Paul L. Caron
Dean




Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Jonathan Choi Leaves Minnesota For USC

Jonathan Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar) has accepted a later offer from USC effective Fall 2023:

Jonathan choiProfessor Jonathan H. Choi specializes in law and artificial intelligence (applying natural language processing to study legal issues), statutory interpretation, and tax law.

Professor Choi earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College, summa cum laude, with a triple major in Computer Science, Economics, and Philosophy and high honors for his Computer Science thesis. He received a J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was Executive Bluebook Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Before entering the academy, he practiced tax law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Professor Choi has published articles in the New York University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Yale Journal on Regulation, and Yale Law Journal, among others. His work has been covered by a wide variety of news outlets, including ABC News, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, the Daily Mail, Fox News, NBC Nightly News, the New Yorker, Reuters, the Star Tribune, and the Washington Post.

His recent publications include:

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June 7, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Prof Moves | Permalink

Open Conversations At Pepperdine Caruso Law School: Building Culture, Developing Discourse, Nurturing Democracy

Jeffrey R. Baker (Pepperdine; Google Scholar) & Tanya Asim Cooper (Pepperdine; Google Scholar), Open Conversations: Building Culture, Developing Discourse, Nurturing Democracy:

Caruso Logo (Two Lines) (Tight) (2020)[A]t our first Open Conversation, ... [o]ver fifty students attended, and we set out some simple guidance. This was not a teaching moment for the faculty, and it was not a debate. It was a conversation, discourse to share perspectives, an opportunity to speak and listen, to engage across difference, to give voice to pain and anger, to explore paths forward, all from the students’ perspectives and experiences. With general prompts and light moderation while breaking bread together, the conversation was rich, critical, vibrant, heartfelt, and serious. It did not fix all of the issues or resolve all the tension within our school, but it was a moment of genuine community struggling with itself but refusing to alienate each other. 

After that first Open Conversation, we continued to offer them when controversies erupted nationally or locally, refining the approach. ... The broad objective for Open Conversations is to build a healthy culture within our law school community. It is not to resolve every issue or to engage in antagonistic debate; there are plenty of other opportunities for that during law school. Rather, it is to enrich our discourse with care, respect, and dignity, even over the most contentious issues. Moderation and centrism are also not the aims; students advocate and argue in Open Conversations with conviction but within a framework that aims to hold our shared life at the heart of our discussions. In our current national season of extreme polarization, brutal partisanship, personal antagonism, and so-called “cancel culture” (all of which have been topics of our discussions), the Open Conversations are counter-cultural exercises in democratic engagement. 

To these ends, we developed a practice of lightly-moderated discussions over lunch around curated topics with important ground rules for the conversation. We typically have fifty to sixty students and another ten staff and faculty in the room. The ground rules are “conversational harnesses” to preserve the objectives of discourse and engagement, and we share them at the top of each open conversation:

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June 7, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education, Pepperdine Legal Ed | Permalink

Taxing Zero

Hillel Nadler (Wayne State), Taxing Zero, 26 Fla. Tax Rev. __ (2023):

Florida tax review“Zero-price” transactions—in which goods or services are provided at a cash price of zero—are an increasingly important feature of economic life. Consumers can search the web, use email, listen to music, and even trade stocks, all without paying anything out of pocket. But zero-price transactions are not free: for-profit businesses provide products at zero-price because they get something valuable from consumers in return. Consumers pay with their time, attention, or private information. Zero-price transactions are not giveaways; they are a form of barter exchange.

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June 7, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

NY Times: Columbia University Drops Out Of U.S. News Rankings After Fall From #2 To #18 Last Year

New York Times, Columbia University Drops Out of U.S. News Rankings for Undergraduate Schools:

Columbia US News

Columbia University announced on Tuesday that its undergraduate schools would no longer participate in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings, the first major university to refuse to supply information to the influential undergraduate guide for students and parents. ...

Columbia’s move comes after it dropped in the rankings released in September — to No. 18 from No. 2 — and after many prestigious law and medical schools, including Columbia’s, decided to boycott the listings by refusing to provide data to U.S. News. ...

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June 7, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

The Unacknowledged Realities Of Extraterritorial Taxation

Laura Snyder (AARO, SEAT), The Unacknowledged Realities of Extraterritorial Taxation, 47 S. Ill. U. L.J. 243 (2023):

The U.S. extraterritorial tax system has evolved such that today it is more consequential than one century ago. The system, conceived in the stigmatization of overseas Americans, consists of highly penalizing taxation and banking policies that make it difficult for overseas Americans to live normally. The IRS is also a victim: it is unable to administer the system.

Many have sought to educate policymakers and the public. Detailed survey reports have been issued, documenting how overseas Americans experience the system. Research articles have been published, exposing certain problems of the system and, in some cases, proposing solutions.

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June 7, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Former UC-Hastings Law School Loses Appeal To Block Suit Over Name Change

Reuters, Former 'Hastings' Law School Loses Appeal to Block Suit Over Name Change:

UC Hastings Name ChangeDescendants of Serranus Hastings suing over the name change of the former University of California Hastings College of the Law cleared a hurdle on Monday when a California appeals court tossed a bid brought by school officials who tried to block the lawsuit.

The California appeals court affirmed the dismissal of a motion brought by law school officials who are seeking to end litigation over the school’s name. Their anti-SLAPP motion argued that the name change was a protected public activity.

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June 7, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Pop & Perjury: The IRS Valuation War With The Estate Of Michael Jackson

Beckett Cantley (Northeastern) & Geoffrey Dietrich (Cantley Dietrich), Pop & Perjury: The IRS Valuation War with the Estate of Michael Jackson, 21 New Hampshire L. Rev. 93 (2022):

When Michael Jackson died unexpectedly in Los Angeles, California, on June 25, 2009, his career and earnings were nearing an all-time low. Plagued by past sexual abuse allegations, scandals, and questionable health, Michael Jackson’s personal finances were purported to be in complete disarray. However, following his unexpected death, the value of his estate, which was reported to be near to nothing, swelled as the world remembered his beloved contributions to the world and began to purchase accordingly. Sales of Michael Jackson’s music began to soar high. The estate’s value soared even higher as it signed licensing agreements and released new feature films and theatrical material of Michael Jackson.

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June 6, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Chat GPT-4 Understands Academic Attrition's Impact On Bar Passage But Does Anyone Else?

Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn) & Kevin Ruth (Independent), Chat Gpt-4 Understands Academic Attrition's Impact on Bar Passage But Does Anyone Else?, 63 Washburn L.J. Online __ (2023):

Artificial Intelligence allows us to understand the relationship between bar passage and academic attrition. This relationship is often obscured by the continued conflation of the concepts of causation and correlation. Disentangling these two concepts is essential to refute the empirically baseless narrative that the bar exam tests competency and to expose the systemic racism and monopolistic business practices the above narrative perpetuates. 

