Penn Prof: Firing Amy Wax Could Open Door To Censorship Of Faculty Teaching Critical Race Theory

Following up on yesterday's post, Debate Intensifies Over Potential Discipline For Penn Law Prof Amy Wax:  Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn Law Professor Amy Wax Enraged People With Her Comments About Asians. Now, She May Face Sanction.:

But some academics who ardently despise Wax’s comments say they would rather she retains the right to say them than allow her to be fired. ...

University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax over the last five years has repeatedly enraged students with her racist comments, first calling into question the academic ability of Black students and most recently saying the country would be better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.

While Penn has condemned her speech and in 2018 removed her from teaching mandatory courses, she has kept her job and the prestige of working for an Ivy League university.

But that may be about to change.

Ted Ruger, dean of Penn’s law school, said Friday he is “actively considering” invoking a faculty senate review process that could lead to sanctions against the 68-year-old tenured professor, who has worked at Penn for two decades. ...

[S]ome academics who ardently despise Wax’s comments say they would rather she retains the right to say them than allow her to be fired. Removing her could open the door to censorship for professors who espouse views opposed by conservatives, such as critical race theory.

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2021 Religious Law School Rankings

The Most Devout Law Schools, preLaw (Winter 2021):

Every two years, preLaw magazine spotlights the country’s Most Devout Law Schools [2019 ranking here]. ... Forty-six law schools in the U.S. have ties to faith. ... 28 law schools ... are associated with the Catholic religion. Many others are rooted to other Christian faiths, and two are Jewish institutions — Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City and Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Central Islip, N.Y.

METHODOLOGY
preLaw magazine bases its Most Devout honor roll on information gathered from law schools and other sources, including: percentage and activity of students and faculty who belong to the faith; number of religion-focused courses and other ways the school incorporates faith into its curriculum; religion-related journals, centers and clinics; religious services and clergy at the law school; and mission of the law school.

Most Devout Catholic Law Schools:

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Bob Jones, Critical Race Theory, And Democracy

Lynn Lu (CUNY; Google Scholar), Who’s Afraid of Bob Jones?: “Fundamental National Public Policy” and Critical Race Theory in a Delicate Democracy, 25 CUNY L. Rev. ___ (2022):

In Summer of 2021, Republican legislators across the United States introduced a host of bills to prohibit government funding for schools or agencies that teach critical race theory (“CRT”), described by the American Association of Law Schools not as a single doctrine but a set of “frameworks” to “explain and illustrate how structural racism produces racial inequity within our social, economic, political, legal, and educational systems[,] even absent individual racist intent.” Characterizing such an explicitly race-conscious analysis of legal and social institutions as “divisive,” opponents of CRT, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, labeled it “nothing short of state-sponsored and state-sanctioned racism.”

The political campaign to “Stop CRT,” as articulated by strategist Christopher Rufo, seeks to redirect the time-honored civil-rights strategy of defunding racially discriminatory social institutions for use against race-conscious efforts to remedy the ongoing disparate racial, economic, and other social effects perpetuated by the same institutions. The movement to Stop CRT thus seeks to freeze civil rights progress where it stood decades ago, as when the Supreme Court acknowledged a “fundamental national public policy” against racial segregation in its 1983 decision in the notorious case of Bob Jones University v. United States, while leaving unresolved vital questions about whether and how to allocate public resources affirmatively to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in democratic society.

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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 joining the list at #5 and some reshuffling of the order within the Top 5:

1. [299 Downloads]  Principles-based Tax Drafting and Friends. On Rules, Standards, Fictions and Legal Principles, by Hans Gribnau (Tilburg) & Sonja Dusarduijn (Tilburg)
2. [194 Downloads]  Reducing Administrative Burdens to Protect Taxpayer Rights, by Leslie Book (Villanova; Google Scholar), Keith Fogg (Harvard) & Nina Olson (Center for Taxpayer Rights)
3. [193 Downloads]  The Proposal for a Minimum Global Tax: Critical Reflections, by Leopoldo Parada (Leeds; Google Scholar)
4. [187 Downloads]  Speeding Up Benefits to Charity: Donor Advised Fund and Foundation Reform, by Roger Colinvaux (Catholic)
5. [123 Downloads]  2020 Developments in Connecticut Estate and Probate Law, by Jeffrey Cooper (Quinnipiac; Google Scholar), John Ivimey (Reid & Riege, Hartford) & Katherine Mulry (Reid & Riege, Hartford)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Law Professors Of 2021
2. John Wilson (Academe Blog), In Defense Of The Emory Law Journal
3. Paul Horwitz (Alabama) & Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern), More Commentary On The Emory Law Journal/Larry Alexander Controversy
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Halfway Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 5.4% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-14.8%) And 160-169 (-9.2%))
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking
6. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)
7. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)
8. Robert Kuehn (Washington University), Shifting Law School Faculty Demographics
9. David Bernstein (George Mason), The ABA's Problematic Proposed 'Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion' Rules For Law Schools
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors Of 2021

Deaning And Tsunamis

It has been quite a ride as dean: bones broken by a student, getting tossed out of the U.S. News rankings for self-reporting a data entry error, mass shooting, cataclysmic fire, detached retinas in both eyes, global pandemic, and, this morning, my first tsunami warning:

1.14.2022: (correction on date) Large volcanic eruption near Tonga (Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano) today as seen from outer space. Shown on visible imagery using the Himawari satellite. #hiwx #tsunami #earthquake pic.twitter.com/Y18W7wvXl9

— NWSHonolulu (@NWSHonolulu) January 15, 2022

Debate Intensifies Over Potential Discipline For Penn Law Prof Amy Wax

Following up on my previous post, Penn Law Dean Ruger Responds To Comments Made By Professor Wax:  Law.com, Debate Intensifies Over Potential Discipline for Penn Law Professor Amy Wax

• ABA Journal, Law Prof's Remarks About 'Asian Elite' Put Her Back at Center of Controversy
• Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn Law Professor Amy Wax’s Anti-Asian Comments Spark National Scrutiny
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, By Pressuring Penn, Philadelphia City Council Threatens Faculty Speech Rights
• Law.com, Law Schools Often Have Little Recourse When Tenured Faculty Become PR Headaches:
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), Political Pressure Is Mounting on Penn to Fire Amy Wax
• Philadelphia Inquirer, Lawmakers Call For Penn to Revoke Professor’s Tenure After Racist Comments: ‘We Do Not Stand For Hate Speech’
• Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn Law Professor Amy Wax Enraged People With Her Comments About Asians. Now, She May Face Sanction.
• Mike Spivey, What Should Penn Law Do About Professor Amy Wax?

