ohio State), Anupam Chander (UC-Davis), Gene Koo (Berkman Center for Internet & Society) & Mark Osler (Baylor)
• Law X.0, by Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati) & Matt Morrison (Cornell)
• Legal Profession Blog, by Alan Childress (Tulane), Michael Frisch (Georgetown) & Jeffrey Lipshaw (Suffolk)
• Legal Writing Prof Blog, by Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech), Sue Liemer (Southern Illinois) & Coleen Barger (Arkansas-Little Rock)
• Brian Leiter's Law School Reports, by Brian Leiter (Texas)
• Brian Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog, by Brian Leiter (Texas)
• M&A Law Prof Blog, by Steven M. Davidoff (Wayne State)
• Mass Tort Litigation Blog, by Byron Stier (Southwestern), Howard Erichson (Seton Hall), Alexandra Lahav (Connecticut) & Elizabeth Chamblee Burch (Cumberland)
• Media Law Prof Blog, by Cristina Corcos (LSU)
• Poverty Law Prof Blog, by Ezra Rosser (American) & Lowell Kent Hull (Notre Dame)
• Products Liability Prof Blog, by J. David Prince, Michael Steenson & Kenneth Ross (all of William Mitchell)
• PropertyProf Blog, by D. Benjamin Barros (Widener)
• Reproductive Rights Prof Blog, by Caitlin Borgmann (CUNY)
• Science & Law Blog, by David Faigman (UC-Hastings), David Kaye (Arizona State), Michael Saks (Arizona State), Joseph Sanders (Houston) & Edward Cheng (Brooklyn)
• Search & Seizure Blog, by H. Scott Fingerhut (Florida International)
• Secured Credit Blog, by Larry Bates (Baylor) & Kristin Schroeder Simpson (Baylor)
• Securities Law Prof Blog, by Barbara Black (Cincinnati)
• Sentencing Law and Policy, by Douglas Berman (Ohio State)
• Sexual Orientation and the Law, by Sara Benson (Illinois) & William Turner (Emory)
• State & Local Government Law Prof Blog, by Judith Welch Wegner (North Carolina)
• Statutory Construction Blog, by David Hricik (Mercer)
• TaxProf Blog, by Paul Caron (Cincinnati)
• Tech Law Prof Blog, by Mark Giangrande (DePaul)
• TortsProf Blog, by Bill Childs (Western New England), Christopher Robinette (Widener) & Sheila Scheuerman (Charleston)
• Unincorporated Business Law Prof Blog, by Greg Duhl
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog, by Peter Henning (Wayne State) & Ellen Podgor (Stetson)
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, by Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech)
• Workplace Prof Blog, by Richard Bales (NKU) & Paul Secunda (Mississippi)

Our sponsor -- Thomson (Foundation Press, West, and Thomson Tax & Accounting) -- is supporting our efforts to expand the network into other areas of law.  Please email me if you would be interested in learning more about starting a blog as part of our network. We provide you with a turn-key operation: we will create your blog for you and walk you through the very simple mechanics of posting.  Thomson's sponsorship enables us to provide modest stipends to our editors.  I also would be happy to meet with any potential editors at AALS.

You Are a Genius!

According to the Blog Readibility Test, the level of education necessary to understand this blog is the highest level -- Genius.  Dan Solove (George Washington) notes the level of education necessary to understand various popular law blog, which I have supplemented below:

GENIUS
* Balkinization
* Becker-Posner
* Feminist Law Professors
* Legal Theory
* TaxProf

COLLEGE (POSTGRAD)
* Brian Leiter's Law School Reports
* Start Making Sense

COLLEGE (UNDERGRAD)
* Concurring Opinions
* Conglomerate
* PrawfsBlawg
* Dorf on Law
* How Appealing

HIGH SCHOOL
* Mauled Again
* Tax Policy Blog
* Tax Vox Blog
* Wall Street Journal Law Blog

JUNIOR HIGH
* Above the Law
* Althouse
* Instapundit
* MoneyLaw
* Roth & Company
* The Volokh Conspiracy

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
* Don't Mess With Taxes

Top 100 Most Influential People in Tax and Accounting

I am honored (and surprised) to be included on the list of Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Influential People for the second year in a row. The magazine contains one-sentence explanations of why each of the folks made the list; here is mine:

Caron has helped lead the profession's exploration of new media, and his blog, launched in 2004, is one of the most-visited tax blogs on the Internet.