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June 6, 2023 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Ed Tech, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink

Apple v. European Commission: Losing The War On Corporate International Transfer Pricing

Beckett Cantley (Northeastern) & Geoffrey Dietrich (Cantley Dietrich), Apple v. European Commission: Losing the War on Corporate International Transfer Pricing, 45 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 1 (2022):

For the last several years, Apple has been defending tax strategies utilized in Ireland before the European Union (EU) General Court. The European Commission, using Article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, argues that Ireland provides state aid to Apple regarding several tax rulings, and that Apple owes a substantial tax liability. Although Apple was able to secure a favorable ruling before the EU General Court, the European Commission has appealed the General Court’s decision, and the final resolution to this case could be several years away. 

The outcome of this case has the potential to cause changes to the corporate tax structure within the EU and could either strengthen or weaken the Commission’s success in challenging the lack of arm’s length principles in transfer pricing methods through state aid concerns. If the European Commission is unsuccessful in this case, there may be a push for the EU to harmonize the corporate tax system in the hopes of limiting corporations’ ability to reduce tax liabilities by shifting profits between countries in the EU. 

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June 6, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

ABA Journal: Omnibus Law School Specialty Rankings Based On U.S. News Data

ABA Journal, These Law Schools Did Best in Blog's 'Omnibus Specialty Rankings' Based on US News Data:

US News (2023)The best law school for its showing in specialty rankings by U.S. News & World Report is Georgetown University, according to “omnibus specialty rankings” devised by a law dean.

The Georgetown University Law Center was ranked No. 15 in overall law school rankings by U.S. News & World Report. ... But Paul L. Caron, dean of the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, looked at how well law schools did in 13 separate specialty rankings by U.S. News & World Report to put together his omnibus specialty rankings for 100 law schools, which he published at the TaxProf Blog. The top 10 law schools for their performance in the specialty rankings are:
1. Georgetown University (tied for first for clinical law and had an average ranking of 10 in all 13 specialties)

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June 6, 2023 in Law School Rankings, Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink

The Worker Classification Dilemma: The IRS Test And The Platform Economy

Griffin Toronjo Pivateau (Oklahoma State; Google Scholar) & Gina Nerger (Tulsa), The Worker Classification Dilemma: The IRS Test and the Platform Economy, 53 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 535 (2021):

The American workplace continues to evolve. The creation of the platform economy enabled employers to use independent contractors to perform work that employees traditionally performed. Proponents suggest that the platform economy offers the benefits of entrepreneurship to great numbers of people who would otherwise lack opportunity. Detractors argue that the platform economy robs workers of the benefits and protections provided to employees.

Courts, states, and administrative agencies use a confusing array of classification tests to determine whether workers are employees or independent contractors. These tests share roots in the common law agency test, which grew out of the historic rules of the master-servant relationship. The common law agency test, created in a different time and for a different purpose, does not address the problems of the modern workplace. In search of a test better suited to dealing with issues created by the platform economy, many states have recently turned to the use of the ABC worker classification test, a test that begins with the rebuttable presumption of employee status.

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June 6, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Tom Hanks' Harvard Commencement Address: A Rare Moment Of Grace

Washington Post Op-Ed:  At Harvard, Tom Hanks Offered an Increasingly Rare Moment of Grace, by Nancy Gibbs (Harvard Kennedy School):

[L]ong after I forget what was said, I will remember what was done in a case I got to watch up close, a master class in class and wisdom about the moment we find ourselves in. When Tom Hanks, beloved actor, occasional author, typewriter aficionado and Most Trusted Person in America, spoke at Harvard’s 372nd commencement, he gave a performance in which the unscripted layers surpassed the careful text. And I’m betting those layers left a deeper mark on the more than 9,000 graduating students plus parents and friends who spread out across the quad to watch the show. ...

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June 6, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Monday, June 5, 2023

Thomas & Scharff: Fake News And The Tax Law

Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Erin Scharff (Arizona State), Fake News and the Tax Law, 80 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 803 (2023):

Washington & Lee Law ReviewThe public misunderstands many aspects of the tax system. For example, people frequently misunderstand how marginal tax rates work, misperceive their own average tax rates, and believe they benefit from tax deductions for which they are ineligible. Such confusion is understandable given the complexity of our tax laws. Unfortunately, research suggests these misconceptions shape voter preferences about tax policy which, in turn, impact the policies themselves.

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June 5, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Legal Ed News Roundup

Tax Policy And COVID-19: An Argument For Targeted Crisis Relief

Assaf Harpaz (Drexel), Tax Policy and COVID-19: An Argument for Targeted Crisis Relief, 31 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 235 (2021):

Cornell Journal of Law & Public PolicyThe COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp global economic decline. By the end of 2021, the U.S. government responded to the downturn with record fiscal legislation totaling over $5 trillion, which includes considerable tax relief. Most notably, the U.S. government distributed over $800 billion in three rounds of advanced refundable tax credits (known as recovery rebates, or stimulus checks) to most households. Tax relief has been unprecedented in scale but has often been the product of political circumstances rather than principled policy design. Tax relief thus remains largely undertheorized and politically motivated.

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June 5, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Texas Federal Judge Requires All Lawyers To File Certificate Verifying Any Use Of AI

Following up on my previous post, New York Times, Here’s What Happens When A Lawyer Uses ChatGPT

Open AI ChatGPTEugene Volokh (UCLA; Google Scholar), Federal Judge Requires All Lawyers to File Certificates Related to Use of Generative AI:

The certificates must "attest[] either that no portion of the filing was drafted by generative artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT, Harvey.AI, or Google Bard) or that any language drafted by generative artificial intelligence was checked for accuracy, using print reporters or traditional legal databases, by a human being."

David Lat (Original Jurisdiction), Judge of the Week: Judge Brantley Starr:

Remember the debacle I discussed last week involving lawyers who filed a brief replete with multiple citations to fake cases, courtesy of ChatGPT? One judge is already taking action to prevent that from happening in his court.

As reported by Professor Eugene Volokh, Judge Brantley Starr (N.D. Tex.) issued a standing order for a “Mandatory Certification Regarding Generative Artificial Intelligence” ... Judge Starr identified two problems with AI tools: “hallucinations,” when they just make stuff up, and bias, when they “act according to computer code rather than conviction, based on programming rather than principle.”

Judge Starr’s order generated ample buzz, positive and negative.