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IRS Targets Your Side Hustle In Crackdown On Transactions Over $600

Bloomberg, IRS Targets Your Side Hustle In Crackdown on Transactions Over $600:

It just got harder to hide from the IRS.

Starting this month, users selling goods and services through such popular sites as Venmo, Etsy and Airbnb will begin receiving tax forms if they take a payment of more than $600. One by one in recent months, tech giants have been warning users of the coming changes and asking them to provide tax information.

“Until this year, the threshold was much higher ($20,000 and 200 transactions) so it didn’t affect nearly as many people,” Venmo told users in its messages about the change. “This requirement only pertains to payments received for sales of goods and services and does not apply to friends and family payments.”

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Death Of Chris Frost (Kentucky)

Jennifer Bird-Pollan (Tax Prof & Associate Dean, Kentucky; Google Scholar) & Christopher Bradley (Bankruptcy Prof, Kentucky; Google Scholar), Law Faculty Remember Professor Chris Frost:

Institutions come to be defined by the individuals who represent them at their very best. Our friend and colleague Christopher Wayne Frost was a defining part of the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law.  As a graduate of the school (first in his class) and as a member of the faculty for the past twenty-four years, Professor Frost was one of the legends of the law school--part of the soul of the place.

A few remarkably talented teachers can strike fear in the hearts of their students, demanding the very best and accepting nothing less, while remaining beloved.  Chris’s reputation preceded him, and students trembled in anticipation of being “Frosted”-- called on to explain a case or a concept in class.  But his high expectations generated a loyal following of students who’d enroll in whatever class he offered, and many UK Law graduates credit Chris’s teaching with their career trajectories and their ultimate success.  Alums of the law school knew they could always rely on him, and former students regularly connected to share their successes and their failures and to seek the advice of their beloved mentor.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Elkins Reviews Infanti's Tax And Time: On The Use And Misuse Of Legal Imagination

This week David Elkins (Netanya, visiting NYU 2021-2022; Google Scholar) reviews a new paper by Anthony C. Infanti (Pittsburgh; Google Scholar), Tax and Time: On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination (NYU Press 2022). 

Time is one of the more perplexing phenomena of the universe. Astrophysicists distinguish between what they call “real time” (time as we experience it, as a series of continuous moments moving from the past to the future) and “imaginary time” (time as viewed from outside the time-space continuum, as a unitary whole with past, present, and future existing simultaneously). However, lest we misinterpret the terms, real time is not more real than imaginary time, and imaginary time is not more imaginary than real time. The terms “real” and “imaginary” simply refer to the real and imaginary axes in Cartesian complex number coordinates. In fact, in ordinary language, it is probably more accurate to describe imaginary time as “real” (an objective portrayal of the universe) and real time as “imaginary” (our psychological perception of the flow of time). One example of the complexities that arise in this field is the conundrum of the arrow of time: Why do we remember the past, but not the future? Why do we experience time as always flowing in one direction? The arrow of time has intrigued philosophers also. Why is the knowledge that I am to experience future pleasure preferable to the knowledge that I experienced past pleasure? Why is knowledge that I am to experience future pain more disconcerting than the knowledge than I experienced pain in the past?

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Forbes, President Biden’s Tax & Antitrust Philosophy Is At War With His National Security Strategy
• The Guardian, As Things Fall Apart, the Super Rich Spend $2m on Whisky. We Need a Wealth Tax
• The Hill, SALT Change on Ice in the Senate
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Investing in a Joint Future: Harnessing State Tax Codes
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, School’s In: Tackling College Affordability Through State Tax Codes
• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Short-Sighted Tax Cuts for the Rich Will Not Grow State Economies

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Renee Nicole Allen (St. John's), From Academic Freedom to Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women in the Legal Academy
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Professor Affirmed
• David Bernstein (George Mason), The ABA's Problematic Proposed 'Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion' Rules For Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Law Professors Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors Of 2021
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Halfway Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 5.4% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-14.8%) And 160-169 (-9.2%))
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), 2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings:    
• Academic Experience
• Admissions Selectivity
• Career Rating,
• Professors: Accessibility
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility and Teaching
• Overall

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Next Week’s Tax Workshops

Wednesday, January 19: Ed Fox (Michigan; Google Scholar) will present The Psychology of Taxing Capital Income: Evidence from a Survey Experiment on the Realization Rule (with Zachary Liscow (Yale; Google Scholar)) as part of the Toronto James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Robert Lines. 

Thursday, January 20: Georg Kofler (Vienna; Google Scholar) will present The Shielding Effect of EU Secondary Law as part of the OMG Transatlantic Tax Talks. This event does not require registration.

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2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2022 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I highlighted the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Yesterday, I blogged the Top 50 law school professor rankings, giving equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings.

