Shobe Presents Economic Segregation And The Local Tax Deduction Today At UC-Hastings

Gladriel Shobe (BYU) presents Economic Segregation and the Local Tax Deduction at UC-Hastings today as part of its Tax Speakers Series:

Economic segregation has increased over the past half century. The trend of rich localities getting richer while poor localities get poorer is particularly concerning because it limits upward mobility and perpetuates intergenerational income inequality. This Article makes the novel argument that the state and local tax deduction rewards, and likely contributes to, economic segregation. It arrives at that conclusion by showing that the “local tax deduction” provides a greater subsidy, per capita, for wealthy, economically segregated localities because only those localities have a critical mass of wealthy taxpayers who claim the deduction. This allows wealthy localities, but not poor localities, to provide services at a costless than face value to their residents. This Article argues that the deduction’s subsidy for wealthy localities rewards and likely contributes to economic segregation because it provides an incentive for the wealthy to segregate into wealthy, subsidized localities over less segregated and less subsidized localities.

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Professional Formation And Development From Law Student To Lawyer

Neil W. Hamilton (St. Thomas), The Major Transitions in Professional Formation and Development from Being a Student to Being a Lawyer Present Opportunities to Benefit the Students and the Law School, 72 Baylor L. Rev. ___ (2019):

Curricular support during the significant transitions each student experiences in law school will provide substantial benefits to students as well as the law school. What are the significant transitions? The distinction between the situational changes a law student experiences and the significant transitions of law school is important. During law school, each student experiences a number of situational changes like physically moving to a new city to attend law school or starting a new class or a new year of law school. A significant transition, however, is a psychological inner re-orientation and self-definition that the student must go through in order to incorporate the situational changes into a new understanding of professional life’s developmental process. This article will make clear that the major periods of inner re-orientation and self-definition for a law student are exceptional opportunities for the law faculty and staff to foster student growth toward later stages of the school’s learning outcomes. This benefits both each student and the law school itself.

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Buckles, Wells Receive Professorships At Houston

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AEI Hosts Panel Discussions Today On The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act

The American Enterprise Institute hosts a panel discussion today on Trump’s Tax Reform Happened: Now What? A Panel Discussion on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (live stream at 2:00 - 4:00 pm EST here):

At the end of 2017, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) brought the most sweeping overhaul of the US tax code in decades. At the time, projected effects and opinions were diverse and relatively uncertain, even among leading thinkers in the field. Now more than a year and half since its enactment, we are asking top tax experts from across the ideological spectrum to answer a variety of questions about this major tax overhaul — such as the impact on households, the corporate rate, the impact on inequality, deficit effects, long-term growth, and more.

• Alex Brill (AEI), Pro-family Tax Policy: The Case of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• Leonard E. Burman (Syracuse), The Pro-Growth Argument for Progressive Tax Reform That Was Missing from TCJA
• Kimberly Clausing (Reed College), The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Was Never About Workers
• Dhammika Dharmapala (Chicago), The Consequences of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s International Provisions: The Early Empirical Evidence
• Jason Furman (Harvard Kennedy School), 'Not Much’: What Macroeconomic Data Say About the Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• William G. Gale (Brookings Institution), A Fixable Mistake: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• Mindy Herzfeld (Florida), The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Lessons For the Future
• R. Glenn Hubbard (Columbia), The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and Investment: Progress, Not Perfection

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Twitter's Gender Imbalance: Female Academics Have Disproportionately Fewer Followers, Likes, And Retweets Than Their Male Counterparts

Inside Higher Ed, Twitter's Gender Imbalance:

Women on social media face disproportionate levels of harassment compared to men. A new study says that female academics also have disproportionately fewer Twitter followers, likes and retweets than their male counterparts on the platform, regardless of their Twitter activity levels or professional rank.

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UCLA Hosts 35th Annual Tax Controversy Conference

UCLA hosts its 35th Annual Tax Controversy Conference today in Beverly Hills.:

The Annual Tax Controversy Conference is the preeminent conference exclusively dedicated to tax controversy and tax litigation. The conference provides an open forum for distinguished presenters and panelists to discuss, and often debate, sensitive tax practice issues with an engaged audience. ...

We are privileged to have as our keynote luncheon speaker Charles P. Rettig, the 49th Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Chuck just recently completed his first year in the job and by all accounts had received very high marks. Tax administration is in very good hands.

This year we are again honored to have as our opening keynote speaker, Eric Hylton, recently appointed Commissioner of SBSE and former Deputy Chief, Criminal Investigation Division. Eric hit it out of the park last year and set the tone for a lively and informative conference.

Michael Desmond, the newly appointed Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service will be giving our afternoon keynote.

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Seven Truths About Hybrid Online JD Programs

7 Truths About Distance Learning: Online J.D. Programs Are Growing in Popularity, But Are They For You?, preLaw, Fall 2019, at 2:

The number of online offerings from law schools accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) is growing. ...  Some schools have received variances that allow them to offer the majority of their J.D. courses online.  [Nine Law Schools Have Approval To Offer Hybrid Online JDs]  Here are seven truths about online J.D. programs: 

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Wallace Presents Democracy-Enhancing Tax Policy Today At Loyola-L.A.

Clint Wallace (South Carolina) presents Democracy-Enhancing Tax Policy at Loyola-L.A. today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series hosted by Ellen Aprill and Ted Seto: 

This paper contests the pervasive notion that democratic governance and good tax policy (however defined) are in conflict, and places the impulse to avoid or constrain democratic forces in tax policy making as a symptom of a more fundamental challenge: a lack of attention to the actual and potential role of taxation in promoting a flourishing democratic community. 

I offer two theoretical arguments in response to this notion and impulse. First, I argue that democracy demands broad participation in tax policy making. This point connects tax scholarship with an important element of democratic theory, the principle of affected interests. Second, I argue that an inclusive tax policy process should have as a central goal non-domination, both in decisionmaking procedures and in substantive policies. This argument is grounded in theoretical work on competitive models of democracy, which recommends a fluid, iterative decisionmaking process, open to challenge and subject to revision, with conditions that promote democratic legitimacy. 

