NY Times Op-Ed: We’re In A Loneliness Crisis — Another Reason To Get Off Our Phones

New York Times Op-Ed:  We’re in a Loneliness Crisis: Another Reason to Get Off Our Phones, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):

It rained one morning this week. I moved back to Texas last year, in part for the rainstorms. Here, it rains decisively, gloriously, like it really means it. It explodes, pounds, roars, thunders and then, suddenly, moves on. I stepped on my back porch, not wanting to miss the show.

I sat, silent, smelling that indescribable rain scent and stretching out my hands, palms open in supplication, the same position I use in church to receive communion. The physicality of the experience, the sensual joy of sounds, smells, touch and sight, was profoundly humanizing. In a very real way, I am made for that. I am made to notice the rain. I’m made to love it.

We are creatures made to encounter beauty and goodness in the material world.

But digitization is changing our relationship with materiality — both the world of nature and of human relationships. We are trained through technology (and technology corporations) to spend more time on screens and less time noticing and interacting with this touchable, smellable, feelable world. Social media in particular trains us to notice that which is large, loud, urgent, trending and distant, and to therefore miss the small, quiet importance of our proximate and limited, embodied lives.

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Christianity And Constitutional Law

Nicholas Aroney (TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland; Google Scholar), Christianity and Constitutional Law:

This paper, written for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Law, edited by John Witte and Rafael Domingo, explores the influence of Christianity on constitutional law. The paper begins by pointing out that modern constitutional law is the product of several important historical influences. These include elements of Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christian theology, and Enlightenment principles. Greek philosophy proposed a classification of the basic types of constitution and introduced the idea of the rule of law. Roman law contributed the legal concept of jurisdiction, which is an essential feature of contemporary constitutional law. Christian theology offered a conceptual framework in which the authority of civil government was effectively qualified by a higher natural or divine law, and in which the spiritual authority of the church posed a practical limit on the temporal powers of the civil authority. Christian theology also provided the context in which the powers of civil and ecclesiastical rulers were tempered through various means, including the administration of oaths of office and the issuing of charters guaranteeing the rights of religious, social, economic, and civil associations of many kinds. The principle of the separation of powers and the establishment of written constitutions enforced by judicial review, although associated with the Enlightenment, also owed a great deal to these earlier principles and practices. The paper surveys the contribution of each of these influences and argues that although the Greek, Roman, and Enlightenment contributions have been important, constitutional law would not be what it is today if it were not for the influence of Christianity.

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Tax Experts Say Section 107 Housing Allowance For Clergy Remains Safe Despite Recent Cases And Greedy Abuses

Christianity Today, Churches Still Depend on Clergy Housing Allowance:

Despite recent legal cases and reports of greedy abuses, experts say the longstanding benefit remains safe.

Wth the federal tax filing deadline looming, a Virginia court case may have some ministers wondering whether their ministerial housing allowance is secure.

The case isn’t about the housing allowance. But to some, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, it suggests courts may be willing to meddle increasingly in clergy affairs, including housing.

At issue was denial of a property tax exemption for a church parsonage in Fredericksburg, Virginia. New Life in Christ Church sought the tax exemption for a church-owned home inhabited by two youth ministers, married couple Josh and Anacari Storms. The city denied the exemption because it claimed the church’s denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), does not allow women to be considered ministers.

New Life in Christ said the city misunderstood its doctrine. Ordination and certain duties, like preaching, are limited to men in the PCA, according to the church, but the denomination’s governing documents permit congregations latitude in hiring nonordained persons like the Stormses for various ministry jobs. Yet a trial court sided with Fredericksburg, as did the Virginia Supreme Court.

The US Supreme Court declined to hear the church’s appeal in January. Now the church must continue paying the annual property tax bill of $4,589.15. The Supreme Court’s action provoked a dissent from Gorsuch.

“The City continues to insist that a church’s religious rules are ‘subject to verification’ by government officials,” Gorsuch wrote. “I would grant the [church’s] petition and summarily reverse. The First Amendment does not permit bureaucrats or judges to ‘subject’ religious beliefs ‘to verification.’”

Is the case a harbinger of increased willingness to scrutinize ministerial housing in court? Pastors across America hope not. While fewer churches own traditional parsonages, the majority take advantage of the federal clergy housing allowance and say it benefits both their families and their churches. ...

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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. [521 Downloads]  How Treasury and the IRS Have Allowed High-Net-Worth Taxpayers to Exploit Stepped-Up Basis on Intergenerational Wealth Transfers, and How They Can Stop It: Answers to Question for the Record, by Daniel Hemel (Chicago; moving to NYU; Google Scholar)
2. [397 Downloads]  Taxing Robots, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar) & Maria Amparo Grau Ruiz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Google Scholar)
3. [370 Downloads]  A Matter of High Interest: How a Quiet Change to an Actuarial Assumption Turbocharges the Life Insurance Tax Shelter, by Andrew Granato (J.D.|Ph.D., Yale; Google Scholar)
4. [358 Downloads]  Permanent Establishment and Fixed Establishment in the Context of the Subsidiary and the Digital Economy, by Stoycho Dulevski (University of National and World Economy; Google Scholar)
5. [320 Downloads]  Where Nonprofits Incorporate and Why It Matters, by Peter Molk (Florida; Google Scholar)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Only One Exclusion For Military Retiree Disability Payments
2. Tallahassee Democrat, The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Wendi Adelson And Luis Rivera Take The Stand
3. NACUBO, Private College Tuition Discount Rate Hits All-Time High Of 54.5%
4. Inc., Law Schools Are Becoming The New Business Schools For Future Leaders
5. Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), After Roe Leak, Yale Law Students Call For Ostracizing Conservative Classmates
6. Maria LaMonaca Wisdom (Duke), The Cost Of Academe’s Fixation On Productivity
7. Miami Herald, A Year After Abruptly Ousting Tony Varona As Dean, Miami President Names David Yellen New Law School Dean
8. (Lawrence Zelenak (Duke) & Ajay Mehrotra (Northwestern), A Half-Century With The Internal Revenue Code: The Memoirs Of Stanley Surrey
9. John McGinnis (Northwestern), Lawyers for Radical Change
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Bibles For The Class Of 2022

The Data-Driven Answer To A Rich And Happy Life

New York Times Op-Ed:  The Rich Are Not Who We Think They Are. And Happiness Is Not What We Think It Is, Either., by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (Author, Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life (2022)):

We now know who is rich in America. And it’s not who you might have guessed.