Today, in my concluding post, I blog the Princeton Review's overall law school rankings, giving equal weight (20%) to each of the Admissions Selectivity, Academic Experience, Professors: Teaching, Professors: Accessibility, and Career Rating rankings:

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Americans For Tax Fairness Seeks To Hire A Tax Research & Policy Associate

Americans For Tax Fairness is seeking to hire a Tax Research & Policy Associate:

POSITION SUMMARY
Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of national and state endorsing organizations active on high-profile federal tax reform issues, is seeking a Research & Policy Associate to provide support for research, policy and communications work and perform administrative duties. This is a full-time non-exempt position that provides a competitive salary and benefits. The Research & Policy Associate reports to the Executive Director. The salary range is $45,000 to $60,000 depending on experience. A competitive benefits package includes employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance, 3% employer match on 401k contributions, pre-tax transportation benefits, and paid holidays, vacation, sick, and volunteer time off. ATF operates as a virtual office, but there is a possibility that this may change in a year, at which time the position might be located in Washington, D.C.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

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Bernstein: The ABA's Problematic Proposed 'Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion' Rules For Law Schools

Following up on my previous post, ABA Proposes Changes To Diversity And Inclusion Accreditation Standard:  David Bernstein (George Mason; Google Scholar),  The American Bar Association's Problematic Proposed "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" Rules for Law Schools:

The American Bar Association has proposed new "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" rules for law schools. ... I see some serious problems with this proposed rule.

First, there is the question of how a law school is to determine that a group is "underrepresented." ... [H]ow is a law school supposed to determine whether a group identified by "religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, [or] disability" is underrepresented in the legal profession? No one gathers or keeps the statistics that would be needed. Are Armenians underrepresented? Gay men? No one knows.

Also troubling: on the religion front, while no one keeps official statistics, we do know that Jews are substantially "overrepresented" among law school faculty.

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Realization's Vexations: Taxing Cryptocurrency Hard Forks

Arvind Sabu (Capital), Realization's Vexations: Taxing Cryptocurrency Hard Forks, 61 Jurimetrics J. 379 (2021):

A cryptocurrency hard fork seems to increase a holder’s fortunes—those who held Bitcoin, for example, nominally received an equivalent amount of Bitcoin Cash as a result of a famous hard fork. But this Article argues they should not be taxed based on the time of the fork, nor would they then be taxed under existing authorities.

Cryptocurrency hard forks represent innovative experimentation with changes to a cryptocurrency’s protocol in the rich modality of commons-based peer production—the modality responsible for Wikipedia and Linux. The tax system should not stifle this ex¬perimentation and the growth of the cryptocurrency commons by taxing hard forks based on when they occur. Relatedly, the indeterminate value of newly forked cryptocurrencies weighs against taxing hard forks based on when they occur.

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Sarkar: Tax Law's Migration

Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis), Tax Law's Migration, 62 BC L. Rev. 2209 (2021):

Tax law has long left poor foreigners in precarity. Despite the Supreme Court striking down nineteenth-century state laws taxing migrants upon entry, the tax system has nonetheless determined who deserved a place, and what sort of place, within our borders. That tradition continues when the tax system’s emergency relief deprives otherwise needy noncitizens, giving migrants a lesser place.

This Article sheds light on this phenomenon—“tax law’s migration”—engaging two underappreciated connections between immigration and tax law.

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Estate And Gift Tax Valuation Of Cannabis Business Interests

Jonathan G. Blattmachr (Milbank), Bridget J. Crawford (Pace; Google Scholar) & Mitchell M. Gans (Hofstra;), Estate and Gift Tax Valuation of Cannabis Business Interests, 2022 Tr. & Est. 22 (2022):

Approximately half of all American adults have used cannabis at some point in their lives. Whether or not any one estate planning professional falls into this particular demographic, it is crucial for all advisors understand the estate planning uncertainties and complexities facing owners of legal cannabis businesses. Eighteen states have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use; thirty-seven states have legalized the medicinal use of cannabis (often in conjunction with permitting adult recreational uses). Experts estimate that legal recreational sales in the United States were $18.9 billion in 2021 and that, by 2026, sales in the United States alone will reach $41.8 billion or more. As the legal cannabis industry expands, estate planners are more likely to have clients who own interests in legal cannabis businesses. After providing a brief introduction to the important federal banking and income tax limitations on cannabis businesses, this article turns to the more complex—and unpredictable—issue of how interests in legal cannabis businesses should be valued for estate and gift tax purposes.

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Delgado: Groundhog Law

Richard Delgado (Alabama; Google Scholar), Groundhog Law, 21 J.L. Society 1 (2021):

Is law an academic discipline like chemistry, history, or English that belongs on a university campus? Rodrigo and the professor discuss an innocent question by a conference attender who wanted to know why legal knowledge never seems to advance. Rodrigo and the professor are struck by how legal scholarship fails to pass law-review muster unless each statement comes accompanied by a footnote reference to a past writer who said exactly the same thing. They ponder the ways this mindset resembles Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and the movie Groundhog Day.

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From Academic Freedom To Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women In The Legal Academy

Renee Nicole Allen (St. John's), From Academic Freedom to Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women in the Legal Academy, 68 UCLA L. Rev. 364 (2021):

In 1988, Black women law professors formed the Northeast Corridor Collective of Black Women Law Professors, a network of Black women in the legal academy. They supported one another’s scholarship, shared personal experiences of systemic gendered racism, and helped one another navigate the law school white space. A few years later, their stories were transformed into articles that appeared in a symposium edition of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal. Since then, Black women and women of color have published articles and books about their experiences with presumed incompetence, outsider status, and silence. The story of Black women in the legal academy has been told. And, in 2021, contemporary voices resemble voices from long ago.

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2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2022 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Here are the Top 50 law school professor rankings, giving equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings:

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U.S. Department Of Justice Tax Division Seeks To Hire Trial Attorneys

U.S. Department of Justice, Trial Attorney:

The Tax Division is looking for Trial Attorneys to join the Civil Trial Sections. Our attorneys have a passion for litigation; a deep interest in public service; and the ability to work both collaboratively and independently. Familiarity with tax law and the use of technology in organizing, developing, and presenting a case at trial is helpful, but not required. Attorneys in the Civil Trial Sections represent the United States in litigation in federal and state courts across the country. ...