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Wong Presents The Financial Burden Of Property Taxes Today At UC-Berkeley

Francis Wong (Ph.D. Economics 2020, UC-Berkeley) presents The Financial Burden of Property Taxes at UC-Berkeley today as part of its Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance Seminar Series:

Financial hardship resulting from rising property tax burdens is a common complaint among homeowners, but very little evidence exists evaluating its quantitative importance. Standard frictionless models do not allow for financial strain generated by property taxation because under normal conditions liquid housing wealth sufficiently covers the cost of property taxes. This paper leverages a novel merge between property records, mortgage servicing data, and credit bureau data to demonstrate that relatively small increases in property taxes lead to increases in mortgage default and decreases in consumption. Event study estimates around the month in which homeowners' monthly property tax payments are increased to reflect their new property assessment imply that a $100 monthly tax increase leads to a 1% increase in mortgage delinquency and reduces auto consumption by $28. Moreover, homeowners generally do not draw on their home equity to pay property tax bills. These results contradict the predictions of standard models and imply the existence of important frictions in property taxation.

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Kim Kardashian’s Favorite Contracts Professor

Steve Calandrillo (University of Washington)

• Above the Law, This Law School Professor Is Kim Kardashian Approved
• Law.com, Kim Kardashian Gives This Law Prof High Marks
• Legal Cheek, Kim Kardashian Ggives BARBRI Contract Law Lecturer Instagram Shout-Out

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Taxing The “Rich” Won’t Pay For Politicians’ Promises

Manhattan Institute, Issues 2020: Taxing the “Rich” Won’t Pay for Politicians’ Promises:

The Narrative

"I believe that we should be asking the very wealthiest people in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes. That way, we will not only lower the deficit, but we will bring in enough revenue to invest in our economy and create the millions of new jobs we desperately need."[1]
— Bernie Sanders

"My vision for Medicare-for-All does not include a middle-class tax hike. I’m not prepared to do that."[2]
— Kamala Harris

"If we have enough money to pay for tax breaks for corporations. We have enough to invest in Medicare-for-All, Green New Deal and cancel student debt."[3]
— Ilhan Omar

Reality

Politicians claim that agendas costing approximately $40 trillion over 10 years can be financed mostly by taxing wealthy families and corporations. Essentially, they promise a European-style welfare state without Europe’s burdensome taxes on middle- and lower-income earners. This is not possible.

Combining popular proposals to tax the wealthiest Americans and corporations would likely raise $3.9 trillion over the decade. This revenue could not even eliminate half the $15.5 trillion budget deficit that is already projected over the next decade, much less pay for $40 trillion in more spending. The overwhelming majority of new tax revenue to finance such expenditures would have to be raised from the middle- and lower-income earners.

Key Findings

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100th Lesson From The Tax Court: The Role Of Innocence In § 6015 Spousal Relief

Author's Note:  This is my 10oth Lesson published on TaxProfBlog.  I continue to be very grateful to Paul for this opportunity.  I have learned loads from the cases and I enjoy sharing what I learn. 

Editor's Note:  I am very grateful to Bryan for the great work he has done on these weekly posts. Bryan has developed a huge following among tax academics and practitioners: his Lessons From The Tax Court are invariably among the most popular posts each week, and cumulatively have been viewed 2.6 million times (26,000 page views per post).

Section 6015 is not titled “Innocent Spouse Relief.”  It is titled “Relief From Joint and Several Liability on Joint Return.”  And you will not find the word “innocent” (or any cognate) in the statute’s text.  But we still call the relief granted by §6105 “innocent spouse relief.”  Two cases from last week teach why.  In Habibe Kruja (Petitioner), Ermir Kruja (Intervenor) v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2019-136 (Oct. 15, 2019) (Judge Buch) the Tax Court granted partial relief under §6105(c).  In Lori D. Sleeth (Petitioner), David T. Sleet (Intervenor) v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2019-138 (Oct. 15, 2019) (Judge Goeke), the Court denied relief under §6015(f).  Both cases show that the idea of innocence plays an important, if often implied, role in the application of §6015.  Details below the fold.

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Students Petition To De-Gender All Seattle Law School Bathrooms

Seattle Spectator, Students Petition Law School To De-Gender Bathrooms:

A Seattle University law student, Seth Alexander, started a petition on campus for the School of Law to de-gender its bathrooms.

Alexander named lack of access as the main issue—the only readily accessible gender-neutral bathrooms in the building are on the third floor and are only accessible through the library.

Alexander and other gender non-conforming students often avoid going to the restroom while in the law school because of this. “Due to the disproportionate amount of class time that I would miss, I do not really have the option of using the bathroom during class,” the petition stated. “Most days, I schedule my bathroom breaks and regulate my liquid intake. Sometimes, on busy days when I do not have a break, I will just wait until I get home.”

The petition also raised concerns about safety for gender non- conforming students who are forced to use gendered restrooms, citing a 2013 study conducted by UCLA in which 70% of transgender respondents reported denial of access, harassment, or assault when attempting to use gendered restrooms.

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Call For Papers And Commentators: 23rd Annual Critical Tax Conference At Florida

[W]e at the University of Florida are pleased that we will be the hosts of the 2020 version of the Critical Tax Conference. To give you all maximum time to make plans and to consider the special publication possibility that I'll describe momentarily, we are sending this official Call for Papers a bit earlier than usual.

The conference will begin early on Saturday, April 4 and conclude on Sunday the 5th, with the usual mixture of paper panels and incubator sessions — and, of course, the meals and get-togethers that we've all come to expect and enjoy.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• James Comey Reduced Fee To $54,000 For Speech On 'The Ethical Leader' At UNLV Law School
• Who Paid For The Hit On Dan Markel? Charlie Adelson's Name Keeps Coming Up.
• Call For Tax Papers And Panels: SEALS 2019 (Oct. 23 Deadline)

Sunday:

• Beto O’Rourke: Churches Should Lose Tax-Exempt Status If They Oppose Same-Sex Marriage
• Two Very Different Perspectives On Attorney General Barr's Notre Dame Speech
• Brooks: Our Souls Make Us All Radically Equal
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Beto O’Rourke: Churches Should Lose Tax-Exempt Status If They Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

The New Republic, Beto O’Rourke Is Out Over His Skis:

Desperate to stand out, he has proposed perhaps the worst idea of the Democratic primary.