A groundbreaking 2019 study by four economists, “Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century,” analyzed de-identified data of the complete universe of American taxpayers to determine who dominated the top 0.1 percent of earners.

The study didn’t tell us about the small number of well-known tech and shopping billionaires but instead about the more than 140,000 Americans who earn more than $1.58 million per year. The researchers found that the typical rich American is, in their words, the owner of a “regional business,” such as an “auto dealer” or a “beverage distributor.” ...

What are the lessons from the data on rich earners?

First, rich people own. Among members of the top 0.1 percent, the researchers found, about three times as many make the majority of their income from owning a business as from being paid a wage. Salaries don’t make people rich nearly as often as equity does. ...

Second, rich people tend to own unsexy businesses. ...

The third important factor in gaining wealth is some way to avoid ruthless price competition, to build a local monopoly. The prevalence of owners of auto dealerships among the top 0.1 percent gives a clue to what it takes to get rich. ...

If pop culture is right, getting rich is a path to happiness. Is that true? Does money actually make people happy?

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GAO: IRS Audit Rates Plummet For The Rich

GAO, Tax Compliance: IRS Audit Trends for Individual Taxpayers Vary by Income:

From tax years 2010 to 2019, audit rates of individual tax returns decreased for all income levels. On average, individual tax returns were audited over three times more often for tax year 2010 (about 0.9 percent) than for tax year 2019 (0.25 percent). Audit rates for taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 and above decreased the most, largely because higher-income audits tend to be more complicated and require auditors to manually review multiple issues, according to IRS officials. Because audit staffing has decreased, IRS cannot conduct as many of these audits, compared to lower-income audits, which are generally less complex and involve more automated processes. In addition, IRS officials stated that the number of returns filed by higher-income populations is growing, meaning more audits are needed to achieve the same audit rate.

Although audit rates decreased the most for higher-income taxpayers during this time period, IRS continued to audit higher-income taxpayers at higher rates than lower-income taxpayers, in general. However, IRS audited taxpayers claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at a higher rate than average (see fig. 1, using tax year 2019 as an example). IRS officials explained that EITC audits are limited in scope and historically have high rates of improper payments and therefore require a greater enforcement presence.

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The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Luis Rivera Flips On Katie And Sigfredo Garcia

• Florida Politics, Markel Trial Day 5: State Lights Fuses; a Latin King Breaks Code; Corbitt Spills Data; Wendi Takes a Weird Route
• Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Rivera, Inconsistencies, Cell Phone Trail in Retrial Spotlight on Day 3 
• Tallahassee Democrat, 'Necessary Evil': Credibility at Core as Luis Rivera Connects Dots in Dan Markel Murder
• WCTV, Court Wraps Up 1st week of Katherine Magbanua Retrial
• WCTV, Wendi Adelson’s Ex-boyfriend Testifies in Magbanua Retrial

• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: 'Prosecutorial Desperation' Or 'Nefarious Nexus'? (May 16, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selection (May 17, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selected, Ex-Wife Wendi Adelson And Hitman Sigfredo Garcia To Testify (May 18, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Conflicting Portraits Emerge (May 19, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Wendi Adelson And Luis Rivera Take The Stand (May 20, 2022)

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews AI, Taxation, And Valuation By Soled And Thomas

This week, Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) reviews Jay Soled (Rutgers; Google Scholar) & Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina; Google Scholar), AI, Taxation, and Valuation, 108 Iowa L. Rev. __ (2023).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is improving our lives by utilizing technology and machine learning to accomplish tasks that require considerable human labor. It can deliver similar and often better outcomes in a cost-effective manner. I have written here that calculative actions do not require much creativity thus are the most obvious fields in which machines are superior to humans. It is very fitting to ask, then, how can AI improve tax enforcement and compliance? Valuation is one of the most calculative and arduous areas in tax administration that automation can greatly improve. 

Valuation often requires many efforts determining fair market value (FMV) when there is no willing buyer and seller that negotiate the asset’s purchase price. Because of the essential role that asset valuations play in determining tax liabilities, there is a high sensitivity by the IRS and taxpayers to their accuracy. Transactions between related parties or not at arm’s length such as transfer of bequests, nonfungible real estate, or closely held business interests present complex valuation issues as there is no clear FMV. Congress uses a traditional carrot-and-stick approach to valuation by encouraging taxpayers to comply through clarifying and simplifying reporting obligations, along with imposing penalties for misstating the value of assets.

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Are More Law Schools Needed in Areas Where InfiLaw Campuses Closed?
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine Caruso Law Bibles For The Class Of 2022
• Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  What Is the Real Cost of Academe’s Fixation on Productivity?
• David Frakt (Independent), Law Schools Miss the Mark on Bar Passage - Will the ABA Act?
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Learning How to Distinguish Cases: A Basic Skill for Lawyers and Law Students
• Inc., How Law Schools Are Becoming the New Business Schools for Future Leaders
• John McGinnis (Northwestern), Lawyers for Radical Change
• Miami Herald, UM Hires Cornell Law Grad as its Law School Dean, Following Tumult After Varona Demotion
• Evan Parker, Leading Courageously With Data To Diversify The Legal Profession

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Americans for Tax Fairness, Based on Their Wealth Growth, 26 Top Nillionaires Pad an Average Income Tax Rate of Just 4.8% over 6 Recent Years
• Axios, White House Slams Bezos Criticism of Biden Tax Comments
• Bloomberg, Last-Ditch SALT Relief Pushed by ‘Front-Line’ Democrats
• Bloomberg, Yellen Fails to Win Poland Pledge to Remove Hold on Tax Deal

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Private College Tuition Discount Rate Hits All-Time High Of 54.5%

NACUBO, Tuition Discount Rates at Private Colleges and Universities Hit All-Time Highs:

In the 2021 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study, 359 private, nonprofit colleges and universities reported an estimated 54.5 percent average institutional tuition discount rate for first-time, full-time, first-year students in 2020-21 and 49 percent for all undergraduates—both record highs. By providing grants, fellowships, and scholarships, these institutions forgo about half the revenue they otherwise would collect if they charged all students the tuition and fee sticker price.