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June 5, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Tech, Legal Education | Permalink

Lesson From The Tax Court: Temporary vs. Indefinite Commutes


Camp (2021)When I worked in downtown Washington D.C. I had a 50+ minute commute from my home in Wheaton Md.  But I did not have to drive.  I walked 15 minutes to Wheaton metro, had a 30+ minute metro ride to Federal Triangle, and then a 5 minute walk to my office.  That was a lovely commute.  Longish but low-stress.

Now I work at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.  This is not a town for walking.  So I drive to work.  But it’s only 4-6 minutes from my home.  Sweet!  I really cannot complain. 

Lots of folks, however, have the worst of both worlds: they have a long commute and they have to drive it.  That can be stressful.  And expensive.

It is not surprising that folks with really long drive commutes might think they should be able to deduct their commuting costs, especially if they are at a job where continued employment may be uncertain.  To them, their work seems temporary because they know it might end at any time.  But in Joseph Michael Ledbetter and Ashley Jones Ledbetter v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2023-19 (May 25, 2023) (Judge Paris), we learn that just because work might end at any time does not make it temporary.  It makes it indefinite.  And while travel to a temporary work location outside the area where the taxpayer lives may be deductible, travel to an indefinite work location is not.  Details below the fold.

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June 5, 2023 in Bryan Camp, New Cases, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (2)

NY Times: CUNY Law Graduate's Commencement Speech Denouncing Israel And NYPD Is Condemned By Administration; Faculty Demands Apology From Administration

New York Times, She Attacked Israel and the N.Y.P.D. It Made Her Law School a Target.:

CUNY (2023)A student gave a commencement address at the famously progressive CUNY law school. Two weeks later, she was attacked by the tabloids and the mayor, and the school disavowed her speech.

Commencement season rarely passes without incident. In a bit of counterprogramming, last week the actress Michelle Yeoh addressed Harvard Law School’s Class of 2023, talking about “leaping off high perches into scary voids.” Nevertheless, it was a Yemeni immigrant named Fatima Mousa Mohammed, speaking to her graduating class of the City University of New York School of Law, whose words — absent the genre’s heavy-handed metaphors if not the heavy hand itself — left a more powerful impression on the news cycle.

Within a few weeks, she had achieved a notoriety she could not have expected and was unlikely to want, as her views — which is to say the views of a 24-year-old woman coming out of a small, modestly ranked law school in Queens — became the subject of nearly nonstop, consistently furious international tabloid coverage.

The law school at CUNY exists both as the most diverse in the country and among the most ideologically filtered. Like so many public law schools, it skews toward the production of lawyers who end up working in the interest of the common good. “Law in the service of human needs” is the institutional motto; the politics of resistance remain its dominant ethos.

Two years ago, the dean, Mary Lu Bilek, long known for her commitments to racial justice, resigned after inadvertently likening herself to a “slaveholder” in a meeting in which she had been trying to make the point that she was responsible for whatever injustices remained at the school. Students petitioned for her to turn over the remainder of her salary to the Black Law Students Association and remove her name from their diplomas.

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June 5, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Josie Shands Caron (2007-2023)

We put down our beloved dog Josie on Friday and are filled with grief and gratitude. Grief because our home and our lives are emptier now without her. Gratitude because she was everything one could want in a dog.

Josie joined our family in November 2009 when we were living in Cincinnati. We had put down our dog Sandy in 2006, and I had issued a decree: no more dogs. Because our son Reed and daughter Jayne would be leaving for college in August 2009 and August 2010, respectively, my wife Courtney and I did not want to be saddled with a dog in our empty nest years. Jayne took the news particularly hard, as she has a special love for dogs.

In early November 2009, the senior pastor of our church gave a wonderful message on the importance of celebrating important milestones in our lives. He talked about how he was trying to make his high school senior's last year at home special by taking his son on a long road trip on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. After watching a hokey Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie, A Dog Named Christmas, in which a family provides a foster home over Christmas for a dog from a local shelter, I thought that would be a great thing to do for Jayne before she left for college. Following up on the movie, animal shelters nationwide were sponsoring a Foster a Lonely Pet for the Holidays Promotion, and I found a wonderful participating local shelter. I told Jayne we wanted to make this last Christmas at home a memorable one for her by fostering a dog over the holidays. I made her sign a contract promising that the dog would go back to the shelter on December 26 — no exceptions, and no fuss.

Jayne chose the dog, and we opened our home (and our hearts) to Josie, a mutt mix of Pit Bull, Chow, and German Shepherd. After Josie's first days in our home, Courtney and I decided we would tell Jayne on Christmas morning that we were adopting Josie. We also decided to keep the foster ruse going by dropping Josie off at the shelter on Saturdays so they could bring her to adoption fairs at a local PetSmart. Jayne prayed in the car that Josie would not be adopted, but I said we had to think of Josie's best interests and hope that a wonderful family would adopt her. I worked things out so the shelter would not bring Josie to the adoption fair, and Jayne and I would return three hours later to take Josie home (to Jayne's great relief). It was a very special Christmas, as Jayne cried with delight when she opened the last present under the tree: Josie's adoption papers.

Josie 1

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June 4, 2023 in Faith, Legal Education, Pepperdine Legal Ed | Permalink | Comments (6)

NY Times Op-Eds: The Role Of Technology In Our Lives

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)) has published three New York Times op-eds on the role of technology in our lives:

  1. Warren 3How do we help kids navigate a technological world?
  2. How do we discern what technology to adopt?
  3. How does technology change our understanding of what it is to be human?

1. Managing Screen Time Is a Family Matter:

[W]hen I get together with friends who are also parents, the conversation eventually turns to a repeated theme: how to handle screens and technology use with our kids. It feels like every parent I know is wrestling with this. I am, too.

In 2018, Krista Boan and Tracy Foster co-founded Screen Sanity, a nonprofit to help parents, grandparents and other caregivers navigate these concerns. Screen Sanity offers tips, tools and trainings to “help families raise happy, healthy kids in an increasingly digital world.” I wanted to speak with Boan about the practical things caregivers need to keep in mind as we think through technology use in our homes. This interview has been edited and condensed. ...

Tish Harrison Warren: My growing concern is that even the best types of screen use displace the actual material world around us. Minutes or hours on screens are minutes or hours kids (and adults) are not talking to people around them, going on walks, learning an instrument, staring into space or interacting with the material world.