Democratic presidential candidates have spent the year introducing wave after wave of new policy ideas. Some of them are excellent. Others are interesting. And a few would be disastrous. Beto O’Rourke’s call last week to deny tax-exempt status to churches and other religious institutions if they oppose marriage equality falls squarely within the last category.

The former Texas representative backed the idea at last week’s CNN town hall on LGBT issues. “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities—should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” moderator Don Lemon asked him. “Yes,” O’Rourke quickly replied. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. So as president we’re going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing on the rights of our fellow Americans.”

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Two Very Different Perspectives On Attorney General Barr's Notre Dame Speech

Following up on last Sunday's post, In Advance Of Law School Speech By Attorney General William Barr, Notre Dame Dean Marcus Cole Issued A Ringing Defense Of Free Speech:

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Bill Barr ‘Gets’ Religion; The Attorney General Gives a Speech on Secularism, and the Left Goes Bananas:, by William McGurn:

For Notre Dame fans, this football weekend was a twofer. Not only did the Irish beat a longtime rival, the University of Southern California, on Saturday, the campus was treated to a sight it had never before seen: the attorney general of the United States, at a pregame tailgater, serenading faculty, students and fans with his bagpipes.

Turns out that was William Barr’s second performance on campus. The first came at the law school Friday, when he delivered a bracing speech on the role of religion in the American story of freedom.

The attorney general advanced two broad propositions. First, the waning of religion’s influence in American life has left more of her citizens vulnerable to what Tocqueville called the “soft despotism” of government dependency. Second, today’s secularists are decidedly not of the live-and-let-live variety.

“The secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor,” he said. “It is taking on all the trappings of religion, including inquisitions and excommunication. Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake—social, educational and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns.”

Right out of central casting, critics stepped forward to prove his point. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman accused Mr. Barr of “religious bigotry” and described his words as a “pogrom type speech.” ...

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Brooks: Our Souls Make Us All Radically Equal

New York Times op-ed:  What Makes Us All Radically Equal, by David Brooks:

It’s not our brains and it’s not our bodies. [It's our souls].

I see these messy clash-ups across the country, wherever people are trying to do racial reconciliation. You realize that coming together across race is not a neat two-step process: truth and reconciliation. It’s an emotionally complex, thousand-step process, with moments of miscommunication, resentment and embrace. This is the hard process of trying to see each other across centuries of wrong.

The somewhat comforting truth is that it’s always been like this. When you read David Blight’s brilliant biography of Frederick Douglass, for example, you see that Douglass passed through exactly these many moods in dealing with his countrymen of another race — moments of fury and harmony, despair and hope.

Sometimes he was disgusted with America. “I have no love for America, as such,” he once said. Other times he was enraptured: “I am an American citizen. In birth, in sentiment, in ideas, in hopes, in aspirations and responsibilities.

Douglass’s genius was his ability to balance his indignation at oppression with his underlying faith in the American project. In his speeches he would praise his white audiences in one movement and thunder condemnation in the next. In an 1876 speech about Abraham Lincoln, he both condemned and complimented the man who inspired and infuriated him: “Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him from the sentiment of his country … he was swift, zealous, radical and determined.”

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

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

1. [1,945 Downloads]  Taxing the Rich: Issues and Options, by Lily Batchelder (NYU) & David Kamin (NYU)
2. [429 Downloads]  An Introduction to Tax Careers for J.D.s, by Heather Field (UC-Hastings)
3. [157 Downloads]  Digital Service Taxes and the Broader Shift From Determining the Source of Income to Taxing Location-Specific Rents, by Daniel Shaviro (NYU) (reviewed by Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Utah) here)
4. [149 Downloads]  Education Planning and the SECURE Act: Creating a Tax Law Paradox, by Ross Riskin (American College of Financial Services)
5. [125 Downloads]  Taxing Wealth in an Uncertain World, by Daniel Hemel (Chicago) (reviewed by Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama) here)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Sheila Liming (University of North Dakota), My University Is Dying; Soon Yours Will Be, Too
2. Tallahassee Democrat, Hit Man Convicted Of First-Degree Murder Of Dan Markel; State To Retry Magbanua After Jury Deadlocks; Magbanua Fingers Charlie Adelson
3. Brian Leiter (Chicago), Was Wendi Adelson Involved In Dan Markel's Murder?
4. Marcus Cole (Dean, Notre Dame), Statement [Free Speech, Student Protests, And Attorney General William Barr's Speech At Notre Dame]
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: No § 911 Exclusion For Taxpayers With U.S. Abode
6. Tallahassee Democrat, Jury Rejects Death Penalty, Gives Dan Markel's Killer Life Without Parole; Prosecutors To Retry Magbanua
7. Adrianna Kezar (USC), Tom DePaola (USC) & Daniel Scott (USC), The Gig Academy
8. Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley) & Gabriel Zucman (UC-Berkeley), How To Tax Our Way Back To Justice
9. Legal Tech News, The Socratic Method Meets Siri: How Law Schools Are Adapting To Today's Digital Age
10. National Review, Pepperdine's Michael Helfand To Co-Teach New Religious Liberty Clinic At Yale

James Comey Reduced Fee To $54,000 For Speech On 'The Ethical Leader' At UNLV Law School

Following up on my previous post, James Comey's Five Principles Of Ethical Leadership For Law School Deans:  The Nevada Independent, UNLV Paid Comey $54,000, Funded by Donors, For Visit to Law School and Dinner with VIPs:

Former FBI Director James Comey’s visit to UNLV last month for a moderated discussion with former Gov. Brian Sandoval, book signing and dinner with up to two dozen “VIPs” cost the university’s law school $54,000, according to records obtained by The Nevada Independent.

According to a contract between the university and a booking agency representing Comey, the former FBI director’s September 24 visit to UNLV and speech to the university, “The Ethical Leader,” cost the university’s law school a pretty penny, but a spokeswoman for the university said that all costs were paid by a donor and that Comey reduced his normal speaking fee for the event.