Trial Attorneys in the Civil Trial Sections are the front-line litigators for the United States for tax disputes in federal district and bankruptcy courts and the Court of Federal Claims. These cases arise all over the United States, and, under normal conditions, significant travel is required of our attorneys for depositions, hearings, and trials. Most Trial Attorneys are responsible for a range of cases, including matters they handle alone and others where they work as a member of a litigation team. In either situation, our attorneys have front-line responsibility for taking and defending depositions, writing and arguing motions, working with fact and expert witnesses, and trying cases.

USA Jobs, Trial Attorney, Department of Justice:

Open & closing dates:  01/07/2022 to 02/07/2022
Salary $89,834 - $176,300 per year
Pay scale & grade GS 12 - 15 

More Commentary On The Emory Law Journal/Larry Alexander Controversy

Following up on my previous posts:

• Emory Law Journal Revokes Acceptance Of Larry Alexander's Race-Related Essay In Festschrift Honoring Michael Perry; Other Authors Pull Their Essays (Jan. 4, 2021)
• In Defense Of The Emory Law Journal (Jan. 11, 2022)

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Scandalous Suppression at a Law Review, by Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern):

It is now notorious that the Emory Law Journal commissioned and then tried to censor, as “hurtful and unnecessarily divisive,” an article that denied the existence of systemic racism. When the author refused to bowdlerize his piece, the journal rejected it. Two other contributors to the same issue of the journal withdrew their articles in protest. This has been portrayed as a familiar left/right fight, except for one detail: One of the authors who withdrew is on the left. Some have been asking, Who is that guy, and what was he thinking?

I’m that guy. I am urgently concerned about systemic racism, which I have written about extensively, but I withdrew to protest the illiberalism that has these student editors in its grip. That illiberalism is bad for the university and bad for racial equality. It reflects an increasingly influential conception of racial equality that is indifferent to the welfare of the people it purports to help. This isn’t a left/right thing. ...

I learned about all of this when Steven Smith, another invited participant, informed me that he was withdrawing his own piece in protest. I then read Alexander’s article. (Disclosure: Larry Alexander and I have been friendly scholarly adversaries for years.) I immediately wrote to the editors: “Your comments make clear that you are refusing to publish it because you disagree with its political views. This is a fundamental betrayal of the mission of a scholarly journal. If you maintain your position, then I will also withdraw my article in protest … I implore you to reconsider.”

They didn’t. So I’m out.

Paul Horwitz (Alabama), Who Ultimately Runs "Student-Run" Law Reviews? Not Law Review Editors.:

Not having read Larry Alexander's article or relevant documents describing the publication offer or agreement or editing process, I am reluctant to say too much about this specific incident. As he does, Paul Caron usefully collects varied commentary here. But it is one of a few such incidents that have come up recently, with others involving the American Indian Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, and--with a slightly different set of facts--the NYU Review of Law & Social Change. (These are the ones that have drawn publicity. There may be others. And it may or may not be that case that there have been many such incidents in the past, but that the controversy-addiction-feeding aspects of social media, and users of social media, have given these incidents more prominence than would previously have been the case.) 

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NY Times: The IRS Is Warning Of A Messy Tax Season

New York Times, The I.R.S. Is Warning of a Messy Tax Season:

The federal tax filing season will run from Jan. 24 to April 18 this year, the Internal Revenue Service said on Monday, warning in its announcement that staffing shortages and paperwork backlogs could make for a messy and frustrating experience for taxpayers.

In a briefing on Monday, Treasury Department officials said that the I.R.S. would struggle to promptly answer telephone calls from taxpayers with questions and that a lower level of service should be expected. They blamed Republican legislators, who have blocked efforts to increase funding at the agency, for the lack of resources.

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De Cogan Presents The Unaccountability Of Tax Devolution: A Case Study Of Business Rates Today At Toronto

Dominic De Cogan (Cambridge) presents The Unaccountability of Tax Devolution: A Case Study of Business Rates (with Penelope Tuck (University of Birmingham; Google Scholar)) at Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Robert Lines:

This article was published in [2022] Public Law 38. It examines the accountability arguments for business rates devolution and shows them to be weak. They are undermined by the economic incoherence of the tax, the complexity of devolved powers and a lack of transparency around the use of powers. These problems resonate with a widely held belief that business rates ought to be repealed and replaced with a more carefully designed tax, especially in response to the pressures placed on the system by COVID-19. We are not hostile to these ideas but doubt the likelihood of rapid implementation, and therefore focus on the existing system, paying special regard to the COVID reliefs of 2020 and 2021. We suggest incremental improvements that could reinforce the accountability justifications for devolution; these might be useful even in the event that radical reforms are enacted.

A key justification for tax devolution is that it enhances sub-central accountability.  The meaning of ‘accountability’ in this context is not always clear, but it seems to embody two linked claims. 

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Burke: Transfers Of Zero-Basis Intangibles To A Partnership

Karen C. Burke (Florida), Transfers of Zero-Basis Intangibles to a Partnership, 174 Tax Notes Fed. 25 (Jan. 3, 2022):

In this report, Burke examines the problem of contributed zero-basis intangibles in light of the IRS’s inadvertent disclosure of a transaction structured by Bristol-Myers Squibb to shift billions of dollars of built-in gain to a related foreign partner.

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Clinical Fellowships, Faculty Hiring, And Community Values

G.S. Hans (Vanderbilt), Clinical Fellowships, Faculty Hiring, and Community Values, 27 Clinical L. Rev. 253 (2021):

This Essay explores clinical hiring practices as an expression of community values. In particular, it discusses how lawyers become clinical faculty to reflect on whether and how prior clinical teaching experience should be assessed for entry-level clinical applicants in order to effectuate equity and inclusion within law schools and the clinical community. Publicly available data suggest that a majority of recent entry-level clinical faculty have prior clinical teaching experience as fellows or staff attorneys. What does this apparent hiring pref- erence for prior teaching experience mean for the composition of the clinical community, especially with respect to equity and inclusion? 