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June 4, 2023 in Faith, Legal Education | Permalink

NY Times Op-Ed: Tim Keller Showed Me What A Christian Leader Should Be

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  New York Times Op-Ed:  Tim Keller Showed Me What a Christian Leader Should Be, 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)):

Warren 3In my early 20s, I attended an event where Tim Keller, an orthodox, evangelical Presbyterian pastor, was having a public debate with a secular humanist. In the nearly 20 years that have passed since the event, I still recall one moment distinctly. The secular humanist struggled with a point he was making and was unclear, something that happens often enough in public speaking. Keller could have chosen to go in for the kill rhetorically and make his opponent look foolish. Instead, he paused and asked, “Is this what you mean?” Keller then restated the secular argument in a clearer, better way, arguing against his own point of view. The other speaker agreed that was what he had meant, and Keller continued, countering the (now much stronger) point.

This generosity and understanding toward those with whom we disagree helped shape the way I now see the world. It had more of an impact on me, as a Christian, than any argument could. Keller refused the easier route of debate, insisting on finding the best argument of others, even if it meant strengthening his opponent’s case. He was in pursuit of truth and kindness, not point scoring. That night I saw what Christian leaders should be like.

Keller died [last] month, at 72, from pancreatic cancer. ... Keller had a remarkably brilliant mind and an ability to communicate complicated theological ideas in simple, relatable ways. He was courageous yet profoundly humble. What I will most remember him for, though, is his generous kindness. ... Mostly, Tim wanted to talk about the hope and beauty he found in Jesus and how we might best communicate that hope in our moment. ...

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June 4, 2023 in Faith, Legal Education | Permalink

The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with new papers debuting on the list at #1 and #5:

  1. SSRN Logo (2018)[340 Downloads]  The Unacknowledged Realities of Extraterritorial Taxation, by Laura Snyder (Association of Americans Resident Overseas)
  2. [311 Downloads]  Taxation of Information and the Data Revolution, by Yariv Brauner (Florida; Google Scholar)
  3. [238 Downloads]  Capital Taxation and Market Power, by Kimberly Clausing (UCLA; Google Scholar)
  4. [231 Downloads]  The Employment Effects of Tax Subsidies for the Construction of Amazon Facilities, by Ike Brannon (Jack Kemp Foundation) & Matthew Winden (University of Wisconsin (Whitewater); Google Scholar)
  5. [196 Downloads]  The Inflation Reduction Act's Impact On Tax Compliance—And Fiscal Sustainability, by Natasha Sarin (Yale; Google Scholar; Former Counselor on Tax Policy, U.S. Treasury Department) & Mark J. Mazur (Former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, U.S. Treasury Department),

June 4, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship, Top 5 Downloads | Permalink

Saturday, June 3, 2023

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Top Ten 2Legal Education:

  1. New York Times, Here’s What Happens When A Lawyer Uses ChatGPT
  2. U.S. News, 2024 Omnibus Law School Specialty Rankings
  3. U.S. News, 2024 Omnibus Law School Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
  4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions
  5. Law.com, Duquesne, FIU, Kansas, Oklahoma, And Texas A&M Are Among The Biggest U.S. News Law School Rankings Winners
  6. ABA Journal, Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT To Teach Legal Research And Writing
  7. Inside Higher Education, 17 Universities And Law Schools Have Full Satellite Campuses In Washington, D.C.
  8. John Bliss (Denver) & David Sandomierski (Western), Learning Without Grade Anxiety: Lessons From The Pass/Fail Experiment In North American J.D. Programs
  9. Law.com, Tenured Law Professor Pulled From His Classroom Faces Termination. He Wants To Know Why?
  10. U.S. News 2024 Law School Specialty Rankings:

Tax:

  1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Substantiating Gambling Losses On Per-Casino Basis
  2. Daniel Shaviro (NYU), Two New Tax Papers on SSRN
  3. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: On Time Is Late
  4. Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Three New International Tax Papers On SSRN
  5. Law, Society, And Taxation, Thursday's Panel
  6. Law, Society, And Taxation, Friday's Panels
  7. Law, Society, And Taxation, Saturday's Panels
  8. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
  9. David Elkins (Netanya), Review Of Ancillary Benefits And Income Versus Consumption Taxation in Liam Murphy’s And Thomas Nagel’s 'The Myth of Ownership,' by Daniel Shaviro (NYU)
  10. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

Faith

  1. Tim Keller, Growing My Faith In The Face Of Death
  2. Roundup, The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
  3. Roundup, More On The Life, Death, And Legacy Of Tim Keller
  4. New York Times Op-Ed (Ross Douthat), Pro-Trump Christians, Never-Trump Christians, And Tim Keller
  5. New York Times Op-Ed (Tish Harrison Warren), How a Cancer Diagnosis Makes Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Mean More: An Interview With Tim Keller

June 3, 2023 in About This Blog, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Daily | Permalink

A 'Return To Normalcy' For Law School Admissions

Reuters, It’s a 'Return to Normalcy' for Law School Admissions:

The number of people applying to law school has dropped for the second straight year—further indication that the 13% applicant surge in 2021 was a COVID-19 one-off.

Law school applicants were down 2.4% over last year as of Thursday, according to the latest data from the Law School Admission Council. By that time last year, the council had received 96% of the applicant total. That means this cycle’s national applicant pool is likely to be slightly smaller than the previous year, which was 12% smaller than in 2021.

"It's a return to normalcy," said Susan Krinsky, the council’s executive vice president for operations. "It's very consistent with the last five years except for 2021."

Applicants are down the most in New England (-8.3%), Mountain West (-6.5%), and Northeast (-6.2%):

Applicants

Applications are down at 121 law schools, up at 68 law schools, and flat at 9 law schools:

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June 3, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Today's Law, Society, And Taxation Panels

Today's Law, Society, and Taxation panels at the 2023 Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico:

Law and society associationTaxation & Social Impact (Tessa Davis (South Carolina), Chair/Discussant):

The tax code is used in a vareity of ways to enact or support social goals that are not necessarily explicitly tied to economic ends. The papers in this session will think about how tax and spending programs are used to achieve particular ends. Papers in the session will consider both intended and unintended consequences of the relevant provisions on the social outcomes of the individual taxpayers affected by the rules.

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June 3, 2023 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

ABA Council Finds Law School In 'Significant Noncompliance' With Admissions Accreditation Standard: 137 LSAT|3.26 UGPA Medians, 73% 2-Year Ultimate Bar Passage Rate

ABA Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Notice of Finding of Significant Noncompliance With Standards 501(a) and 501(b) (May 31, 2023):

ABA Legal Ed (2022)At its May 11-12, 2023, meeting, the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association (the “Council”) considered the status of Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law (the “Law School”) and concluded that the Law School is not in compliance with Standards 501(a) ["A law school shall adopt, publish, and adhere to sound admission policies and practices consistent with the Standards, its mission, and the objectives of its program of legal education."] and 501(b) ["A law school shall only admit applicants who appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar."].