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Tax Now Or Tax Never: Political Optionality And The Case For Current-Assessment Tax Reform

David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer; Google Scholar) & John R. Brooks (Georgetown; moving to Fordham; Google Scholar), Tax Now or Tax Never: Political Optionality and the Case for Current-Assessment Tax Reform, 100 N.C. L. Rev. 487 (2022):

The U.S. income tax system is broken. Due to the realization doctrine and taxpayers’ consequent ability to defer taxation of gains, taxpayers can easily minimize or avoid the taxation of investment income, a failure that is magnified many times over when considering the ultra-wealthy. As a result, this small group of taxpayers commands an enormous share of national wealth yet pays paltry taxes relative to the economic income their wealth produces—a predicament that this Article condemns as being economically, politically, and socially harmful. 

The conventional view among tax law experts has assumed that the problems created by the realization doctrine can be fixed on the back end by adjusting the rules that govern taxation at the time of realization. Specifically, most tax scholars have favored reform proposals that would retain the realization doctrine while aiming to impose taxes in a way that would erase or reduce the financial benefits of deferral. Examples include retrospective capital gains tax reforms, progressive consumption tax reforms, and more incremental reforms such as ending stepped-up basis. 

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Wendi Adelson And Luis Rivera Take The Stand In The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder

• ABA Journal, Was There a Go-Between in the Murder of Law Prof Dan Markel? Defense Offers Alternative Theory
• Florida Politics, Markel Trial Day 4: A Chilling Statement, a Crime Scene Drive-by, and a Possible Framing Attempt 
• Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel's Ex Wife and Luis Rivera Take the Stand
• Tallahassee Democrat, 'End the Madness': Dan Markel's Ex-Wife Wendi Adelson Says 'I Have Done Nothing Wrong'
• Tallahassee Democrat, Wendi Adelson Grilled as She Testifies Under Immunity
• WFSU, Wendi Adelson Talks About Relationship Between Brother Charlie and Dan Markel

• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: 'Prosecutorial Desperation' Or 'Nefarious Nexus'? (May 16, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selection (May 17, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selected, Ex-Wife Wendi Adelson And Hitman Sigfredo Garcia To Testify (May 18, 2022)
• The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Conflicting Portraits Emerge (May 19, 2022)

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Raskolnikov Presents Should Only The Richest Pay More? Today At The OMG Transatlantic Tax Talks

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia) presents Should Only the Richest Pay More? today as part of the OMG Transatlantic Tax Talks Series (OMG = Oxford-Michigan-MIT-Munich-Georgetown):

This paper challenges the leading academic, political, and cultural narrative supporting greater redistribution. This narrative holds that redistribution should come at the expense of the very restricted group of the highest earners: the one percent, the super-rich, the billionaire class. I argue that the very reasons offered in support of this view call for redistribution from a much broader group that includes the affluent—those with incomes in the ninetieth to ninety ninth percentiles of the distribution. Whether one looks at the recent trends in income concentration, wealth concentration, economic mobility, government capture, political polarization, or the rise of populism, the affluent are as great or greater contributors to these problems as those in the top one percent. Remarkably, the contemporary U.S. legal and economic scholarship has ignored the affluent almost completely, greatly limiting the magnitude of possible economic transfers as well the form that these transfers may take.

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Stanford Law School Joins Yale In Going Tuition-Free For Students In Need

Reuters, Stanford Law Scraps All Tuition for Low-Income Students, Joining Yale:

Stanford Law School this week became the second elite U.S. law school to commit to fully eliminating tuition payments for low-income students.

In an email Wednesday to students, Dean Jenny Martinez announced a series of new financial aid measures, including full-tuition scholarships for current and incoming students whose family income is below 150% of the poverty line. That works out to $41,625 for a family of four, or $20,385 for an individual.

The school will cover tuition payments for those who qualify starting next year. Annual tuition at Stanford Law is currently $64,350.

Yale Law School announced a similar program in February, with full-tuition scholarships for students with family incomes below the poverty line and whose assets are below $150,000.

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Texas Tax Faculty Workshop

Tax faculty from all Texas Law Schools were invited to gather yesterday for an informal workshop at Texas A&M. As is our tradition, lunch doubled as a half-baked idea brainstorming session for all participants to share ideas and seek input on projects in very early stages. Below the fold is the list of who presented works in progress and who were the official commentators.

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Are More Law Schools Needed In Areas Where InfiLaw Campuses Closed?

ABA Journal, Are More Law Schools Needed in Areas Where InfiLaw Campuses Closed?:

As the Florida Coastal School of Law prepares to close, Jacksonville University announced plans to open a new law school in the same city, with the first entering class starting in fall 2022.

The for-profit Florida Coastal had various accreditation problems, including a U.S. Department of Education flag for not meeting the gainful-employment standard. Administration at Jacksonville University, a not-for-profit school, claims the city of approximately 902,000 people needs a law school. ...

Plans are also in place for a new law school at North Carolina’s High Point University, which is about 78 miles from the now-shuttered Charlotte School of Law. Both Florida Coastal and CSL, as well as Arizona Summit Law School, another school that closed following accreditation issues, were operated by InfiLaw, which was owned by the private equity firm Sterling Capital Partners.

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Who Gives A Trump? Evidence Of Framing Effects In Tax Policy

Mark McKnight (Southern Indiana; Google Scholar), Curtis Price (Southern Indiana; Google Scholar), Andrew Dill (Southern Indiana), Timothy Bryan (Marshall; Google Scholar) & Brett Bueltel (Southern Indiana; Google Scholar), Who Gives a Trump? Evidence of Framing Effects in Tax Policy, 23 J. Acct., Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 149 (2022):

We use a framed survey to measure how associating the name “Trump” with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) affects people’s satisfaction of said Act. Our research included 72 participant clients from a Volunteer Income Tax Assistants (VITA) program, who were asked to provide baseline data regarding political affiliation and attitudes prior to having tax returns completed. We find that using the name “Trump” with people who self-identify as Republican results in more satisfaction with the Act, whereas, for people with who do not self-identify as Republican, association with the name “Trump” does not precipitate stronger or weaker satisfaction with the Act.