“Mr. Comey substantially reduced his customary rate because the address was made at a public university for the benefit of our students and he was able to tie in this engagement with other West Coast events,” UNLV spokeswoman Cindy Brown said in an email. ...

The contract offers a behind-the-scenes look into the benefits, requirements and accommodations that the university made to Comey. ... Per the contract, the $54,000 fee included transportation to and from the airport, hotel (The Bellagio) and university for the event and other meetings, which ran for nearly six hours. ...

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Who Paid For The Hit On Dan Markel? Charlie Adelson's Name Keeps Coming Up.

Following up on my previous post, Brian Leiter (Chicago): Was Wendi Adelson Involved In Dan Markel's Murder?:  Miami Herald, Who Paid For Hit on FSU Prof? In Lurid Trial, a Broward Dentist’s Name Keeps Coming Up:

Hours after Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel was shot and killed in his car at his Tallahassee home in July 2014, his ex-wife Wendi Adelson sat with an investigator at the Tallahassee Police Department, shaking, crying and burying her face in her hands.

When the investigator told Wendi the shooting was intentional and they needed to find out who murdered the father of her two children, she blurted out a name: Charlie Adelson, her older brother and confidant.

“[Charlie] knew that Danny always treated me badly and it was always this joke,” Wendi Adelson, also an FSU law professor, told police. “He said: ‘I looked into hiring a hit man and it was cheaper to get you this TV so instead I got you this TV … but he would never … it’s such a horrible thing to say.’”

Charlie Adelson, a Tamarac periodontist, has not been charged in the case and denies any involvement, but his name has come up again and again during a five-year investigation — and repeatedly during an ongoing three-week trial of two South Florida residents facing murder charges in Leon County for Markel’s death.

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Call For Tax Papers And Panels: SEALS 2019 (Oct. 23 Deadline)

While it is a little hard to believe, it is already time to start thinking about next summer.  The Call for Papers for SEALS 2020 has been open for awhile, but somehow I missed the original call, so we are now running late.  The 2020 conference will be held July 30-August 5, 2020 at the Marriott Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

The conference submission tool is now open, and I am eager to coordinate people who are interested in presenting tax work at the SEALS conference into relevant panel groups.  In addition, we have also had very successful Tax Policy Discussion Groups in recent years.  Panels are generally composed of 4 to 5 people speaking for 15 to 20 minutes each.  I will attempt to group papers so that panels include papers on similar topics.  The Discussion Group includes about 10 people, each speaking for 5-8 minutes on a topic related to tax policy, broadly interpreted.  This has often included topics that are not necessarily fully formed paper ideas, but are thoughts the presenter has had on something he or she would like to discuss with a group of smart, informed people in an informal setting.  Both types of presentation have been very successful in the past.  Each presenter may participate in one Panel AND one Discussion Group.

So, if you are interested in submitting to SEALS and would like me to include you in a group of other tax profs, please email me at jbirdpollan@uky.edu with the following information:

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Layser Reviews Does Government Play Favorites? Evidence From Opportunity Zones

This week, Michelle Layser (Illinois) reviews Ofer Eldar (Duke) and Chelsea Garber (Duke), Does Government Play Favorites? Evidence from Opportunity Zones (Oct. 3, 2019).

With the 2020 Census on the horizon, investors nationwide have been lobbying states to expand the areas designated for tax preferred investment under the federal Opportunity Zones law. In 2017, state governors selected 8,764 census tracts for Opportunity Zone designation. These tracts were selected from a pool of 30,981 low-income census tracts and 10,237 contiguous tracts that were eligible under the federal statute. Whether the IRS will permit states to expand or revisit their Opportunity Zone designations after the Census is yet to be seen. In the meantime, Professors Ofer Eldar and Chelsea Garber have provided a fascinating quantitative analysis of factors that may have driven the initial designation process.

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Above the Law, This Law School Is Aces At Getting You Real Life Legal Experience
• Mary Walsh Fitzpatrick (Assistant Dean for the Career and Professional Development Center at Albany Law School), Building an Ethos of Self-Directedness Among First-Year Law Students
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Cognitive Biases and Urine Tests (and Lawyers)
• LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), The Problems Of Measuring Scholarly Impact (‘Stuff’)
• Legal Tech News, Teaching Tech: How Legal Education Coursework Is Changing in Today’s Digital Era

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Tax Policy In The Trump Administration

• American Enterprise Institute (Dhammika Dharmapala (Chicago)), The Consequences of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s International Provisions: The Early Empirical Evidence
• American Enterprise Institute (Alan Viard), The Misdirected Debate About the Corporate Tax Cut
• American Enterprise Institute (Kimberly Clausing (Reed College), The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Was Never About Workers
• Bloomberg News, Brain Behind Wealth Tax Makes New Case for Soaking Billionaires
• Bloomberg News, Summers Lambasts Warren, Sanders Plans to Tax Wealth of the Rich

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Trump's Taxes And Tax Returns

• Bloomberg Opinion, Trump’s Tax Returns Just Got More Interesting
• The Hill, NY Prosecutors Urge Appeals Court Not to Block Subpoena for Trump's Tax Returns
• The Hill: Years Ago, Trump Wanted to Release His Tax Returns to Brag About How Little He Paid
• New York Daily News, ‘Confidential Informants’ Part of Manhattan DA Cy Vance’s Investigation Involving President Trump’s Tax Returns
• New York Times, Trump Urges Appeals Court to Shield Tax Returns From N.Y. Prosecutors

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Book Presents Administrative Burdens, Sludge, And Individual Taxpayer Rights Today At Florida

Leslie Book (Villanova) presents Administrative Burdens, Sludge, and Individual Taxpayer Rights (with Keith Fogg (Harvard)) at Florida today as part of its Tax Colloquium Series:

The tax system designed by Congress imposes significant administrative burdens on taxpayers. Decisions by the IRS regarding how it administers the tax laws can add to the burdens imposed by Congress. The administrative burdens are consequential and hurt some people, especially lower or moderate-income individual taxpayers, more than others. While the IRS strives to measure and reduce the time and money that taxpayers spend to comply with their tax obligations, the IRS does not consider the effect that administrative burdens have on taxpayer rights, including the right to be informed, the right to pay no more than the correct amount of tax, and the right to a fair and just tax system. In this article, building on the work of public administration scholars Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan, we discuss the concept of administrative burdens and reveal specific examples of how IRS actions and inaction have burdened taxpayers and jeopardized taxpayer rights.