In accordance with Rule 51(b)(7), the Managing Director shall provide public notification of the Council’s conclusions and decision concerning a law school’s significant noncompliance with one or more ABA Standards under Rule 11(a)(4). The Council considers any finding of noncompliance with Standard 501 to be such a finding. ...

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June 3, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Friday, June 2, 2023

Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Elkins Reviews Shaviro's Income Versus Consumption Taxation In 'The Myth of Ownership'

This week, David Elkins (Netanya; Google Scholar) reviews a new paper by Daniel Shaviro (NYU, Google Scholar), Ancillary Benefits and Income Versus Consumption Taxation in Liam Murphy’s and Thomas Nagel’s 'The Myth of Ownership':

Elkins (2018)

The question of whether income or consumption is a more appropriate tax base has occupied a prominent place in the tax policy discourse since about the 1970s. Although deliberated in the literature for centuries — the names Hobbes, Smith, Mill, Fisher, and Kaldor come to mind — it appears to have been William Andrews’ 1974 Harvard Law Review article, A Consumption-Type or Cash Flow Personal Income Tax, that brought the issue to the attention of tax academics and policymakers. That article, which may also be credited with having introduced the Cary Brown theorem into the legal academic discourse, triggered debate concerning the proper tax base and analysis of the extent to which the current income tax actually does tax income. It may also have indirectly sparked the call in some political quarters to replace the income tax with a consumption tax.

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June 2, 2023 in David Elkins, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Scholarship, Weekly SSRN Roundup | Permalink

Weekly Legal Education Roundup

Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings:

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking:

  School Specialty Rank Overall Rank Difference
1 Santa Clara 77 158 +81
2 Brooklyn* 46 111 +65
3 Illinois-Chicago 97 159 +62
3 Suffolk 71 133 +62
5 American* 28 89 +61
6 Howard 66 125 +59
7 Hofstra 82 140 +58
8 Widener (DE) 119 175 +56
9 Denver 25 80 +55
10 Rutgers* 57 109 +52
11 CUNY 104 154 +50
11 Mitchell | Hamline* 117 167 +50
13 Syracuse* 75 122 +47
14 Pacific 95 141 +46
15 UC-San Francisco* 18 60 +42
15 UNLV 47 89 +42
17 Baltimore 96 135 +39
18 UC-Davis* 22 60 +38
19 Nova 134 171 +37
20 Missouri-Kansas City 99 135 +36
21 Golden Gate 145 180 +35
22 Pace 98 131 +33
23 Loyola-Chicago* 53 84 +31
23 Willamette 124 155 +31
25 Hawaii 105 135 +30
25 San Diego 48 78 +30
25 San Francisco* 135 165 +30
28 Chicago-Kent 70 99 +29
28 South Texas* 133 162 +29
30 Seattle* 83 111 +28
31 DePaul 108 135 +27
31 Houston 33 60 +27
31 Michigan State 84 111 +27
31 Vermont 137 164 +27
35 Creighton* 130 155 +25
36 Cal-Western* 151 175 +24
36 Case Western 56 80 +24
36 Temple 30 54 +24
36 UC-Irvine* 11 35 +24
40 District of Columbia 158 180 +22
40 George Washington 13 35 +22
42 Catholic 101 122 +21
43 Miami 51 71 +20
44 Indiana (McKinney) 80 99 +19
45 University of Arizona 36 54 +18
45 Widener (PA) 141 159 +18
47 Fordham 12 29 +17
47 Maryland* 34 51 +17
49 Loyola-L.A. 44 60 +16
49 North Dakota 164 180 +16

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most trails their overall U.S. News Ranking:

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June 2, 2023 in Law School Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink

Today's Law, Society, And Taxation Panels

Today's Law, Society, and Taxation panels at the 2023 Law & Society Association Annual Meeting:

Law and society associationTax Advocacy & Tax Justice (Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar), Chair/Discussant):

Tax lawyers operate inside a system that often challenges traditional notions of zealous advocacy in lawyering. Further, decisions around tax law, tax policy, and tax lawyering must be made in the larger context of goals around social policy and desired social outcomes. The papers in this session examine both particular tax lawyers but also the larger issues faced by tax lawyers as a whole. Also considered is the role the tax law plays in affecting lawyers' actions and infuencing their decisions.

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June 2, 2023 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Bridging The Gap Between Law Knowledge And Legal Practice

Law.com, Bridging the Gap Between Law Knowledge and Legal Practice: How Lean Adviser Can Help Students:

ALM_Lawcom_Lean_Adviser (2023)We’ve all heard the criticism that a law school education doesn’t prepare future attorneys for the realities of practicing law.

Despite many recent efforts by law schools to combat this stigma, there remains a gap between learning to think like a lawyer and actually understanding how to work as one.

Law.com recently interviewed Alex Geisler, London-based litigation partner with Duane Morris and creator of Lean Adviser—a structured program that helps lawyers efficiently and consistently deliver high value to clients resulting in repeat business and long-term profitable relationships for all parties—to discuss how Lean Adviser could supplement traditional legal education. ...

Law.com: What would you want law deans to know about Lean Adviser?

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June 2, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Grewal: Billionaire Taxes And The Constitution

Andy Grewal (Iowa; Google Scholar), Billionaire Taxes and the Constitution, 57 Ga. L. Rev. ___ (2023):

Georgia Law ReviewThe United States now has ten times as many billionaires as it had just a few decades ago. This ever-growing class has sparked congressional interest in “billionaire tax” proposals. These proposals would generally require that billionaires recognize income when their asset values increase, even if they have not sold their assets.

Under existing doctrine, billionaire taxes likely violate the realization requirement embedded in the Sixteenth Amendment of the Constitution. However, this Article argues that existing Sixteenth Amendment doctrine suffers from deep infirmities and theoretical inconsistencies. With the conceptually sound interpretive approach advanced in this Article, a billionaire tax would pass constitutional muster.

June 1, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Learning Without Grade Anxiety: Lessons From The Pass/Fail Experiment In North American J.D. Programs

John Bliss (Denver) & David Sandomierski (Western), Learning without Grade Anxiety: Lessons from the Pass/Fail Experiment in North American J.D. Programs, 42 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 555 (2022):

One of the core goals of legal education is to help students learn. A conventional assumption is that hierarchical grading, as a motivator for student effort, is a key factor that promotes learning. This assumption should be rigorously assessed rather than taken for granted. Our findings, in the unique Spring 2020 context of Pass/Fail grading in North American J.D. programs, only weakly support the notion that grades incentivize effort. And, to the extent that grades do somewhat incentivize effort, our findings do not support the conclusion that extra effort is necessarily supportive of learning. Moreover, we find that grades may negatively impact student anxiety to an extent that is detrimental to learning. In sum, our analysis provides little support for the notion that hierarchical grades support learning in legal education.