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University Of Louisville Threatens To Discipline Faculty Who Don't Teach Classes In Person

Louisville Courier-Journal, University of Louisville Threatens to Discipline Faculty Who Don't Teach Classes in Person:

University of Louisville faculty, staff and students are in an uproar over the administration’s refusal to allow classes to be taught remotely.

As the new semester began Monday, more than 500 professors, staff, students, parents and other community members have signed a petition to allow courses to be offered online. ...

Citing a directive from Interim President Lori Stewart Gonzalez, Professor David Owens, the interim dean of arts and science, told department chairs Sunday that courses designated as in-person may not be moved online and “violations may result in discipline.”

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2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2022 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Career Rating:  This rating measures the confidence students have in their school's ability to lead them to fruitful employment opportunities, as well as the school's own record of having done so. This rating takes into account both student survey responses and school-reported statistical data. We ask students about how much the law program encourages practical experience; the opportunities for externships, internships, and clerkships; and how prepared to practice law they expect to feel after graduating. We ask law schools for the median starting salaries of graduating students; the percentage employed in a job that requires bar passage (and not employed by the school); and the percentage of these students who pass the bar exam the first time they take it. This rating is on a scale of 60–99.

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University Upholds Jewish Law Prof's Right To Have Federal Judge Guest Lecture In His Class During High Holy Days

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Professor Affirmed:

The myriad travails of late at the University of Arkansas’ Bowen School of Law were justified after a university committee found Professor Rob Steinbuch was correct in having invited guests lead his classes during the Jewish high holidays.

Using guest lecturers was something Steinbuch had legitimately done without question for nearly 20 years.

After he again used a respected Arkansas federal judge last semester to cover his class during the two highest Jewish Holy Days, Bowen Dean Theresa M. Beiner wrote to say he could no longer use such temporary fill-ins, he said.

However, a three-person university committee found Beiner apparently acted against law school rules by restricting Steinbuch’s future absentee scheduling. ...

Steinbuch said his conflict with the Beiner administration actually preceded these events, when last summer he reported that a named professorship at Bowen had been quietly and improperly labeled as the “William J. Clinton Professorship in Constitutional Law,” even though Clinton had previously withdrawn his name for the position. ...

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Morse: A Tax Deadline Missed By One Day Leads To A Supreme Court Showdown Over Equity, Jurisdiction – And Grammar

SCOTUSblog:  A Tax Deadline Missed By One Day Leads to a Showdown Over Equity, Jurisdiction – and Grammar, by Susan C. Morse (Texas; Google Scholar):

The argument on Wednesday in Boechler v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue will consider whether “equitable tolling” — which allows courts to excuse missed deadlines in some circumstances — is available for a statutory federal income tax deadline. The issue has split circuits, with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 8th and 9th Circuits concluding that tolling is not available, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluding that tolling is available for a similarly worded tax provision. The court’s consideration of this question will address an issue of particular interest for low-income taxpayers and their advocates. It will also add to the court’s precedent on the interaction between the law of equity and the technicalities of federal statutes. Partly because of the circuit split and partly because of the statute’s lack of clarity, this could be a close case.

The dispute arose after the Internal Revenue Service assessed a $19,250 penalty and issued a notice of intent to levy to a small North Dakota law firm for failing to file employee tax withholding forms. After a hearing, the IRS issued a notice of determination sustaining the proposed levy. Under the Internal Revenue Code, the firm had a 30-day window following the issuance of the notice of determination to file a petition in the U.S. Tax Court to challenge the notice. The deadline was Aug. 28, 2017. The firm mailed its petition on Aug. 29, 2017. The question for the justices is whether the Tax Court may consider equitable tolling for this deadline; or whether the deadline is jurisdictional, which, under applicable precedent, would bar consideration of equitable tolling.

Both sides center their arguments on a test set forth in the 2015 case United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, decided 5-4, which elaborated a framework established in the 1990 case Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs. Under the Kwai Fun Wong test, there is a rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling for suits against the government. How can the presumption be rebutted? If the statute shows that Congress “plainly” gave the time limits “jurisdictional consequences.” Time limits are then jurisdictional and not subject to equitable tolling.

In Boechler, the court has the task of categorizing a limitation period that relates to a “collection due process” procedure. ...

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Learning Outcomes In A Flipped Law School Classroom

Katharine Traylor Schaffzin (Dean, Memphis; Google Scholar), Learning Outcomes in a Flipped Classroom: A Comparison of Civil Procedure II Test Scores Between Students in a Traditional Class & a Flipped Class, 46 U. Mem. L. Rev. 661 (2016):

By now, many legal educators have heard of a “flipped classroom,” even if they may not be familiar with its meaning. The odds are great that more and more law students have experienced a flipped classroom in high school, college, or even in law school, although they may be unfamiliar with the pedagogical term. After learning about how the flipped classroom is being adapted for the law school course, I became convinced that such an approach to teaching could benefit my students’ learning outcomes.

In January 2014, I decided to adapt my own Civil Procedure II materials to this new format. Unbeknownst to my students, I tracked the performance of this class to compare it to that of my Civil Procedure II class from the preceding year. Assigning the same readings from the same texts in both 2013 and 2014, I changed only the mode in which I delivered the material to my students. Information I had previously presented to my class in 2013 in the form of a lecture interspersed with Socratic dialogue I now provided to the 2014 class online in advance of class and indefinitely thereafter in the form of PowerPoint slides with my lecture interposed as voiceover. 