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

Politicans:

• Sen. Max Baucus (Chair, Senate Finance Committee)
• Sen. Charles Grassley (Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee)

Government and Industry Group Officials:

• Robert Attmore (Chair, GASB)
• Christopher Cox (Chair, SEC)
• Mark Everson (Commissioner, IRS)
• Randy Fletchall (Chair, AICPA)
• J. Russell George (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)
• Robert Herz (Chair, FASB)
• Conrad Hewitt (Chief Accountant, SEC)
• Barry Melanconi (AICPA)
• Mark Olson (Chair, PCAOB)
• Nina Olson (National Taxpayer Advocate, IRS)
• Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury)
• David Walker (U.S. Comptroller General)
• Michael Young (Partner, Wilkie Farr & Gallagher)

CEOs of Major Accounting Firms:

• Samuel DiPiazza (PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
• Timothy Flynn (KPMG)
• Edward Nusbaum (Grant Thornton)
• Barry Salzberg (Deloitte & Touche))
• James Turley (Ernst & Young)
• Jack Weisbaum (BDO Seidman)

CEOs of Tax & Accounting Companies & Publishers:

• Steve Bennett (Intuit)
• Mark Ernst (H&R Block)
• Michael Lister (Jackson Hewitt)
• Roy Martin Jr. (Thomson Tax & Accounting)
• Kevin Robert (Wolters Kluwer)

Nominations Close Today for "Best Law Blog" Award

Nominations close today for the 2007 Best Law Blog Award.  To nominate your favorite tax blog, go here.

TaxProf Chosen as "Top 100 Academic Blog"

TaxProf Blog (and our sister Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog) was named today as one of the Top 100 Academic Blogs Every Professional Investor Should Read.

TaxProf Blog Named Top 100 Econ Blog

CurrencyTrading.net has named TaxProf Blog one of Top 100 blogs dealing with economics:

TaxProf is an extremely comprehensive look at all issues concerning tax law. It is updated frequently and is a great source of current tax related events, discussion, and analysis.

Law Prof Blogosphere Census

Dan Solove (George Washington) has updated his census of law professor bloggers (here and here). He notes that there are now 365 law professor bloggers (up from 309 in October 2006).  The gender breakdown of the 365 law professor bloggers is 74% male and 26% female. 

77 (21%) of the bloggers are part of our Law Professor Blogs Network.  Our network is more diverse than the general law prof blogosphere:  66% male and 34% female.

There are now eleven tax professor bloggers (73% male and 27% female):

• Linda Beale (Wayne State):   ataxingmatter
• Donna Byrne (William Mitchell):  Food Law Prof Blog
• Neil Buchanan (George Washington):  Left2Right & Dorf on Law
• Paul Caron (Cincinnati):  TaxProf Blog
• Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark):  Jack Bog's Blog
• Victor Fleischer (Illinois):  Conglomerate
• Michael Livingston (Rutgers-Camden):  From Milan to Mumbai
• Eric Lustig (New England):  Adjunct Law Prof Blog
• Jim Maule (Villanova):  Mauled Again
• Gail Richmond (Nova):   Adjunct Law Prof Blog
• Dan Shaviro (NYU):  Start Making Sense

Brown on Blogs and Law School Rankings: TaxProf Blog Is #1!

Jay Brown (Denver) has posted Blogs, Law School Rankings, and the Race to the Bottom on SSRN.  The paper examines the Top 200 law blogs as ranked by Justia on June 25, 2007. (The ranking is based on the number of visits to law blogs from the law blog search engine on Justia.) Of the Top 200 law blogs by this measure, 37 are run by law professors.  Here are the Top 25 law professor blogs (including overall ranking among Top 200 law blogs):

1. TaxProf Blog (8)
2. Religion Clause (10)
3. PrawfsBlawg (15)
4. Sentencing Law and Policy (16)
5. Workplace Prof Blog (17)
6. Conglomerate (18)
7. Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (33)
8. Legal Theory Blog (47)
9. Federal Civil Practice Bulletin (50)
10. While Collar Crime Prof Blog (52)
11. Mirror of Justice (53)
12. The Volokh Conspiracy (55)
13. Truth on the Market (57)
14. Technology & Marketing Law Blog (61)
15. 43(B)log (65)
16. Balkinization (75)
17. Concurring Opinions (87)
18. CrimProf Blog (99)
19. ImmigrationProf Blog (107)
20. Ideoblog (114)
21. Family Law Prof Blog (118)
22. ProfessorBainbridge.com (124)
23. Leonard Link (130)
24. PropertyProf Blog (141)
25. Legal Profession Blog (147)

I am, of course, proud that TaxProf Blog is rated the #1 law blog by Justia, and that five of the Top 10 law blogs (and ten of the Top 25 law blogs) are members of our Law Professor Blogs Network.