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Negotiating Your First Employment Offer In Legal Academia

Darby Dickerson (UIC-John Marshall), Finding the Goldilocks Zone: Negotiating Your First Employment Offer in Legal Academia:

This WIP is for individuals, particularly women, who are about to negotiate their first employment offers in legal academia (whether tenure-line or non-tenure-line). The goal is to hit the "Goldilocks Zone" where you negotiate to strike the best balance to meet your needs and your law school's needs.

The paper begins with information about why women are less likely than men to negotiate employment offers and offers strategies to consider as they negotiate with their potential dean.

The paper then explains more than two dozen potential terms of an entry-level offer, with advice about what may or may not be typical or reasonable under the circumstances. Examples include starting date and bridge summer compensation, base salary, course packages, teaching load, credit toward tenure, and spousal hires.

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Hemel & Weisbach: The Behavioral Elasticity Of Tax Revenue

Daniel Hemel (Chicago) & David A. Weisbach (Chicago), The Behavioral Elasticity of Tax Revenue:

This article presents a new measure of the efficiency consequences of tax policies and explains how this new measure can shed light on a wide range of tax law debates. We build upon the “elasticity of taxable income” approach pioneered by public finance scholars over the last quarter century and extend that approach to address complex tax systems with multiple rates, multiple bases, and administrative and compliance costs. The resulting measure — the behavioral elasticity of taxable income, or BETR — captures the change in real resources available to society caused by any marginal change in tax rates, the tax base, or tax enforcement. We argue that the BETR can serve as a guide to a wide range of tax policy issues, and we illustrate the BETR’s utility by applying it to questions such as the proper treatment of mixed personal/business expenses, the appropriate aggressiveness of efforts to address tax shelters, and the optimal mix of audits, recordkeeping and reporting requirements, and penalties.

We also consider the relationship between the BETR and the distributive aims of tax law. While the BETR is a measure of efficiency and not distribution, the BETR can aid policymakers in deciding both how much to redistribute and how to accomplish distributive objectives most efficiently. We end with reflections on the implications of the BETR for the design of non-tax legal rules.

Minority Partners Are Disproportionately Placed In Nonequity Partnership Tier

Law.com, Minority Partners Disproportionately Placed in Nonequity Partnership Tier:

Minority lawyers disproportionately occupy the nonequity partnership tier of the nation’s largest-grossing law firms compared to their white colleagues.

An American Lawyer analysis of 148 firms with two-tiered partnership structures, 131 of which ranked in this year’s Am Law 200, shows that minority lawyers are not only more likely to have nonequity partnership status, but that they are moving into the nonequity tier at triple the rate of white lawyers. The analysis is based on five years of survey data.

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Kleiman Presents Tax Limits And The Future Of Local Democracy Today At Northwestern

Ariel Jurow Kleiman (San Diego) presents Tax Limits and the Future of Local Democracy, 133 Harv. L. Rev. ___ (2019), at Northwestern today as part of its Advanced Topics in Taxation Colloquium Series hosted by Herbert Beller, David Cameron, Charlotte Crane, Sarah Lawsky, Ajay Mehrotra, Philip Postlewaite, and Jeffrey Sheffield:

Property tax limits are state-level laws that place caps on local governments’ tax rates and revenue. These statutory limits, which put pressure on already strapped cities and counties in forty-six states, present an inexorable dilemma for local policymakers. On the one hand, they may cause cuts to vital services, bankruptcy, and reliance on regressive revenue sources. At the same time, however, tax limits may reflect genuine concerns about government profligacy and nonresponsiveness. While much research has focused on the first side of the dilemma—examining the laws’ fiscal consequences—this Article explores the second, probing how tax limits affect the distribution of political power between local voters and policymakers.

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I Was A Law School Jackass: How I’d Do It Differently Now

Law.com, I Was a Law School Jackass: How I’d Do It Differently Now:

As a law student, I was extraordinarily average.

Like most of my classmates when I started law school, I’d been a good student growing up, done well as an undergraduate and had built an identity around being a smart kid. I worked hard, was rewarded for it and got a lot of confidence from it.

And then I went to law school. ...

I taught English before I went to law school, so I was about six years older than my 1L classmates at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and I remember thinking at orientation how I was going to blow these kids out of the water academically. It really wasn’t even a consideration that I wouldn’t be, if not at the top of my class, at least in the top 10%. ...

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Yale & Polsky: Taxing Residential Solar

Ethan Yale (Virginia) & Gregg D. Polsky (Georgia), Taxing Residential Solar:

Residential solar systems are becoming commonplace in many regions of the United States. Use of such systems raises issues in tax doctrine and policy that are not well appreciated and have not yet been systematically analyzed. The goals of this article are threefold: (1) to identify the main issues and to organize them into a coherent framework, (2) to analyze the doctrinal and policy ramifications of present law, and (3) to suggest improvements to present law.

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Call For Proposals: Inequality Of Wealth, Race, And Class, Equality Of Opportunity

The University of St. Thomas (MN) Journal of Law and Public Policy is hosting a symposium on March 27, 2020, entitled “Inequality of Wealth, Race, and Class, Equality of Opportunity.” Topics include “Student Loans;” “Social Mobility;” “Housing;” and “The Public Good.”

Please submit proposals of 250 to 500 words to Professor Charles J. Reid, Jr, by November 15, 2019. We shall notify those who have submitted successful proposals shortly after that date. Successful submissions can expect a modest honorarium. Successful submissions will be published in our Journal of Law and Public Policy. The deadline for final drafts is July, 2020.

For those who wish to present in person on March 27, in addition to the honorarium, we shall cover travel costs, food and lodging.