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Appleby: Subnational Digital Services Taxation

Andrew D. Appleby (Stetson; Google Scholar), Subnational Digital Services Taxation, 81 Md. L. Rev. 1 (2021):

Existing tax regimes fail to tax digital services appropriately. Digital services based on extracting and monetizing user data—most notably digital advertising—are particularly problematic because tax regimes do not adequately account for the enormous value derived from user data.

Internationally, taxing jurisdictions have recognized these failures and commenced a controversial push toward new digital services taxes or DSTs. Subnational taxing jurisdictions in the United States face the same issues and are searching for solutions.

This Article begins by examining the motivations and justifications for digital service taxation at both the international and subnational levels. These justifications center on antiquated tax regimes that do not sufficiently capture profit from new business models, particularly business models that rely on valuable data extracted from users in the taxing jurisdiction.

 

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Appleby: Designing The Tax Supermajority Requirement

Andrew D. Appleby (Stetson; Google Scholar), Designing the Tax Supermajority Requirement, 71 Syracuse L. Rev. 959 (2021):

States are rekindling the trend of broad constitutional amendments that require supermajority approval to create or increase taxes. This trend may inadvertently harm states’ already precarious fiscal footing, particularly with several new imminent expenditure demands. States can minimize negative economic consequences, however, through proper supermajority requirement design.

This Article makes three contributions. First, it examines broad constitutional tax supermajority requirements’ history, asserted justifications, and effectiveness. This examination concludes that the motivations underlying the first and second supermajority waves differ importantly from those underlying the possible third wave. Recognizing this novel motivation—signaling low-tax competitive advantage—allows this Article to present optimal supermajority provision design principles.

Second, this Article investigates several new sources that can generate immense tax revenue for states, but that will likely be obstructed by tax supermajority provisions if not designed properly. This Article also identifies several expenditure demands that are unlikely to be satisfied without new or increased taxes.

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The Best Law Schools For Practical Training

The Best Law Schools For Practical Training, preLaw (Spring 2021):

Schools have managed to do incredible work, even during a pandemic when face-to-face clinical work and externship opportunities were disrupted. ... This year, we’re honoring 65 schools, but every law school invests in practical training.

PRACTICAL TRAINING METHODOLOGY
We graded schools on a number of data points, focusing on key practical training offerings such as clinics, externships, simulation courses, pro bono hours and moot trial participation.

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Call For Tax Papers And Panels: SEALS 2022 (Jan. 19 Deadline)

Hello and Happy New Year! Jennifer and I are coordinating tax panels and discussion groups for next year’s SEALS Conference.  The 2022 SEALS Conference will be held at the Sandestin Beach & Golf Resort, Sandestin, Florida on July 27-August 3.  All the info you need to send us is below but the most important bit of info to note might be that we are on a tight timeline.

The conference submission tool is open, and Jennifer and I are 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.  We 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 us to include you in a group of other tax profs, please email me with the following information:

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In Defense Of The Emory Law Journal

Following up on last week's post, Emory Law Journal Revokes Acceptance Of Larry Alexander's Race-Related Essay In Festschrift Honoring Michael Perry; Other Authors Pull Their Essays:  John K. Wilson (Academe Blog), In Defense of the Emory Law Journal:

This week, there was what Jonathan Turley called a “major controversy brewing over free speech and censorship at Emory Law Journal.” Robert George argued, “It’s hard to think of a stupider, more self-defeating idea than imposing political litmus tests on articles submitted to major law reviews. But that’s what the Emory Law Journal has done, rejecting on ideological grounds an essay by the brilliant legal scholar Lawrence Alexander.”

George is wrong on every count. The Emory Law Journal did not reject Alexander’s essay. They did not declare any ideological grounds and in fact expressly stated that they would happily publish views that most of the editors disagreed with. There is no political litmus test that the Emory Law Journal has ever stated or hinted at. ... [R]evising an article is not destructive to academic values; it is the essence of academic values. This is standard operating procedure for any publication: If you refuse to make any changes, the editors can refuse to publish it. ...

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2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2022 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Accessible:  This rating is based on how law students rate the accessibility of law faculty members at their school. The rating is on a scale of 60 to 99. 

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Tax Policy Center Hosts Virtual Event Today On Taxing Business Income: Evidence From The Survey Of Consumer Finances

The Tax Policy Center hosts a virtual event on Taxing Business Income: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances today at 12:30 PM ET (registration):

Legislated changes in business income taxes over the past 20 years have led to a dramatic reduction in the federal income tax base and revenues. As a result, a significant share of income is never subject to tax. For example, more than half of non-corporate business income in the National Income and Product Accounts does not show up on tax returns.

On January 11, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center will host an event on this divergence between economic and taxable income and its implications for tax policy. Results from new research using the Survey of Consumer Finances will be presented with an eye towards understanding which forms of income do not show up on tax forms, where in the income distribution that divergence is occurring, and the revenue implications of broadening the business income tax base.

William G. Gale, Swati Joshi, Christopher Pulliam & John Sabelhaus, Estimating Income Tax Liabilities With Data From the Survey of Consumer Finances:

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Organ: A Data-Based Counternarrative To 'The Big Lie'

Prologue
Twelve months ago, on December 29, 2020, I posted a blog analyzing voting patterns in Congressional Districts in five of the six swing states that former President Trump lost.  The analysis demonstrated that Trump lost largely because significant numbers of voters who voted for Republican Congressional candidates in those five states did not vote for Trump.

I published that blog hoping to provide a data-based argument to put to rest some of the unfounded assertions about election fraud that have become known as “the big lie.”  Little did I think at the time, that “the big lie” would continue to be believed by a not insignificant percentage of our electorate a year later.  But several days after my blog posting, on January 6, 2021, then-President Trump, trumpeting “the big lie,” instigated some of his followers to storm the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop Congressional validation of the Electoral College tally affirming President Biden as the lawfully elected President of the United States.