Here is the abstract of the paper:

Blogs are changing legal scholarship. Although not a substitute for the detailed, often intricately researched analysis contained in law reviews and other scholarly publications, they fill an important gap in the scholarly continuum. Blog posts can generate ideas and discussion that can be transformed into more a systematic and thorough paper or scholarly article. At the same time, blogs provide a forum for testing ideas once they are published in more traditional venues.

While over time, a blog presence will likely become de rigueur for top scholars and law reviews, top tier schools as a group have not yet targeted blogs as a necessary component of scholarly activity. In the short term, therefore, blogs provide unique opportunities for faculty and law schools outside the top tier to enhance their reputational rankings. Blogs can enhance reputation by allowing faculty to route around some of the biases in law review placements and SSRN rankings that favor those at the top tier schools. Blogs also represent a cost effective mechanism for advertising scholarly activity.

The paper discusses the evidence that blogs enhance reputation and surveys the way that scholars at law schools outside the top tier are already harnessing blogs to enhance their reputations. The paper also discusses what it takes to create a successful blog, from the search for content to the benefits of advertising. The paper finishes with a brief history of The Race to the Bottom, a corporate governance blog.

Tax Prof at 50

I was hoping to fly under the radar with this, but I have been outed by some of my blogosphere friends (Adjunct Law Prof Blog, Administrative Law Prof Blog, Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog, Brian Leiter's Law School Reports, Food Law Prof Blog, Health Law Prof Blog, ImmigrationProf Blog, Jack Bog's Blog, Legal Profession Blog, M&A Law Prof Blog, MoneyLaw, Poverty Law Prof Blog, PrawfsBlawg, Reproductive Rights Prof Blog, Roth & Co., Securities Law Prof Blog, TortsProf Blog, White Collar Crime Prof Blog, Workplace Prof Blog):

Today I joined Dan Shaviro in the 50-year old club.  Like Dan, "I weigh the same and am in better aerobic shape than when I was a college or law student" -- indeed, I bragged to my wife last night that I am one of the few men who can still fit into his wedding suit, but she reminded me that I am one of the even fewer men that still wears a 22-year old suit!

Today culminates a year of transition for me, as I said farewell to my father and family dog, passed through bittersweet milestones (here and here) with my son (here and here) and daughter (here and here), survived a medical rite of passage for folks my age, and re-committed to Cincinnati with a great new job.  As I look out on the other side of 50, It is hard to believe that it was only three years ago that I was a finalist for the coveted "Law Prof Hunk" Award (here and here)!

Why I Blog

People often ask me why I blog.  Mike Madison (Pittsburgh) puts it more eloquently than I can:

It’s difficult to describe tangible benefits from blogging in my academic life, but it’s clear to me that some form of virtual outreach is now absolutely essential to professional success in academia. It’s also clear to me that the most effective use of blogging in academia involves connecting one’s virtual persona in some thoughtful way to more personal, dare I say traditional, terrestrial engagement or some facsimile thereof.

My goal with this blog and companion email discussion group is to enhance the feeling of community among tax academics, practitioners, and government officials.  My hope is that the tax world is a more interconnected place as a result of these efforts.

TaxProf Blog Crosses 3,000,000-Visitor Mark

After 39 months in operation, TaxProf Blog has crossed the 3,000,000-visitor mark. To put that number in perspective, it is the most visitors to any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor, according to publicly-available traffic statistics. (It is also 2,995,000 more than the number of downloads of all of my articles!) Doug Berman's Sentencing Law & Policy Blog, part of our Law Professors Blogs Network, has received the most page views (4.6 million) of any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor. (I discuss other law professor blog traffic statistics in my forthcoming introduction to our Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship symposium,  Are Scholars Better Bloggers? , 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. ___ (2007)).

During TaxProf Blog's 39 months of operation, I have made over 8,300 posts to the blog, readers have posted over 4,000 comments, and other bloggers have linked to TaxProf Blog over 2,200 times. 

The 3,000,000th visitor came to TaxProf Blog from the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle at 12:29 p.m EST yesterday.  He/she stayed for 13 minutes and 5 seconds (I wonder if that was billable time!).

We are grateful to our growing number of regular readers and hope you are finding the blog helpful in your tax research, teaching, practice, and policymaking roles.