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Day 3 Of The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Conflicting Portraits Emerge

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder 'Middleman'? Conflicting Portraits of Katherine Magbanua Emerge in Trial Opener:

As Katherine Magbanua sat by her defense lawyers in a Leon County courtroom, prosecutors pointed to her as the person who set up the murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel nearly eight years ago, later delivering $100,000 to the two hired killers who carried out the hit in the garage of his Betton Hills home.

“The evidence in this case will prove to you the defendant was the link or the middleman between the people who wanted this murder done and the person who pulled the trigger,” said Assistant State Attorney Sarah Kathryn Dugan.

• Florida Politics, Markel Trial Day 3: Important Agreements, Diverging Theories, and High Emotion
• Law & Crime, Murder Retrial in Shooting Death of FSU Law Professor Dan Markel
• Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Day 1 Trial Tick-Tock of Opening Arguments, First Witnesses
• WCTV, Jury Sees Chilling Videos of Prius Following Dan Markel to Gym, Home in Minutes Before Murder
• WFSU, Magbanua Gets the Attention at Her Own Trial as Jurors Weigh Her Involvement in Dan Markel's Murder

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Innovations In IPO Deal Structure: Do Up-C IPOs Harm Public Shareholders?

Mary Brooke Billings (NYU), Kevin Hsueh (NYU), Melissa F. Lewis-Western (BYU; Google Scholar) & Gladriel Shobe (BYU; Google Scholar), Innovations in IPO Deal Structure: Do Up-C IPOs Harm Public Shareholders? (additional write-up here):

This paper examines an innovation in capital formation that has spurred contentious debate: the Umbrella Partnership Corporation (“Up-C”) IPO. Advisors and underwriters argue that the Up-C deal structure is a driver of post-IPO value and, thus, is a value-enhancing means of raising capital that may be one solution to concerns regarding the drop in the number of publicly traded companies. Consistent with these claims, recent research suggests that organizing soon-to-be public businesses as pass-through entities (as is the case for UpCs) leads to superior future performance. Yet, broadening the analysis to consider abnormal stock performance and post-IPO litigation of a larger and more recent sample of exclusively Up-C IPOs, we conclude just the opposite. While the Up-C deal structure increases IPO valuations and predicts positive post-IPO operating performance, the return performance of Up-C IPOs indicates that Up-C deals harm public shareholders.

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Pepperdine Caruso Law Bibles For The Class Of 2022

One of my favorite things to do as dean: signing the Pepperdine-branded Bibles we will be giving to our graduates at tomorrow night's Baccalaureate Service for the Class of 2022 and their families. I write in each Bible the graduate's name and the five Bible verses I will be talking about in my message that have shaped my life (and that I hope will shape theirs).

Soled & Morris: The Strange And Curious Tax Treatment Of Investment Expenses

Jay A. Soled (Rutgers; Google Scholar) & Mallory A. Morris (Dechert), The Strange And Curious Tax Treatment Of Investment Expenses, 67 Vill. L. Rev. 101 (2022):

To secure income, taxpayers often incur a wide range of expenses. At least theoretically, one might think that the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) would accord all such expenses similar tax treatment, but (i) trade or business expenses and (ii) investment expenses endure the exact opposite tax treatment: the former are generally allowed, whereas the latter are commonly disallowed. The obvious question is why there is a difference in treatment between the two.

This Article explores possible answers to that important question. It first traces the evolution of the Code’s dichotomous tax treatment of trade or business versus investment expenses. It then investigates possible justifications and their associated merits for the different handling of these two expense categories. 

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Leading Courageously With Data To Diversify The Legal Profession

Evan Parker (Founder, Parker Analytics), Leading Courageously With Data:

The graphic above tracks demographic representation across 12 law firms working for BASF Corporation, 2016 to 2021. On average, shares of BASF work grew +11% for diverse ethnicity partners and +46% for associates. For women, shares grew +24% for partners and +28% for associates. Additionally (not pictured), ethnicity and gender representation in firmwide leadership grew +10%.

What explains this blockbuster growth? To me, it’s the courageous leaders using data to achieve a shared mission.

Each year, BASF’s in-house leaders request diversity data from outside counsel. Parker Analytics (PA) then prepares individualized data scorecards and action items, which BASF shares with its firms. As the graphic clarifies, firm leaders responded, driving growth in diverse representation in BASF legal teams and the firm overall.

The most successful data projects I know include a shared mission—between clients and firms, firm leaders and analysts, etc. Achieving mission goals together enriches these professional relationships. So, in leading courageously with data you are powering a virtuous cycle.

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Using The Internal Revenue Code To Limit Coaching Salaries: A Proposal To Bring Amateurism Back Into College Football

Blaire Mikesell (J.D. 2022, Indiana-Maurer), Note, Using the Internal Revenue Code to Limit Coaching Salaries: A Proposal to Bring Amateurism Back into College Football, 97 Ind. L.J. 393 (2022):

Since formal collegiate athletic competitions began in 1852, they have gained popularity and become a mainstay in American culture. This rise in popularity coupled with increased media coverage allowed college athletics, and particularly college football, to grow into a successful business that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. Colleges and institutions earn this athletic revenue as tax-free income due to their tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code § 501(c)(3) tax-exemption statute. The basic policy underlying this statute is as follows: colleges and universities provide an important benefit to the public by providing education, and in exchange for that provided benefit, the IRS does not tax educationally related income. Currently, income generated by college athletics is educationally related and thus is earned under the tax-exempt status of the university.

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Day 2 Of The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selected, Ex-Wife Wendi Adelson And Hitman Sigfredo Garcia To Testify

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Jury Seated in Katherine Magbanua Murder Trial:

A 14-person jury has been selected to serve in the murder trial of Katherine Magbanua, who is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of FSU law professor Dan Markel. Seven women and seven men comprise the jury.