The former President has spent the better part of the last year refusing to recognize the validity of the November 2020 presidential election and continuing to assert “the big lie” — that the only way he could have lost the election was if there was ballot-rigging or some type of election fraud in all six of the swing states that he lost to President Biden — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  (But only ballot-rigging or election fraud with respect to the Presidential election.  No claims have ever been made that ballot-rigging or election fraud tarnished any of the other elections in the six swing states Trump lost on November 3, 2020.)

As indicated in my blog posting of December 29, 2020, an alternative explanation for Trump’s loss, an explanation that the former President does not or perhaps literally cannot acknowledge, is that large numbers of voters who voted for Republican Congressional candidates made a decision not to vote for him and instead to vote for President Biden or some other Presidential candidate.  Perhaps these Republican voters had finally found Trump's boorish behavior to be too much, or perhaps they were sufficiently concerned about his disregard for the rule of law, or perhaps they had concluded that he had grossly mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic, or perhaps they had grown weary of his continuous efforts to polarize our society rather than work to bring people together, or perhaps some combination of these factors.

While I recognize that my effort to provide another data-based argument to put to rest “the big lie” is unlikely to be acknowledged by those who continue to believe “the big lie,” I feel compelled, as we recognize the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, to present once again a data-based counternarrative.

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Dooling & Hickman: A Study To Evaluate OIRA Review Of Tax Regulations

Bridget C.E. Dooling (George Washington Regulatory Studies Center; Google Scholar) & Kristin E. Hickman (Minnesota; Google Scholar), A Study To Evaluate OIRA Review of Treasury Regulations:

For most federal agencies, centralized review by Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and regulatory impact analysis have been a routine part of the regulatory process for more than 40 years. Not so in the tax context. When OIRA was in its infancy, OIRA Administrator Christopher DeMuth and Treasury Department General Counsel Peter Wallison signed a memorandum of agreement that exempted most Treasury and IRS tax regulations from OIRA review. More than a decade later, that memorandum of agreement was ratified by OIRA Administrator Sally Katzen and Treasury Department General Counsel Jean Hanson. Katzen has indicated since then that her understanding was that the exempted rules were minor and technical rather than sweeping and substantive. As a result of these agreements, however, very few Treasury regulations were ever submitted for OIRA review.

That changed in April 2018, when OIRA Administrator Neomi Rao and Treasury Department General Counsel Brent McIntosh signed a new memorandum of agreement (MOA) that would pull more Treasury and IRS tax regulations in for OIRA review. ...

Now that the MOA is almost four years old, ... [we] investigate how OIRA review has influenced the content of Treasury regulations implementing and interpreting the tax laws. ...

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ABA Tax Section Seeks Nominations For Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award

The ABA Tax Section is soliciting nominations for the 2022 Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award:

The Tax Section pleased to announce that we are accepting nominations for the 2022 Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award given to an individual or law firm for sustained and outstanding achievements in pro bono activities in the tax law. Find the nomination form here.

The criteria for selection of an individual recipient of the award are that (i) the individual be a tax lawyer, whether living or deceased; (ii) the individual is or was a member of the Section of Taxation; and (iii) the individual has, through years of service, demonstrated an ongoing commitment to pro bono activities, particularly in the areas of federal and state taxation.

The criteria for selection of a law firm recipient are that (i) the law firm includes members of the Section of Taxation; and (ii) the law firm has, through years of service of its attorneys, demonstrated an ongoing commitment to pro bono activities, particularly in the areas of federal and state taxation.

The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors Of 2021

1. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan):  8,299 downloads
2. Daniel Hemel (Chicago):  5,211 downloads
3. Lily Batchelder (NYU):  4,417 downloads
4. Bridget Crawford (Pace):  4.240 downloads
5. David Kamin (NYU):  3,999 downloads
6. Kimberley Clausing (UCLA):  3,821 downloads
7. Kyle Rozema (Washington University):  3,432 downloads
8. Dhammika Dharmapala (Chicago): 3,279 downloads
9. Ruth Mason (Virginia):  3,014 downloads
10. Richard Ainsworth (Boston University):  2,693 downloads
11. David Gamage (Indiana):  2,661 downloads
12. Zachary Liscow (Yale):  2,515 downloads
13. Margaret Ryznar (Indiana-Indianapolis):  2,469 downloads
14. Robert Sitkoff (Harvard):  2,427 downloads
15. Darien Shanske (UC-Davis):  2,305 downloads
16. Dan Shaviro (NYU):  2,241 downloads
17. Louis Kaplow (Harvard):  1,970 downloads
18. Francine Lipman (UNLV):  1,849 downloads
19. Brad Borden (Brooklyn):  1,831 downloads
20. Ari Glogower (Ohio State):  1,804 downloads
21. Yariv Brauner (Florida):  1,735 downloads
22. Hugh Ault (Boston College):  1,730 downloads
23. Gregg Polsky (Georgia):  1,586 downloads
24. Victor Fleischer (UC-Irvine):  1,488 downloads
25. Shu-Yi Oei (Boston College):  1,381 downloads
26. Michael Simkovic (USC):  1,357 downloads
27. Leandra Lederman (Indiana-Bloomington):  1,352 downloads
28. Omri Marian (UC-Irvine):  1,321 downloads
29. Paul Caron (Pepperdine):  1,270 downloads
30. Diane Ring (Boston College):  1,321 downloads
31. Rebecca Kysar (Fordham):  1,192 downloads
32. Cliff Fleming (BYU):  1,187 downloads
33. Brian Galle (Georgetown):  1,136 downloads
34. Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine):  1,124 downloads
35. Steven Dean (Brooklyn):  1,123 downloads

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The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Law Professors Of 2021