July 2019 Pennsylvania Bar Exam: Pittsburgh #1

Here are the results of the July 2019 Pennsylvania Bar Exam for first-time test-takers by law school, along with each school's U.S. News ranking:

Bar Pass Rank (Rate)	School	US News Rank PA (Overall)
1 (91.4%)	Pittsburgh	6 (77)
2 (88.5%)	Penn State - Dickinson	4 (71)
3 (88.2%)	Pennsylvania	1 (1)
4 (87.9%)	Duquesne	5 (80)
5 (86.9%)	Villanova	4 (71)
6 (85.4%)	Temple	2 (48)
7 (81.8%)	Penn State - University Park	3 (64)
80.6%	Statewide Average
8 (78.5%)	Drexel	7 (100)
9 (66.7%)	Rutgers	(77)
10 (66.1%)	Widener - Pennsylvania	8 (Tier 2)
11 (63.2%)	Widener - Delaware	(Tier 2)

Trump Weighs Weakening Obama Debt-Equity Rules To Curb Corporate Inversion

Bloomberg News, Trump Weighs Weakening Obama Rules to Curb Corporate Inversions:

Treasury Department officials are considering rolling back a tax rule aimed at preventing American companies from moving money offshore to avoid U.S. taxes, according to several people familiar with discussions.

The Treasury is looking at regulations intended to prevent American firms from lowering their U.S. tax bills by shifting income to their offshore branches that they can loan to their domestic branches and deduct the interest off their Internal Revenue Service bills. The department is also contemplating repealing them entirely to replace them with something more business-friendly.

The move could make it easier for companies to use accounting tactics to minimize their U.S. earnings and inflate their foreign profits, which are frequently taxed at rates lower than the current 21% domestic corporate levy. The existing regulations were aimed at stopping U.S. companies from moving their headquarters to a lower-tax country, known as a corporate inversion.s

Modifying the regulations, commonly referred to as the debt-equity rules, would also count as one of President Donald Trump’s favorite kinds of policy: Reversing a regulation introduced in the final days of President Barack Obama’s administration. ...

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Penn Launches New Future Of The Legal Profession Initiative

Penn Law Announces New ‘Future of the Profession Initiative’ Focused on Legal Education Innovation, Profession-wide Thought Leadership:

To advance its mission of educating the next generation of lawyers and catalyzing change throughout the profession, Penn Law is launching the Future of the Profession Initiative. The Initiative will “Teach, Lead, and Transform” by examining new ways law schools can adopt a holistic vision for the formation of lawyers – both during law school and throughout their careers to create true Lifelong Learning for Penn Law lawyers. The Initiative will lead profession-wide conversations about a changing legal landscape and create a destination for future-oriented and creative professionals from an array of disciplines to address disconnects among clients, lawyers, and legal systems.

The Future of the Profession Initiative, working with its Board of Advisors, has developed several upcoming events and projects, including a “Five-Year-Out Academy” to support the career acceleration of Penn Law graduates entering the next stage of their careers, a Dean’s Innovation Prize competition to support exceptional ideas for innovating in legal service delivery, a “Future of the Profession” symposium that will bring together thought leaders from the legal sector and other industries, an entrepreneurs-in-residence program, and the launch of a podcast featuring conversations about change.

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Foreign Corruption Of The Political Process Through Social Welfare Organizations

Norman I. Silber (Hofstra), Foreign Corruption of the Political Process Through Social Welfare Organizations, 114 Nw. U. L. Rev. ___ (2019):

Social welfare organizations are prohibited from channeling foreign contributions to favored political candidates. Prospects for enforcing this prohibition, however, are uncertain. Do federal election laws or tax laws provide effective tools? Are state authorities equipped to hold a nonprofit culpable as an entity, or to hold a manager or board member responsible? These questions are important to understand whether the existing rules safeguard the nonprofit community and the fairness of elections. This Essay concludes that federal tax and election rules are likely to be less effective than the authority vested with state attorneys general to monitor and hold accountable nonprofits and their officers and directors who become vehicles for foreign interference in national elections.

Kane Presents The Global Battle To Capture Multinational Enterprise Profits Today At Pennsylvania

Mitchell Kane (NYU) presents Collecting the Rent: The Global Battle to Capture MNE Profits, 72 Tax L. Rev. ___ (2019) (with Joseph Bankman (Stanford) & Alan Sykes (Stanford)) (reviewed by David Elkins (Netanya) here) at Pennsylvania today as part of its Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Michael Knoll, Chris Sanchirico, and Reed Shuldiner:

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) often earn substantial profits, or "economic rents." Often, these MNEs are domiciled in the United States, and the rents derive from ownership of intellectual property. These MNEs have structured their affairs to pay little taxes to countries outside the United States or otherwise to share their rents in these countries. Apple and Microsoft, for example, may earn roughly half their profits outside the United States but do not pay significant amounts of taxes to any foreign country.

The European Union and other countries have responded to this state of affairs with new tax legislation, antitrust actions, and other policies that have the effect of, and perhaps the intention of, capturing a greater share of MNE rents for their treasuries or citizens. To date, these policies are discussed in separate literatures focused on a particular policy domain (tax, antitrust, and so on). This paper offers the first unified or comparative analysis of the issue.

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Shaviro Presents Digital Service Taxes Today At Toronto

Daniel Shaviro (NYU) presents Digital Service Taxes and the Broader Shift from Determining the Source of Income to Taxing Location-Specific Rents at Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series:

In recent decades, a number of fantastically successful, mainly American, multinational entities (MNEs) — led and epitomized by the “Four Horsemen,” Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google — have risen to global economic hyper-prominence. While their market capitalizations and profits are high, reflecting that they earn substantial rents or quasi-rents, their aggregate global taxes are generally quite low, reflecting their ability to create stateless income.

Often, these MNEs are technology companies, like the Four Horsemen – but not always. Starbucks, for example, enjoys high global profits and low taxes despite its following a classic brick-and-mortar retail business model. This reflects that, like its more obviously high-tech peers, it relies on valuable intellectual property that helps it in creating both global pretax profitability and stateless income.