ONU 1

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June 1, 2023 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink

Wallace: A Democratic Perspective On Tax Law

Clint Wallace (South Carolina), A Democratic Perspective on Tax Law, 98 Wash. L. Rev. ___ (2023):

Washington Law Review (2023)As democracies around the world have faltered, legal scholars in fields as diverse as election law, labor law, and administrative law have turned to tax law to repair and support democratic governments. Taxation offers a toolset well equipped to address concerns raised by democratic theorists focused on the conditions that shape a democratic community and help it to flourish. Tax laws can rectify social dynamics characterized by economic inequality and can help establish and strengthen civic institutions, among many possible interventions. But legal scholars evaluating and designing tax policies generally focus on the standard normative criteria of efficiency, equity, and administrability, with little specific regard for democratic concerns. This separation from democratic theory has left tax law scholars ill-equipped to respond to calls for help from more democracy-focused fields of law. Thus, tax scholarship mostly has not engaged with the increasingly important project of strengthening democratic governance.

This Article argues that democracy should be a more central consideration in designing and evaluating tax laws in a democratic system of government, exploring a set of democracy criteria that can bolster the standard normative criteria used to evaluate tax policy.

The democracy criteria considered here ask: does a change in tax rules strengthen or undermine democratic governance? This Article draws on democratic theory to identify pressure points where taxation might shape democracy, building on work by tax scholars who have tried to integrate democratic values into the standard criteria. I make the case that democratic considerations should not be subordinated to other criteria, but rather should stand on their own. I apply the democracy criteria to wealth tax proposals, showing how a democratic perspective illuminates a contemporary debate in U.S. tax policy.

Approached in this way, a democratic perspective on tax law and policy can facilitate tax responses—in scholarly discourse and in policy prescriptions—to current challenges facing democracies around the world, answering the calls of scholars in other fields who (appropriately) view tax rules as sites of important potential interventions to shore up democracy.

June 1, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

2024 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

6a00d8341c4eab53ef0240a490199b200b-250wiThe new 2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 196 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings:

  1. Business/Corporate Law
  2. Clinical Law
  3. Constitutional Law
  4. Contracts/Commercial Law
  5. Criminal Law
  6. Dispute Resolution
  7. Environmental Law
  8. Health Care Law
  9. Intellectual Property Law
  10. International Law
  11. Legal Writing
  12. Tax Law
  13. Trial Advocacy