WTXL, Jury Selected in Magbanua's Retrial:

One witness the jury will hear from is Wendi Adelson.

That's Dan Markel's ex wife.

Adelson will testify with immunity as a state witness as early as Thursday.

Florida Politics, Markel Trial Day 2: Jury Seated, Witness List Clarified, Internet Chatter Ramps Up:

The Markel murder has been a hot topic for eight years in online circles, with engagement ramping up on Twitter with various hashtags, including #danmarkel and #justicefordanmarkel, and on WebSleuths, Facebook, and increasingly, on Reddit.

WCTV, Wendi Adelson’s Attorney Asks Judge to Quash Defense Subpoena:

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A Half-Century With The Internal Revenue Code: The Memoirs Of Stanley Surrey

A Half-Century with the Internal Revenue Code: The Memoirs of Stanley S. Surrey (Lawrence Zelenak (Duke) & Ajay Mehrotra (Northwestern; Google Scholar) eds. Carolina Academic Press 2022):

Stanley S. Surrey was the most prominent mid-twentieth-century American tax law academic, and the federal government official with the greatest influence on tax policy over that same period (aside from politicians). His professional life with the federal tax system spanned half a century, ending only with his death at the age of 73 in 1984. As Surrey writes in his memoirs, he had good reason to "doubt that any person alive today has had as close and as varied a relationship with the Internal Revenue Code as I have had."

He divided the five decades of his professional life between academia (three early years at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by many years at Harvard Law School), and two lengthy tours of duty in the service of the U.S. Treasury Department. In his second Treasury stint he served as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy, the highest executive branch position exclusively focused on taxation. Surrey's influence on the federal tax system was deep and pervasive and continues to this day; perhaps his most enduring accomplishment has been his development of tax expenditure analysis, which since the 1970s has played a central role in a wide range of tax policy discussions.

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After Roe Leak, Yale Law Students Call For Ostracizing Conservative Classmates

Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), ‘Unrelenting Daily Confrontation’: After Roe Leak, Yale Law Students Call for Ostracizing Conservative Classmates and Tossing Out Constitution:

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for students at Yale Law School, who are responding to news that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade with calls to accost their conservative classmates through "unrelenting daily confrontation" and toss the Constitution by the wayside.

Members of the law school’s conservative Federalist Society, first year law student Shyamala Ramakrishna said in an Instagram post, are "conspirators in the Christo-fascist political takeover we all seem to be posting frantically about." Why, she asked, are they still "coming to our parties" and "laughing in the library" without "unrelenting daily confrontation?"

Simple Justice, Short Take: Have Yale Law Students Suffered Enough?:

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Socialism, Progressive Taxation, And The Fiscal State

Sol Picciotto (ICTD, Lancaster, London; Google Scholar), Socialism, Progressive Taxation, and the Fiscal State:

This paper traces the philosophical, political, sociological and economic underpinning for the advocacy by socialists of progressive taxation, from the Communist Manifesto to recent supporters of tax justice campaigns. Socialists’ attitudes to taxation have been tied to their primary aim of socialisation of the ownership of the means of production, reflecting the view that inequality and exploitation are inherent in capitalism, which rests on private property enforced by state power. Communism, as developed particularly by Marx and Engels, aimed to transcend capitalism and end the separation of the state from civil society, by the socialisation of property, including through progressive taxation. Marx’s view in Capital volume 3 that the emergence of large scale enterprises already entailed the ‘abolition of capital as private property within the framework of capitalist production itself’, when it was published in 1894 became central to the debates among German socialists (Liebknecht, Kautsky, Bernstein and Luxemburg), and the Austro-Marxists (Renner, Hilferding), but socialists split when graduated direct taxes were introduced to help fund the welfare-warfare state. Goldscheid’s outline for a social science of the state centred on fiscality underpinned his radical and influential wartime proposals to finance the socialisation of large corporations through taxes on capital.

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McGinnis: Lawyers For Radical Change

John O. McGinnis (Northwestern), Lawyers for Radical Change:

The transformation of the legal profession marks a fundamental change in American democracy. In the republic’s early days, lawyers provided ballast for stability and served as an anchor against excessive populism. The judiciary’s sober attachment to formal order was a primary reason for giving it the power to review the constitutionality of legislation. Law was the profession most likely to preserve the enduring framework of republican government against the mutable passions of the hour.

Nowadays, lawyers are a force for often-radical progressive change. Nothing symbolizes that shift better than the American Bar Association. Once an embodiment of conservatism, it has been captured by the Left. Its resolutions at its annual meeting constitute a wish list of Democratic Party proposals. It also deploys its influence in the accreditation process of law schools to make them even more monolithically left-wing than they already are.

The reasons for the shift lie, at least in part, in the reorientation of lawyers’ interests. Since the birth of the modern regulatory state, lawyers are no longer primarily the allies of commercial classes, as they were in the early republic, but instead the technocrats and enablers of regulation and redistribution. The more the nation intervenes in economic affairs to regulate and redistribute, the greater slice of compliance costs and transfer payments lawyers can expect to receive. Thus, they cannot be counted on as supporters of property rights or even of a stable rule of law. Their interest lies frequently in dynamic forms of legal transformation and the uncertainty they bring. Far from supporting a sound, established social order, they are likely to seek to undermine it. Only an ideological attachment to older forms of legal orders, like that which Federalist Society members manifest, can call lawyers back to the essential role they play in the civic life of our republic. ...

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Colella: Crispino Upholds IRS Mailbox Rule Reg

Frank G. Colella (Pace), ‘But I Mailed It’ — Crispino Upholds IRS Mailbox Rule Regulation, 173 Tax Notes Fed. 1479 (Dec. 13, 2021):

In Crispino, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey held that taxpayers cannot introduce extrinsic evidence under the common law mailbox rule to establish timely filing of their claim for refund and, accordingly, dismissed the refund action for lack of jurisdiction. Crispino, a decision appealable to the Third Circuit, upheld the IRS’s position that the only means to satisfy section 7502, the statutory “mailbox rule,” is by proper compliance with reg. section 301.7502- 1(e)(2), which requires proof of certified or registered mailing when the IRS alleges that it has not received a document.