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The Problems Of Measuring Scholarly Impact (‘Stuff’)

Following up on last week's post, The U.S. News Citation Ranking Is A 'Rigged Metrics Game' That 'Imperils Legal Academia':  LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), The Problems Of Measuring Scholarly Impact (‘Stuff’):

If we’re seeking to adopt some measure to assess scholarly impact, there are serious caveats that need to be addressed before we begin.

Professor Robert Anderson at Pepperdine Law School (place from which I wouldn’t mind a job offer — HINT) [How can we make you an offer (or measure your scholarly impact or teaching effectiveness) if we don't know who you are?] asked me a series of questions on Twitter, all of which are important.

If you don’t know Professor Anderson, you should.  His Twitter feed is a discussion of scholarly impact, and things related to problems of measurement and hierarchies in academia.  I’ve found his tweets cause me to think.  I blame him for this blog post.

His tweet that got me to thinking was this one:  “My pal @lawprofblawg has got some points here, but I think at some point s/he has got to get a little more concrete with an alternative. Is the status quo working? Why would citation-based metrics be worse? Should law schools evaluate scholarship at all? How should hiring work?”

All good questions.  There was some discussion in that thread about the fact that we ought to have some measure of stuff.  In fact, we already do when we hire people to join the faculty, when they go up for tenure, and even (to varying degrees of noneffectiveness) when we review them post-tenure.  They are imperfect, filled with biases, and are often deployed in an arbitrary fashion.  Sometimes they are hardly metrics at all.

Nonetheless, Professor Anderson is correct: I am in favor of having some metrics.  However, the current metrics aren’t working.   My coauthor and I have explained the biases and entry barriers facing certain potential entrants into legal academia.  Eric Segall and Adam Feldman have explained that there is severe concentration in the legal academy, focused on only a handful of schools that produce the bulk of law professors.  While in the academy, barriers block advancement.  And those barriers are reflected, in my opinion, in current citation and scholarly impact measurements seeking to measure stuff.

But if we’re seeking to adopt some measure, whether it is a global standard that could ultimately replace U.S. News or just a standard at one’s own law school, I think there are serious caveats that need to be addressed before we begin to measure stuff.  When I have seen these issues raised before, I have seen them too quickly dismissed.  So let’s try again.

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The Truth About Who Pays What In Taxes

Following up on my previous posts:

• David Leonhardt (New York Times), The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You (Oct. 8, 2019)
• James Freeman (Wall Street Journal), New Problems With Elizabeth Warren’s Inequality Math
• Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley) & Gabriel Zucman (UC-Berkeley), How To Tax Our Way Back To Justice (Oct. 14, 2019)

Wall Street Journal, Who Pays What in Taxes? The Answer Isn't So Simple.:

It is a tax policy question with a seemingly simple answer: Who pays what?

In reality, how taxes are distributed across income groups is hotly debated by economists—with enormous policy consequences. New findings by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley, have added fuel to this debate, challenging the conventional view that the poor pay relatively little and that effective tax rates rise with income.

In their new book, “The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay,” Messrs. Saez and Zucman find that tax rates, including state and local taxes, are roughly flat, ranging between 24% and 30% across most income groups. Then, they focus on the 400 highest-income adults and find a 23% tax rate, lower than any other group for the first time.

That conclusion challenges the view espoused by lawmakers and tax analysts affiliated with both parties that the U.S. has a progressive tax system. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1% of households paid an average federal tax rate of 33% while the bottom one-fifth has a federal tax rate below 2%. Estimates including state and local taxes show somewhat higher taxes at the bottom.

Messrs. Saez and Zucman use their findings to prescribe sharply higher taxes on the rich, including an annual wealth tax, global coordination to raise corporate taxes and tougher enforcement. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have endorsed a wealth tax, and both rely on Saez-Zucman estimates.

But the conclusions of Messrs. Saez and Zucman have been met with skepticism from some other economists who differ on how to assess and describe tax burdens. They split on what should count as income and taxes and on how varying techniques fill gaps in publicly available data.

“There is a very wide range where the truth may lie,” said Wojciech Kopczuk, a Columbia University economist who has been critical of the Saez-Zucman approach. ...

David Splinter, an economist with Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, counts the earned-income tax credit as income but doesn’t use the sum to reduce the net tax burden in his estimates. In a public response last week to Messrs. Saez and Zucman, he estimated the tax rate on lower-income households at 13%, compared with the Saez-Zucman method’s 24%.

Washington Post editorial, The Truth About Taxation in America:

Who says economics is the dismal science? Last week saw some positively scintillating intellectual combat between marquee-name practitioners, with the social media impact measurable in hundreds of likes and retweets. What’s more, there were real-world implications for how to measure a major social issue — inequality — and how to deal with it.

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Jury Rejects Death Penalty, Gives Dan Markel's Killer Life Without Parole; Prosecutors To Retry Magbanua

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder Trial: Garcia Gets Life, Now Prosecutors Turn Their Attention to Magbanua:

Leon County jurors opted not to give the death penalty to Sigfredo Garcia, the Miami man convicted of murdering Florida State law professor and father of two Dan Markel.

A jury of 10 women and two men deliberated for just 40 minutes Tuesday before returning with their recommendation to spare Garcia and sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman said she was satisfied with the jury’s decision. But she was setting her sights on retrying Garcia’s longtime girlfriend, Katherine Magbanua, whose case ended with a hung jury Friday.

“We will be going forward with that case,” Cappleman said after Garcia’s sentencing. “The state will retry Ms. Magbanua.”

Law.com, Florida Law Professor's Killer Gets Life in Prison

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IRS-Commissioned Study Defends Benefits Of Free-File Program In Face Of Criticism

Wall Street Journal, IRS Tax-Prep Alliance With Private Firms Gets Fresh Scrutiny: Study Defends Free File’s Benefits as Substantial:

The Internal Revenue Service’s partnership with private firms to provide free tax preparation to millions of filers has serious flaws but also appears to provide substantial benefits, according to an outside review commissioned by the IRS [Independent Assessment of the Free File Program (Oct. 3, 2019)]

The study, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, responded to intense criticism of the public-private partnership, called the Free File Alliance. In theory the alliance is designed to provide free online tax-prep by a dozen companies to about 100 million filers who currently earn about $66,000 or less. Members include industry leaders such as H&R Block and Intuit, the maker of TurboTax.