  School 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Avg.
1 Georgetown* 12 1 15 14 4 21 12 6 7 5 8 3 22 10.0
2 Harvard* 1 13 1 3 2 1 9 6 19 3 121 13 37 17.6
3 Northwestern* 14 6 15 11 15 7 44 41 22 18 21 4 31 19.2
4 Michigan* 9 9 9 8 12 34 37 17 14 10 8 10 74 19.3
5 Stanford* 4 19 3 3 2 11 9 5 1 10 104 13 68 19.4
6 UC-Berkeley* 4 13 5 5 7 29 3 39 1 7 122 24 15 21.1
7 UCLA* 9 25 12 8 12 34 4 19 9 15 115 7 6 21.2
8 NYU* 4 5 5 5 1 29 4 52 3 1 104 1 68 21.7
9 Duke* 15 25 12 14 4 34 15 29 9 18 84 10 80 26.8
10 Virginia* 8 69 5 8 7 21 26 46 22 10 46 5 80 27.2
11 UC-Irvine* 47 6 24 35 25 43 32 35 9 25 8 6 80 28.8
12 Fordham 19 9 35 19 17 15 61 79 22 18 52 24 6 28.9
13 Columbia* 1 25 8 2 4 26 7 52 19 2 118 7 108 29.2
13 George Washington 32 34 35 54 30 34 12 20 4 7 46 24 47 29.2
13 Texas 19 34 9 14 22 16 39 46 18 25 84 16 37 29.2
16 Yale* 9 4 2 11 12 34 26 15 46 3 115 22 96 30.4
17 Penn* 4 25 12 5 7 34 42 20 14 18 110 18 96 31.2
18 UC-San Francisco* 36 22 29 29 36 11 18 11 31 25 122 18 24 31.7
19 Arizona State 44 45 35 38 36 14 19 14 46 25 4 36 74 33.1
20 Washington University 22 9 21 19 22 18 71 26 36 25 122 40 24 35.0
21 Cornell* 15 51 9 14 22 29 55 52 28 15 68 36 80 36.5
22 Ohio State 44 78 24 35 15 2 42 15 51 58 32 50 40 37.4
22 UC-Davis* 22 59 17 38 17 32 17 39 22 23 122 31 47 37.4
24 North Carolina 29 34 21 18 17 68 32 35 60 58 13 24 80 37.6
25 Denver 68 9 57 64 30 43 19 61 51 35 13 46 6 38.6
26 Vanderbilt* 12 45 17 13 7 34 7 46 28 18 122 62 96 39.0
27 Boston University 19 59 24 29 36 60 61 1 9 25 98 13 80 39.5
28 American* 60 1 57 64 30 64 44 20 7 5 104 50 15 40.1
29 Minnesota 22 25 24 19 30 68 32 26 42 23 68 22 126 40.5
30 Florida 25 69 29 38 45 18 19 46 67 58 68 2 59 41.8
30 Temple 60 59 57 38 61 68 71 17 46 10 25 29 2 41.8
32 Chicago 1 34 3 1 7 68 71 67 36 9 118 7 126 42.2
33 Houston 47 69 86 47 50 68 26 9 6 53 21 44 24 42.3
34 Maryland* 60 13 48 72 36 9 19 6 46 47 98 68 40 43.2
35 Emory 25 89 29 23 36 50 58 29 31 38 42 81 35 43.5
36 University of Arizona 36 45 35 59 45 34 39 29 67 38 8 62 80 44.4
37 Georgia 29 34 42 29 61 50 71 41 74 15 77 50 13 45.1
38 Boston College 25 34 35 25 61 60 44 41 42 38 52 16 139 47.1
39 University of Washington* 54 34 65 54 25 43 19 52 28 47 16 44 139 47.7
40 William & Mary 29 89 17 25 20 68 44 94 46 25 52 68 47 48.0
41 Wake Forest 47 89 48 38 36 68 55 20 74 67 5 62 40 49.9
42 USC 17 89 35 19 36 64 19 61 42 75 113 24 64 50.6
43 Indiana (Maurer) 36 89 42 47 45 68 32 46 36 25 52 18 126 50.9
44 Loyola-L.A. 54 69 65 59 30 60 125 52 51 67 32 10 5 52.2
45 Notre Dame 32 69 17 29 50 68 61 94 60 25 84 46 47 52.5
46 Brooklyn* 32 34 42 38 20 68 131 83 92 47 16 40 47 53.1
47 UNLV 66 34 65 45 50 9 80 41 60 90 2 46 108 53.5
48 San Diego 36 106 21 47 30 68 71 52 22 58 122 18 47 53.7
49 Colorado 47 78 53 54 25 68 15 79 36 58 68 50 80 54.7
49 Texas A&M 68 51 79 47 119 7 32 67 9 58 32 62 80 54.7
51 Miami 54 25 53 54 84 50 39 67 67 25 98 40 68 55.7
51 Wisconsin* 44 59 29 25 36 68 44 67 81 42 90 31 108 55.7
53 Loyola-Chicago* 74 59 57 95 73 43 88 4 74 58 46 50 13 56.5
54 Georgia State 78 19 42 72 50 67 103 1 42 67 122 50 24 56.7
55 SMU 47 51 79 64 36 50 80 29 60 42 104 50 47 56.8
56 Case Western 66 59 57 72 84 68 44 11 60 10 46 119 47 57.2
57 Rutgers* 92 19 57 64 50 68 80 41 81 53 16 68 68 58.2
58 Florida State 47 106 29 29 50 68 19 52 60 75 122 36 74 59.0
59 Tulane* 32 45 74 47 45 43 26 94 60 35 122 50 108 60.1
60 Washington & Lee 36 45 53 45 50 68 80 61 74 42 77 40 126 61.3
61 Utah 54 89 42 72 25 68 12 25 31 35 122 68 166 62.2
62 Alabama 47 51 24 35 50 68 101 67 105 90 90 36 47 62.4
63 Pepperdine Caruso 54 34 53 59 84 2 113 103 88 53 110 29 59 64.7
64 Villanova 68 51 65 64 73 68 101 61 67 84 68 31 47 65.2
65 Iowa 25 59 48 23 61 68 88 67 51 58 110 50 158 66.6
66 Howard 92 34 74 47 45 68 125 103 51 50 52 109 40 68.5
67 Illinois 36 89 29 25 61 43 80 83 51 67 122 68 139 68.7
68 Cardozo 60 83 48 54 25 5 131 118 14 84 122 46 108 69.1
69 Seton Hall 92 89 65 59 68 68 71 11 74 80 122 50 64 70.2
70 Chicago-Kent 92 114 86 72 68 68 103 67 14 90 32 99 9 70.3
71 Suffolk 125 17 140 95 84 26 103 52 31 90 5 119 31 70.6
72 Northeastern* 140 22 86 144 61 68 94 9 36 67 21 91 80 70.7
73 BYU 17 133 48 38 68 50 71 118 74 58 122 31 96 71.1
74 Oregon 60 114 74 80 84 11 9 118 92 67 1 68 166 72.6
75 Syracuse* 100 106 79 95 61 68 80 67 67 90 42 81 15 73.2
76 Pittsburgh* 78 89 65 80 73 68 80 29 51 50 122 31 139 73.5
77 Santa Clara 74 89 107 80 84 68 94 113 4 42 52 74 96 75.2
78 South Carolina 60 25 97 80 73 68 71 79 123 127 122 50 15 76.2
79 Richmond 74 89 35 95 50 68 58 118 31 75 122 50 126 76.2
80 Indiana (McKinney) 92 106 97 87 84 68 103 20 92 67 16 74 108 78.0
81 Tennessee 36 22 57 47 94 68 103 61 117 175 46 81 108 78.1
82 Hofstra 78 89 86 109 73 50 138 83 81 103 42 74 22 79.1
83 Seattle* 92 25 107 95 50 68 61 103 92 75 8 91 166 79.5
84 George Mason 36 133 42 29 94 68 125 135 22 90 122 74 64 79.5
84 Michigan State 68 83 74 64 108 21 94 135 67 67 90 99 64 79.5
86 Drexel 92 51 97 121 94 68 157 29 92 84 25 119 15 80.3
87 Stetson 125 89 107 80 94 18 88 94 130 127 3 91 1 80.5
88 Lewis & Clark 125 51 79 109 73 68 2 135 88 75 16 119 108 80.6
89 St. John's* 87 106 65 64 84 50 131 113 92 90 25 109 37 81.0
90 New Mexico 100 17 86 87 94 68 26 83 130 116 52 90 126 82.7
91 Wayne State 100 69 97 80 73 68 94 46 130 53 122 81 80 84.1
92 Connecticut* 68 89 57 87 73 68 88 79 105 53 90 81 166 84.9
93 Kansas 78 106 65 72 108 26 44 135 105 84 68 91 139 86.2
94 St. Louis 125 69 79 72 94 68 145 1 81 119 68 74 139 87.2
95 Pacific 100 114 120 121 108 34 94 135 130 38 32 119 9 88.8
96 Baltimore 140 6 107 144 68 60 61 103 88 90 77 81 139 89.5
97 Illinois-Chicago 116 78 140 95 149 68 131 118 51 103 25 99 24 92.1
98 Pace 116 106 131 144 94 68 1 94 130 103 122 74 24 92.8
99 Missouri-Kansas City 87 114 120 95 94 68 118 94 105 127 13 119 59 93.3
100 Penn State-Dickinson* 87 78 115 87 108 68 61 52 92 80 122 109 158 93.6

If anyone at a law school outside the Top 100 would like the data for their school's rank, email me.

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June 1, 2023 in Law School Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink

Today's Law, Society, And Taxation Panel

Law and society associationToday's Law, Society, and Taxation panel at the 2023 Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico:

Taxation of Labor and Business 

The imposition of a tax has an impact on the social and economic responses of taxpayers, whether individuals or corporations. The papers in this session contemplate the effects of a variety of tax rules on the business decisions of workers and employers, and think through what improvements might be available as a matter of tax policy and tax design.

Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar), Taxing Innovation Inventiveness:

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June 1, 2023 in Conferences, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Conferences, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

ETS Reduces GRE From 4 Hours to 2 Hours (LSAT Is 3 Hours)

GRE

ETS Press Release, Shortened GRE Test Coming September 2023:

Today, ETS announced that beginning this September, the GRE General Test will take less than 2 hours to complete — roughly half the time of the current test. This makes the GRE General Test the shortest and most efficient test among top professional, business and law school admissions test options. The shorter GRE test will continue to provide test takers and institutions with the same valid and reliable scores they have always counted on from ETS. Registration for the shorter test is now open for test dates beginning September 22, 2023.