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Day 1 Of The Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder: Jury Selection

Tallahassee Democrat, 'Conspiracy to Murder': Jury Selection Goes Behind Closed Doors in Katherine Magbanua Retrial:

The second trial of Katherine Magbanua — the alleged conduit between the hired gunmen who killed Dan Markel and his in-laws who allegedly hired them — began Monday with jury selection.

Magbanua, whose first trial in 2019 ended with a hung jury, is on trial on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and solicitation of first-degree murder.

The court set aside two days to select a 12-person jury and four alternates. Because the case has gotten so much publicity, lawyers questioned potential jurors individually and behind closed doors at the Leon County Courthouse.

• Florida Politics, Markel Trial Day 1: Civics Lessons, Sealed Motions, and Evolving Witness Lists
• WCTV, Jury Selection Underway in Katherine Magbanua Retrial
• WTXL, Judge, Attorneys in Katherine Magbanua Retrial Sift Through 100 Potential Jurors

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Lipman: How To Design An Antiracist State And Local Tax System

Francine Lipman (UNLV; Google Scholar), How to Design An Antiracist State and Local Tax System, 53 Seton Hall L. Rev. ___ (2022):

Since the first ship of enslaved African people landed in Virginia in 1619, racist policies in institutions, systems, structures, practices, and laws have ensured inequity for people of color. These racist policies include every imaginable variant of injustice from slavery to lynching, to segregation, and to economic injustices, including those delivered through tax systems today. Although facially color-blind, tax systems have long empowered the explosion of white wealth and undermined wealth accumulation for Black families and communities of color. State and local tax systems, especially in the South, have deeply-rooted racist fiscal policies, including Jim Crow laws that continue to sustain and bolster racial inequality today. These injustices have become even more obvious during the global pandemic.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Alito Sidesteps Question About Collegiality During Remote Appearance at Law School
• Above the Law, 3LOL Is Not Always The Joke Everyone Says It Is
• Above the Law, Deans Only Like Preferential Treatment When It Benefits Their Law School
• Above the Law, Law Schools Are Bringing Out The Best Legal Names As Speakers For In-Person Graduation Ceremonies
• Above the Law, The Only Thing Better Than A 180 On The LSAT Is A 187
• Above the Law, Want More Lawyer Diversity? Sure, Axe The LSAT, But The Real Problem Is Inside The Profession
• Above the Law, We Should Tell The Truth About Judicial Clerkships
• The American Lawyer, Big Law Firms Welcome Larger Summer Associate Classes to In-Office Work and Entertainment

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Two Tax Court Paid Internship Programs: Diversity, Case Processing

The U.S. Tax Court offers two paid internship programs:  

Diversity in Government Internship Program
The DiG Tax program is separate from the Court’s legal internship program, and you need not be a law student to apply.  DiG Tax interns may assist on projects with departments throughout the Court, including Case Services, Facilities, Finance, Human Resources, Library, Information Technology, and Public Affairs.  For more information, see here.

Case Processing Legal Student Intern

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Retrial Of Katherine Magbanua In Dan Markel's Murder Begins Today: 'Prosecutorial Desperation' Or 'Nefarious Nexus'?

Tallahassee Democrat, 'Prosecutorial Desperation' or a Nefarious Nexus: Two Takes on Katherine Magbanua's Retrial:

For six years prosecutors have alleged that Katherine Magbanua was the link between Dan Markel’s estranged in-laws and the two killers who brutally murdered him in his Betton Hills garage.

They’ve said she helped hire the father of her two kids, convicted gunman Sigfredo Garcia and his childhood friend Luis Rivera, coordinated payment of $100,000 for the hit and helped further a conspiracy that has spiraled into one of Tallahassee’s most notorious murder cases.

On the eve of Magbanua’s second trial on May 16, her attorneys say she is the unwitting suspect in a spat between the man who shot Markel and the Florida State law professor’s former brother-in-law, Charlie Adelson.

Magbanua narrowly escaped being convicted in Dan Markel’s murder by a hung jury deadlocked in a 10-2 vote in favor of guilty, two sources with knowledge of the vote confirmed weeks after the trial.

For the do-over, a dozen jurors will be selected starting on Monday with trial expected to commence Thursday and end by May 27. Court administration issued 500 jury summonses and expects roughly 200 potential jurors to report.

The first person Garcia called when his phone was picked up on cellular towers in the Lake City area after the July 18, 2014 shooting was Magbanua. Throughout the day, Magabanua was in contact with him and Adelson, according to evidence presented at Magbanua's 2019 trial.

Police found between Markel’s killing in July 2014 and Nov. 2015, Magbanua deposited more than $56,000 in cash into her bank account. The deposits, according to arrest records, were made mostly through ATMs in increments of $300 to $2,000.

But her defense team has never waivered in their contention their client is innocent and have labeled their client's arrest as "prosecutorial desperation," to make other arrests in the case.

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Lesson From The Tax Court: Only One Exclusion For Military Retiree Disability Payments

My dad served as a doctor in the military for 30 years, 23 days. Starting this week, he will have been retired for longer than he served. When he first retired, he received a monthly pension check from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and that was all.  A few years later he learned that his hearing loss, likely from his time in Vietnam, qualified him for disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  He applied for, and received, a 30% disability rating.  He then started receiving two checks each month, one from DFAS and one from the VA.

My dad’s DFAS check is included in gross income but his VA check is not, thanks to §104(a)(4).  If he had never applied for the disability rating, however, §104 would still permit him to exclude part of his DFAS check to the extent he would have be entitled to a disability check from the VA.  Confused?  Today’s lesson will help! 

In Tracy Renee Valentine v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2022-42 (Apr. 28, 2022) (Judge Gustafson), the taxpayer was a veteran and received two checks per month, one from DFAS and one from VA for disability compensation.  She wanted to exclude not only the VA disability check, but she also wanted to exclude part of her DFAS check.  But she mis-read §104(a)(4)’s interplay with §104(b).  Judge Gustafson teaches us the proper way to read the rules.  Basically, veterans get only one exclusion for their disability payments.  Details below the fold.