1. Cass Sunstein (Harvard):  33,029 downloads
2. Michael Klausner (Stanford):  29,220 downloads
3. Michael Ohlrogge (NYU):  28,562 downloads
4. Daniel Solove (George Washington):  26,998 downloads
5. Orin Kerr (UC-Berkeley):  17,527 downloads
6. Mark Lemley (Stanford):  15,871 downloads
7. Saule Omarova (Cornell):  15,026 downloads
8. Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard):  14,884 downloads
9. Danielle Keats Citron (Virginia):  13,550 downloads
10. Brian Frye (Kentucky):  12,001 downloads
11. Dan Kahan (Yale):  10,785 downloads
12. Eric Goldman (Santa Clara):  10,254 downloads
13. Herbert Hovenkamp (Penn):  9,801 downloads
14. Brian Leiter (Chicago):  9,781 downloads
15. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan):  8,299 downloads
16. James Duane (Regent):  8,004 downloads
17. Robert Chesney (Texas):  7,269 downloads
18. Woodrow Hartzog (Northeastern):  7,244 downloads
19. Brian Slocum (McGeorge):  7,118 downloads
20. Jack Balkin (Yale):  7,029 downloads
21. William McGeveran (Minnesota):  6,787 downloads
22. Wulf Kaal (St. Thomas-MN):  6,723 downloads
23. Josh Blackman (South Texas):  6,567 downloads
24. Jesse Fried (Harvard):  6,347 downloads
25. Jeremy Waldron (NYU):  6,328 downloads
26. Richard Albert (Texas):  6,312 downloads
27. Richard Hasen (UC-Irvine):  6,284 downloads
28. Andrew Selbst (UCLA):  6,250 downloads
29. Neil Richards (Washington University):  6,235 downloads
30. Nancy Levit (UMKC):  6,171 downloads
31. Jorge Contreras (Utah):  6,134 downloads
32. Peter Menell (UC-Berkeley):  6,129 downloads
33. Eric Posner (Chicago):  6,017 downloads
34. Ian Ayres (Yale):  5,929 downloads
35. Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA):  5,806 downloads

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Halfway Through The Fall 2022 Law School Admissions Season: Applicants Are Down 5.4% And In All LSAT Bands (Especially 170-180 (-14.8%) And 160-169 (-9.2%))

We are now 50% of the way through Fall 2022 law school admissions season. The number of law school applicants reported by LSAC is down 5.4% compared to last year at this time.

119 of the 199 law schools are experiencing an increase in applications. Applications are up 50% or more at 3 law schools, and 30% or more at 19 law schools:

Applicants are up in only one region: Other; and are down the most in Midwest (-13.2%), Far West (-10.4%), and Northeast (-10.1%):

Applicants' LSAT scores are down -14.8% in the 170-180 band, -9.2% in the 160-169 band, -1.2% in the 150-159 band, and -1.8% in the 120-149 band:

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2022 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2022 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Interesting:  This rating is based on how students rate the quality of teaching at their law school. This rating is on a scale of 60-99.

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The 10 Most Downloaded Tax Articles Of 2021

1. 2,352 Downloads:  Lily Batchelder (NYU) & David Kamin (NYU), Taxing the Rich: Issues and Options
2. 2,275 Downloads:  Edward McCaffery (USC), The Death of the Income Tax (or, the Rise of America's Universal Wage Tax)
3. 1,491 Downloads:  Hugh Ault (Boston College), Some Reflections on the OECD and the Sources of International Tax Principles
4. 996 Downloads:  Kimberly Clausing (UCLA), Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley) & Gabriel Zucman (UC-Berkeley), Ending Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Competition: A Plan to Collect the Tax Deficit of Multinationals
5. 928 Downloads:  Michael Devereux (Oxford) & John Vella (Oxford), Are We Heading Towards a Corporate Tax System Fit for the 21st Century? (2014)
6. 897 Downloads:  Kimberly Clausing (UCLA), Profit Shifting Before and After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
7. 871 Downloads:  Michelle Hanlon (MIT) & Shane Heitzman (Rochester), A Review of Tax Research
8. 787 Downloads:  Steven Dean (Brooklyn) & Attiya Waris (Nairobi), Ten Truths About Tax Havens: Inclusion and the ‘Liberia’ Problem

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Shifting Law School Faculty Demographics
• Third-Party Sexual Harassment: The Challenge Of Title IX Obligations For Law School Clinics
• Determining Patent Worthlessness For Tax Purposes

Sunday:

• NY Times Op-Ed: 10 New Year’s Resolutions That Are Good For The Soul
• NY Times Op-Ed: What I Learned About Death From 7 Religious Scholars, 1 Atheist, And My Father
• AALS Hosts Three Virtual Tax Events Today
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

NY Times Op-Ed: 10 New Year’s Resolutions That Are Good For The Soul

New York Times op-ed:  10 New Year’s Resolutions That Are Good for the Soul, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):

I accomplished zero percent of my New Year’s resolutions last year. I’m obviously no sage of discipline. But I’d argue that the chief value of resolutions is not found in our success or failure at keeping them. Instead, they help us reflect on what our lives are like, what we would like them to be like and what practices might bridge the difference. There is goodness then in the very process of making resolutions. There is hope in the idea that we can change — that we can keep growing, learning and trying new things. This hope of renewal is the point of resolutions for me.

For 2022, I became curious about what resolutions I might adopt that would help my soul. The practice of spiritual resolutions is not new. In the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards, known for his fiery sermons and his mention in “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr’s grandfather — the “fire and brimstone preacha (preacha, preacha)” — made a list of spiritual resolutions and reviewed them weekly.

They began, “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions.”

So with Edwards’s caveat and prayer as my own, I asked for help in thinking about resolutions that would benefit our souls, as individuals, or that would help the “soul” of our nation and our world. I asked friends who are pastors, writers, scholars and spiritual leaders to offer suggested “reSOULutions” for 2022.

Here were some of the many responses I received: ...

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