But in recent years, Free File has been used by fewer than 3 million filers annually. Both the National Taxpayer Advocate and members of Congress have charged that the low usage rates signal that the program isn’t working well. Stories last spring by the nonprofit news site ProPublica drew more attention to the program’s workings. ...

Others say that commercial tax-prep companies in the alliance steer taxpayers away from Free File and into their paid commercial services. The study, conducted by the Mitre Corporation, a consulting firm that operates as an IRS research center, found that five of the 12 Free File members used coding that in effect hid their Free File landing pages from many online searches. ...

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The Socratic Method Meets Siri: How Law Schools Are Adapting To Today's Digital Age

Legal Tech News, Teaching Tech: How Legal Education Coursework Is Changing in Today’s Digital Era:

In an industry that’s in the midst of a major disruption, law students are demanding that schools prepare them not just for the rapidly changing job market, but for new ways of practicing law.

Students starting law school this fall will graduate into an industry that’s very different from the one of generations past. Gone are the days when practicing law meant spending hours behind an imposing wooden desk in an office overflowing with paper.

While it may have started as little more than the latest buzzword, “legal tech” has integrated itself firmly into the mainstream and is now part and parcel of everyday legal practice. Technology is no longer a luxury—it’s the new normal for the legal industry. Not surprisingly, smart law schools are quickly getting on board.

Tech-savvy millennials enrolling in U.S. law schools are expecting a more innovative curriculum. Schools are also looking to keep pace with the latest digital transformation in the legal industry so their graduates leave with the know-how and skill sets to compete and succeed in today’s job market.

The Socratic Method Meets Siri
There’s no question that tech has found a prominent place in the modern law school curriculum. While core classes like contracts and civil procedure will always remain staples of a solid legal education, top law schools around the country have already integrated a strong focus on technology into their coursework. ...

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Viard Posts Two 2019 Tax Papers On SSRN

Alan D. Viard (American Enterprise Institute), Base Broadening Gone Wrong: Work-Related Costs and the TCJA, 164 Tax Notes 539 (July 22, 2019):

Tax policy scholars often advocate broadening the tax base. Not all base broadening is created equal, however. A fundamental tax policy principle, firmly grounded in economic theory, requires that an income tax allow deductions for the costs of earning income, including work-related costs. Base broadening that removes those deductions is misdirected. Unfortunately, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act implemented that type of base broadening by suspending tax relief for moving expenses and employee business expenses for 2018 through 2025.

Alan D. Viard (American Enterprise Institute), An Economic Analysis of the TCJA's Larger Standard Deduction, 163 Tax Notes 79 (Apr. 1, 2019):

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Liscow Presents Democratic Law And Economics Today At NYU

Zachary Liscow (Yale) presents Democratic Law and Economics at NYU today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series hosted by Lily Batchelder and Daniel Shaviro:

Law and economics typically analyzes ideal policies, ignoring real-world institutions and constraints. It is helpful for real-world political actors, though, to have guidance for the real world, which this Article provides for policymakers setting policy with distributional impacts. Current guidance not considering real-world constraints may significantly hamper policymakers’ effectiveness at addressing today’s crisis of inequality. Critique of law and economics is widespread, but, to provide an alternative framework for policymaking, one needs to start with an account of its failures that can provide such an alternative framework. This Article provides such an account of the failures and an alternative framework.

This Article explores a major dissonance between expert and lay policy views: the set of tax prescriptions required by law and economics is sharply at odds with ordinary citizens’ psychology about taxes. While standard economic reasoning views taxes solely as a system of incentives and redistribution, many ordinary people also think of taxes as rewarding desert—as recent rigorous survey experiments, advances in the economics of taxation, and decades of experience show. Desert-based tax views limit redistribution, since the poor are deemed to not deserve free cash and the rich are deemed to deserve some of their income. A democracy where Congress is attentive to such tax views will need to look elsewhere to achieve distributive justice.

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Graduate School Enrollment Rises 2.2%, But International Student Enrollment Falls For Third Consecutive Year

Inside Higher Ed, Grad Enrollment: Gains at Home, Losses Abroad: 

Graduate school applications were up 2.2 percent year over year in 2018, and first-time enrollments increased 2.1 percent across institution types, according to a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Educational Testing Service [Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2008 to 2018 (press release)].

The groups were especially pleased to see higher increases in first-time enrollments among people of color, including Latinx (6.8 percent), black (3.5 percent), Asian (6.2 percent) and Native American students (8.3 percent). Over all, 24.1 percent of all first-time enrollees who were U.S. citizens and permanent residents in fall 2018 were underrepresented minorities.

Hironao Okahana, associate vice president, research and policy analysis, at the council, attributed those gains to increased attention to diversity on many campuses. “Graduate schools are prioritizing recruitment of traditionally underrepresented students and are eager to diversify their programs,” he said Monday. And while the increases “are a good start,” he added, “we must work to further support [underrepresented] students in their path to graduate school and beyond.” ...

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The Gig Academy

Adrianna Kezar (USC), Tom DePaola (USC) & Daniel Scott (USC), The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University (Johns Hopkins University Press 2019):

Over the past two decades, higher education employment has undergone a radical transformation with faculty becoming contingent, staff being outsourced, and postdocs and graduate students becoming a larger share of the workforce. For example, the faculty has shifted from one composed mostly of tenure-track, full-time employees to one made up of contingent, part-time teachers. Non-tenure-track instructors now make up 70 percent of college faculty. Their pay for teaching eight courses averages $22,400 a year—less than the annual salary of most fast-food workers.

In The Gig Academy, Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, and Daniel T. Scott assess the impact of this disturbing workforce development. Providing an overarching framework that takes the concept of the gig economy and applies it to the university workforce, this book scrutinizes labor restructuring across both academic and nonacademic spheres. By synthesizing these employment trends, the book reveals the magnitude of the problem for individual workers across all institutional types and job categories while illustrating the damaging effects of these changes on student outcomes, campus community, and institutional effectiveness. A pointed critique of contemporary neoliberalism, the book also includes an analysis of the growing divide between employees and administrators.

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