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The Cost Of Academe’s Fixation On Productivity

Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  What Is the Real Cost of Academe’s Fixation on Productivity?, by Maria LaMonaca Wisdom (Duke):

A few months ago, I took part in a virtual conversation at my university about how to rebuild campus relationships fragmented by Covid. Faculty members and administrators asked the same sorts of late-pandemic questions vexing colleges across the country: What could we do to mitigate the isolation and disengagement that everyone — students, professors, staff members — seemed to be feeling? And how could we begin to rebuild the academic and intellectual fellowship lost since the pandemic?

In my role as a faculty coach at Duke University, I jumped in with some ideas, based on what I was seeing and hearing from academics during our coaching conversations. My recommendations — that small, incremental changes at the personal and local level could be more effective than top-down solutions — ended up as an advice post on our faculty-advancement website. ...

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I was proposing a dam to hold back a tsunami — one that started well before Covid and has been eroding social relationships for years both in higher education and in many other sectors of American life. Long before the pandemic, academics were finding it difficult to foster “intellectual community.” To attribute all of the problems we now face to the pandemic risks covering up a much larger, long-term issue. ...

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Law Schools Are Becoming The New Business Schools For Future Leaders
• Azam: Online Taxation Post Wayfair
• A Year After Abruptly Ousting Tony Varona As Dean, Miami President Names David Yellen New Law School Dean

Sunday:

• WSJ Book Review: America's Book — The Rise and Decline Of A Bible Civilization
• NY Times Op-Ed: If Roe Is Overturned, Where Should The Pro-Life Movement Go Next?
• NY Times Op-Ed: Too Much Church In The State For This Catholic
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

WSJ Book Review: America's Book — The Rise and Decline Of A Bible Civilization

Wall Street Journal Book Review:  ‘America’s Book’ Review: The Word Out of Season, by D.G. Hart (Hillsdale College) (Reviewing Mark A. Noll (Notre Dame), America's Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911 (2022)):

Many Americans born after 1960 have trouble imagining that for much of the country’s history the Bible was a chief source of national identity. ... Whether ceremonial or therapeutic, Bible-reading in public schools was, by the 1950s, among the last uncontested conventions of America’s Bible civilization.

Mark Noll’s Mark A. Noll (Notre Dame), America's Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911 explains how the Bible achieved this status. The new nation’s rejection of European forms of Christendom such as sacral monarchy and state churches left the Bible to bear the burden of America’s attempt to create a Christian civilization. A completely secular republic was never a possibility except for the most free-thinking of free thinkers. The Founders virtually to a man insisted that a republic depended on a virtuous citizenry, and that the best source of morality was religion. Despite the variety of Protestant denominations, church leaders and public officials agreed that the Bible was the best and most reliable guide for determining moral consensus.

“America’s Book” documents the extent of the Bible’s reach—from the printing and distribution of Bibles and the creation of Sunday schools to the intellectual dead ends into which unwise handlers of the Bible were led. The book’s breadth is a tribute to Mr. Noll’s career as an interpreter of Protestantism in North America, even if its encyclopedic quantity occasionally obscures the overarching argument. ...

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NY Times Op-Ed: If Roe Is Overturned, Where Should The Pro-Life Movement Go Next?

New York Times Op-Ed:  If Roe Is Overturned, Where Should the Pro-Life Movement Go Next?, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):

Pro-life activists have been working toward overturning the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision ever since it came down in 1973. But as I spoke to folks from pro-life and whole-life movements last week after the leak of a draft opinion that indicated the court will overturn Roe, the mood was complicated. I did not find unalloyed jubilance or triumph.

Most people I talked to expressed cautious optimism and hope but also concern. This was in part because they worried that the court’s draft opinion may shift in weeks to come. But more so because those who take a holistic approach to reducing abortion feel that legally restricting abortion, while a win for justice and the voiceless and vulnerable, is not alone enough to create a culture that is holistically pro-life and addresses the needs of both women and unborn children.

The sense I got is that, for many pro-life and whole-life leaders, this Supreme Court decision would represent a starting line, not a finish line. There are no credits rolling with a victorious pro-life movement marching into the sunset. One activist told me, “I feel joy and relief, but it is kind of like the joy and relief one feels in getting into college, being cast in the school play or making the varsity team. The conditions for the possibility of achieving the goal have been met, but there’s so much more hard work to do.”

What lies ahead is the continued need to enact policies that address the underlying reasons that some women feel they need abortions in the first place. I asked pro-life or whole-life thinkers and leaders: If Roe is overturned, where should the pro-life and whole-life movements direct energy to support women, unborn children and families?

Here are some of their responses: ...

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NY Times Op-Ed: Too Much Church In The State For This Catholic

New York Times Op-Ed:  Too Much Church in the State, by Maureen Dowd:

As a Catholic whose father lived through the Irish Catholics “need not apply” era, I’m happy to see Catholics do well in the world. There is an astonishing preponderance of Catholics on the Supreme Court — six out of the nine justices, and a seventh, Neil Gorsuch, was raised as a Catholic and went to the same Jesuit boys’ high school in a Maryland suburb that Brett Kavanaugh and my nephews did, Georgetown Prep. ...

[T]his Catholic feels an intense disquiet that Catholic doctrine may be shaping (or misshaping) the freedom and the future of millions of women, and men. There is a corona of religious fervor around the court, a churchly ethos that threatens to turn our whole country upside down.