Vote for the TaxProf Blog Theme Song

Hillary Clinton is asking for the public to vote on her campaign these song.  Tax Prof Bridget Crawford (Pace) is seeking a theme song for her Feminst Law Professors Blog.  In the same spirit, please vote on a TaxProf Blog theme song from among these nominees previously featured on the blog:

• It's Just a Breeze ... G (Christian Pulfer)
• It's My Money (The Right Brothers)
• Keep Track of Your Stack (John Borges)
• The Tax Man (The Beatles)
• Tax Rap (Adam Steinman)
• Taxes Are Best When You Pay Nothing At All (Stephen Stubbs)

What Is Your Favorite Tax Song?
	It's Just a Breeze ... G (Christian Pulfer)
	It's My Money (The Right Brothers)
	Keep Track of Your Stack (John Borges)
	The Tax Man (The Beatles)
	Tax Rap (Adam Steinman)
	Taxes Are Best When You Pay Nothing At All (Stephen Stubbs)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

TaxProf Blog Is #8 Among 1845 Law Blogs

I am thrilled that TaxProf Blog is the eighth most popular law blog among the 1845 law blogs tracked by Justia.com.  It is also the #1 tax blog among twenty tax blogs.  (The ranking is based on the number of visits from the BlawgSearch search engine and directory listing pages of Justia.com.)

WSJ Plugs TaxProf Blog

Tom Herman gives a nice plug to TaxProf Blog in today's Wall Street Journal:

A POPULAR BLOG assembles tax information for the military.

Continuing a Memorial Day tradition, TaxProf Blog (www.taxprof.typepad.com), a site run by Paul Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, has assembled links to IRS tax information for members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families. See his posting last Monday.

Mr. Caron's widely read Blog is important reading for anyone trying to keep up with tax-related news, ranging from court cases and IRS news releases to coverage of tax geeks who appear in strange music videos.

My only quibble:  I have previously taken good natured umbrage at the term "tax geeks" in Tax Myopia, Or Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Tax Lawyers, 13 Va. Tax Rev. 517 (1994):

Tax courses are perceived to be reserved for what in my day used to be called "tax geeks"[Fn.4].

Fn.4:  After I became one, I preferred the less pejorative term "tax jocks." I am unsure, however, whether the term caught on among anyone other than my fellow tax geeks.

Three-Year Anniversary of TaxProf Blog

Yesterday (April 15) marked the 3-year anniversary of TaxProf Blog (and the 12-year anniversary of the TaxProf Email Discussion Group). I hope the blog has at least partially succeeded in its mission (announced in my very first post here) to provide both (1) permanent resources & links, and (2) daily news & information, of interest to law school tax professors and students, tax lawyers in private practice and government, and others in the tax community. The following chart shows the blog's dramatic across-the-board growth over these three years [click on chart to enlarge]:

During our three-year run, we have:

• Become the most popular law-focused blog published by a sole law professor
• Enjoyed support from our sponsors (Thomson-West, Foundation Press, and LexisNexis in our first year, LexisNexis in our second year, and Thomson-RIA, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press in our third year)
• Profiled over 150 of our tax colleagues in a weekly spotlight series
• Said premature goodbyes to too many of our colleagues
• Launched a law school rankings web site with Brian Leiter
• Published weekly rankings of the Top 5 Tax Paper Downloads
• Published monthly rankings by SSRN downloads of the
  • Top 25 Tax Professors
  • Top 25 Tax Faculties
  • Top 15 Graduate Tax Faculties
• Organized a symposium on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings at Indiana-Bloomington, with the papers and commentary published in the Indiana Law Journal
• Organized a symposium on Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship at Harvard Law School, with the papers and commentaries published in the Washington university Law Review

I am especially delighted that the Law Professor Blogs Network I started with Joe Hodnicki has grown to 46 blogs, either existing or in development:

• AntitrustProf Blog (Shubha Ghosh (SMU) & D. Daniel Sokol (Wisconsin))
• Aviation Law Prof Blog (Brian Havel (DePaul), Michael Jacobs (DePaul) & Andrew Eastmond)
• Banking Law Prof Blog (Ann Graham (Texas Tech))
• Business Law Prof Blog (Dale Oesterle (Ohio State))
• Chinese Law Prof Blog (Donald Clarke (George Washington))
• Civil Procedure Prof Blog (W. Jeremy Counsellor (Baylor) & Rory Ryan (Baylor))
• ContractsProf Blog (Carol Chomsky (Minnesota) & Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Elder Law Prof Blog (Kim Dayton (William Mitchell))
• Environmental Law Prof Blog (Susan Smith (Willamette))
• Family Law Prof Blog (Barbara Glesner Fines (Missouri-Kansas City) & Nancy Ver Steegh (William Mitchell))
• Food Law Prof Blog (Donna Byrne (William Mitchell)
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati))
• Higher Ed Law Prof Blog (James Castagnera (Rider) & Patrick Cihon (Syracuse))
• ImmigrationProf Blog (Jennifer Chacón (UC-Davis), Bill Hing (UC-Davis) & Kevin Johnson (UC-Davis))
• International Environmental Law Prof Blog (William Burns (Santa Clara) & Richard Caddell (Bangor))
• Land Use Prof Blog (Paul Boudreaux (Stetson))
• Law & Econ Prof Blog (Jagdeep Bhandari (Florida Coastal) & Tom Ulen (Illinois))
• Law Blog Metrics (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati)
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati) & Ron Jones (Cincinnati))
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Daniel Weddle (UMKC) & Elizabeth Stillman (Suffolk))
• Law School Innovation (Douglas Berman (Ohio State), Anupam Chander (UC-Davis), Gene Koo (Harvard) & Mark Osler (Baylor))
• Legal Profession Blog (Alan Childress (Tulane), Michael Frisch (Georgetown) & Jeffrey Lipshaw (Tulane))
• Legal Writing Prof Blog (Nancy Soonpaa (Texas Tech), Sue Liemer (Southern Illinois) & Coleen Barger (Arkansas))
• Leiter's Law School Reports (Brian Leiter (Texas))
• Mass Tort Litigation Blog (Byron Stier (Southwestern) & Howard Erichson (Seton Hall))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Nonprofit Law Prof Blog (David Brennen (Georgia) & Darryll Jones (Stetson))
• Poverty Law Prof Blog (Ezra Rosser (American) & Lowell Hunt (Notre Dame))
• Products Liability Prof Blog (J. David Prince, Michael Steenson & Kenneth Ross (all of William Mitchell))
• PropertyProf Blog (D. Benjamin Barros (Widener))
• Reproductive Rightd Prof Blog (Caitlin Borgmann (CUNY))
• Science & Law Blog (David Faigman (Hastings), David Kaye (Arizona State), Michael Saks (Arizona State), Joseph Sanders (Houston) & Edward Cheng (Brooklyn))
• Search & Seizure Blog (Scott Fingerhut (Florida International))
• Secured Credit Blog (Larry Bates (Baylor) & Kristin Schroeder Simpson (Baylor))
• Securities Law Prof Blog (Barbara Black (Cincinnati))
• Sentencing Law and Policy (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• State & Local Government Law Prof Blog (Judith Welch Wegner (North Carolina))
• Statutory Construction Blog (David Hricik (Mercer))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Mark Giangrande (DePaul))
• TortsProf Blog (Bill Childs (Western New England))
• Unincorporated Business Law Prof Blog (Greg Duhl (Tulsa))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Peter Henning (Wayne State) & Ellen Podgor (Stetson))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech))
• Workplace Prof Blog (Richard Bales (NKU) & Paul Secunda (Mississippi))

Our current sponsor -- Thomson-RIA, Thomson-West, and Foundation Press -- is supporting our efforts to expand the network into other areas of law.  Please email me if you would be interested in learning more about starting a blog as part of our network. We provide you with a turn-key operation: we will create your blog for you and walk you through the very simple mechanics of posting.  Thomson's sponsorship enables us to provide modest stipends to our editors.

Thank you for joining us during these three years. I hope you will stick around for what I hope will be many years to come. Please use the comments to share your thoughts on the blog as well as how we can serve you better in the future.

TaxProf Blog Crosses 2,500,000-Visitor Mark

After 34 months in operation, TaxProf Blog has crossed the 2,500,000-visitor mark. To put that number in perspective, it is the most visitors to any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor, according to publicly-available traffic statistics. (It is also 2,495,387 more than the number of downloads of all of my articles!) Doug Berman's Sentencing Law & Policy Blog, part of our Law Professors Blogs Network, has received the most page views (4.0 million) of any law-focused blog edited by a single law professor. (I discuss other law professor blog traffic statistics in my forthcoming introduction to our Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship symposium,  Are Scholars Better Bloggers? , 84 Wash. U. L. Rev. ___ (2007)).

During TaxProf Blog's 34 months of operation, I have made over 7,200 posts to the blog, readers have posted over 3,000 comments, and other bloggers have linked to TaxProf Blog over 2,000 times. 

The 2,500,000th visitor came to TaxProf Blog from Oklahoma at 5:55 p.m EST yesterday.  He/she stayed for 12 seconds and visited two pages:

• Moldenhauer on Tax Opinions
• The Carbon Tax

We are grateful to our growing number of regular readers and hope you are finding the blog helpful in your tax research, teaching, practice, and policymaking roles.