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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 #4:

1. [940 Downloads]  Amazon and the State Aid Tax Saga, by Leopoldo Parada (Leeds; Google Scholar)
2. [521 Downloads]  How Treasury and the IRS Have Allowed High-Net-Worth Taxpayers to Exploit Stepped-Up Basis on Intergenerational Wealth Transfers, and How They Can Stop It: Answers to Question for the Record, by Daniel Hemel (Chicago; moving to NYU; Google Scholar)
3. [385 Downloads]  Taxing Robots, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar) & Maria Amparo Grau Ruiz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Google Scholar)
4. [350 Downloads]  A Matter of High Interest: How a Quiet Change to an Actuarial Assumption Turbocharges the Life Insurance Tax Shelter, by Andrew Granato (J.D.|Ph.D., Yale; Google Scholar)
5. [346 Downloads]  Permanent Establishment and Fixed Establishment in the Context of the Subsidiary and the Digital Economy, by Stoycho Dulevski (University of National and World Economy; Google Scholar)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Avoiding The 2-Year Lookback Period In Bankruptcy
2. Wall Street Journal, Annual Reviews And OKRs Are A Terrible Way To Evaluate Employees
3. Philadelphia Inquirer, As Temple Dean Begins Serving 14-Month Sentence For U.S. News Rankings Fraud, Tenured Professor Is Defiant At Sentencing Hearing: 'Every Single University Has People Doing The Same Exact Operations'
4. FedSoc Debate, Should The ABA Be Stripped Of Its Monopoly Law School Accrediting Power?
5. New York Times, ABA May Eliminate Standardized Tests for Law School Admissions
6. Tallahassee Democrat, Following Charlie Adelson's Arrest, Attention Shifts To Katherine Magbanua's May 16 Trial In Dan Markel's Murder
7. Jasper L. Cummings, Jr. (Alston & Bird, Raleigh, NC), Louis Brandeis, Antitrust, And A Functioning Tax System
8. New York Times Op-Ed, Why I Pray To A God I Don’t Believe In
9. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, University Pays $1.65 Million To Settle Tuition Refund Class Action Claiming Online Classes During Covid Were 'Subpar'; Students Get $185 Each; Lawyers Get $550,000
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 8th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law School

Law Schools Are Becoming The New Business Schools For Future Leaders

Inc., How Law Schools Are Becoming the New Business Schools for Future Leaders:

There's a revolution going on right now in top law schools across the country. They're starting to teach leadership — and trust me, it's not an easy task. Some, however, are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. 

Law students aren't used to learning about how to develop leadership skills, and professors certainly aren't used to teaching it. Getting left-brained, analytic, hyper-competitive law students to genuinely embrace soft and squishy concepts like empathy and teamwork requires a different mindset. In fact, it requires a new way of educating altogether. Century-old Ivy League law schools, chock full of Socratic professors like the fictional and highly cantankerous Professor Kingsfield in the movie Paper Chase, simply won't suffice any longer. A new paradigm is needed. A fundamentally new approach is required. 

But it isn't easy to teach old dogs new tricks. That's why most come up short or avoid the challenge altogether. ...

Fortunately, some law schools aren't shying away from reinventing themselves. A handful of administrators are at the forefront, including Dean Heather Gerken and former assistant dean Anastasia Boyko at Yale Law School, Jennifer Leonard at the University of Pennsylvania, and Scott Westfahl at Harvard Law School.

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Azam: Online Taxation Post Wayfair

Rifat Azam (Radzyner School of Law, Israel; Google Scholar), Online Taxation Post Wayfair, 51 N.M. L. Rev. 116 (2021):

The United States Supreme Court saved the states’ sales tax base in the landmark case of South Dakota v. Wayfair in 2018. This revolutionary decision ended the long ban on states imposing sales tax collection duties on out-of-state retailers without a physical presence in the state, as established in Bellas Hess v. Department of Revenue of Illinois in 1967 and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota in 1992. Wayfair now allows states to impose sales taxation on out-of-state retailers in the era of digitalization. In this article, I provide valuable guidelines and suggestions to aid states on this critical journey toward taxing remote online transactions fairly and efficiently.

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A Year After Abruptly Ousting Tony Varona As Dean, Miami President Names David Yellen New Law School Dean

Miami Herald, UM Hires Cornell Law Grad as its Law School Dean, Following Tumult After Varona Demotion:

About a year after abruptly ousting Anthony Varona as law school dean, University of Miami President Julio Frenk hired his replacement: David Yellen, a New Jersey native who has devoted most of his career to reforming the justice system and leading two other law schools.

Yellen, 64, who earned his bachelor’s in politics from Princeton University and his law degree from Cornell University, will start July 1, according to the Thursday posting from the Coral Gables-based private university.

“I’m very excited,” said Yellen. “The University of Miami School of Law, I’ve known and admired for decades, so I’m really excited to join them.”

Yellen will move to South Florida in June from Colorado, where he has served since last June as the CEO of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, a research organization at the University of Denver. ...

The turnover of UM’s law school deans began when Frenk announced last May that Varona, an openly gay man of Cuban heritage, would step down as dean. Frenk’s abrupt decision to demote the popular Varona — without prior consultation of the faculty, alumni or students — led to an outcry in the legal community, locally and nationally. ...

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Are more law schools needed in areas where InfiLaw campuses closed?
• Claudia Angelos (NYU), Mary Lu Bilek (Former Dean, CUNY, Massachusetts) & Joan Howarth (UNLV; Dean Emerita, Michigan State), The Deborah Jones Merritt Center for the Advancement of Justice
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 8th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law School
• Robert Kuehn (Washington University), The Economic Value Of Law Clinic Legal Assistance
• Law.com, 'Arbitrary and Unfair': Dispute Over Limited Seating, Preferential Treatment for DC Bar Exam Continues—But Court Isn't Budging
• Lynn M. LoPucki (UCLA), The PowerPoint Channel
• New York Times, American Bar Association May Eliminate Standardized Tests for Admissions

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Bloomberg, Biden Reaps Record Tax Haul on Meme Stocks’ Once-and-Done Frenzy
• Bloomberg, Bored in Retirement? Start a 501(c) Charity for Fun and Profit
• Bloomberg, Crypto Investors Likely Paying Less Than Half the Taxes They Owe
• Bloomberg, US Budget Deficit Shrinks $1.6 Trillion on Record Tax Surge
• Lynnley Browning (Financial Planning), New Treasury Proposal Would Hammer Wealthy Investors Using Clever Tax Strategies

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Next Week’s Tax Workshop

Thursday, May 19: Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia) will present Should Only the Richest Pay More? as part of the OMG Transatlantic Tax Talks Series. This event does not require registration. 

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