Changes to the test include:

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June 1, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

The Welfare Effects Of Nudges Versus Taxes

John A. List (Chicago; Google Scholar), Matthias Rodemeier (Bocconi; Google Scholar), Sutanuka Roy (Australian National; Google Scholar) & Gregory Sun (Chicago), Judging Nudging: Understanding the Welfare Effects of Nudges Versus Taxes:

Becker Friedman InstituteWhile behavioral non-price interventions (“nudges”) have grown from academic curiosity to a bona fide policy tool, their relative economic efficiency remains under-researched. We develop a unified framework to estimate welfare effects of both nudges and taxes. We showcase our approach by creating a database of more than 300 carefully hand-coded point estimates of nonprice and price interventions in the markets for cigarettes, influenza vaccinations, and household energy. While nudges are effective in changing behavior in all three markets, they are not necessarily the most efficient policy. 

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May 31, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT To Teach Legal Research And Writing

ABA Journal, Some Law Schools Already Are Using ChatGPT to Teach Legal Research and Writing:

Open AI ChatGPTChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that can speak and write like humans, can be weak on facts. But it may already be a better wordsmith than some attorneys, says David Kemp, an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School.

“If you’re asking it to organize several concepts or are struggling to explain something in a way that’s really understandable, it can help,” says Kemp, who also is the managing editor of Oyez, a multimedia website focused on U.S. Supreme Court opinions.

The technology seems to prefer active voice, as does Kemp. He introduced ChatGPT in an advanced legal writing class and plans to include it in a summer course about emerging technology.

Various law schools are following suit. Legal writing faculty interviewed by the ABA Journal agree that ChatGPT writing can model good sentence and paragraph structure. But some fear that it could detract from students learning good writing skills.

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May 31, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Tech, Legal Education | Permalink

Kemker: When Gender-Affirming Healthcare Becomes Illegal, Will It (Still) Be Tax-Deductible?

Diane Kemker (Southern, DePaul), When Gender-Affirming Healthcare Becomes Illegal, Will It (Still) Be Tax-Deductible?:

In the absence of universal health care, which itself exacts a deadly toll on Americans, all too many people face unmanageable medical costs. Even those with insurance may find themselves with large, uninsured expenses. The Internal Revenue Code acknowledges these realities by permitting taxpayers to take a deduction for unusually large medical expenses incurred in a taxable year, whether for the taxpayer or their dependents. Although the statutory provision that creates this deduction does not condition deductibility on the legality of the medical treatment, the Regulations do.

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May 31, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Re-Evaluating GPT-4's Bar Exam Performance

Following up on my previous post, GPT-4 Beats 90% Of Aspiring Lawyers On The Bar Exam:  Eric Martínez (MIT; Google Scholar), Re-Evaluating GPT-4's Bar Exam Performance:

Perhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4's at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam, with its reported 80-percentile-points boost over its predecessor, GPT-3.5, far exceeding that for any other exam. This paper investigates the methodological challenges in documenting and verifying the 90th-percentile claim, presenting four sets of findings that suggest that OpenAI's estimates of GPT-4's UBE percentile, though clearly an impressive leap over those of GPT-3.5, appear to be overinflated, particularly if taken as a “conservative” estimate representing “the lower range of percentiles,” and moreso if meant to reflect the actual capabilities of a practicing lawyer.

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May 31, 2023 in Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Ed Tech, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink

Avi-Yonah: Should U.S. Tax Law Be Constitutionalized? Centennial Reflections On Eisner v. Macomber (1920)

Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), Should U.S. Tax Law Be Constitutionalized? Centennial Reflections on Eisner v. Macomber (1920), 16 Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol'y 65 (2021)

Duke journal of constitutional law and public policyThe United States Supreme Court last decided a federal income tax case on constitutional grounds in 1920—a century ago. The case was Eisner v. Macomber, and the issue was whether Congress had the power under the Sixteenth Amendment to include stock dividends in the tax base. The Court answered “no” because “income” in the Sixteenth Amendment meant “the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.” A stock dividend was not “income” because it did not increase the wealth of the shareholder.

Macomber was never formally overruled, and it is sometimes still cited by academics and practitioners for the proposition that the Constitution requires that income be “realized” to be subject to tax. 

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May 31, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

2024 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

6a00d8341c4eab53ef0240a490199b200b-250wiThe new 2024 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank Score School
1 4.4 Stetson
2 4.3 Temple
3 4.2 Baylor
4 3.9 Samford
5 3.8 Loyola-L.A.
6 3.7 Denver
6 3.7 Fordham
6 3.7 UCLA*
9 3.6 Chicago-Kent
9 3.6 Pacific
9 3.6 South Texas*
12 3.5 St. Mary's
13 3.3 Georgia
13 3.3 Loyola-Chicago*
15 3.2 American*
15 3.2 Campbell*
15 3.2 Drexel
15 3.2 Mercer
15 3.2 South Carolina
15 3.2 Syracuse*
15 3.2 UC-Berkeley*
22 3.1 Georgetown*
22 3.1 Hofstra
24 3.0 Akron
24 3.0 Georgia State
24 3.0 Houston
24 3.0 Illinois-Chicago
24 3.0 Pace
24 3.0 UC-San Francisco*
24 3.0 Washington University
31 2.9 Northwestern*
31 2.9 Nova
31 2.9 Quinnipiac*
31 2.9 Suffolk
35 2.8 Emory
35 2.8 Louisiana State
37 2.7 Harvard*
37 2.7 St. John's*
37 2.7 Texas
40 2.6 Catholic
40 2.6 Howard
40 2.6 Inter-American (PR)*
40 2.6 Maryland*
40 2.6 Ohio State
40 2.6 Texas Tech
40 2.6 Wake Forest
47 2.5 Alabama
47 2.5 Brooklyn*
47 2.5 Case Western
47 2.5 George Washington
47 2.5 Notre Dame
47 2.5 Ohio Northern
47 2.5 San Diego
47 2.5 SMU
47 2.5 South Dakota
47 2.5 UC-Davis*
47 2.5 Villanova
47 2.5 William & Mary

*Denotes schools that boycotted the U.S. News rankings

2023 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2024 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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May 31, 2023 in Law School Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Shaviro Posts Two Tax Papers On SSRN

Daniel Shaviro (NYU; Google Scholar) has posted two tax papers on SSRN:

SSRNTime Is, Time Was: Evaluating the Use of the Life Cycle Model as a Fiscal Policy Tool:

What time periods should we use in tax and other fiscal policy to evaluate people’s circumstances, and thus to determine either how they are being treated, or how they ought to be? This question is both fundamental and pervasive.

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May 30, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

Legal Ed News Roundup

Avi-Yonah Posts Three International Tax Papers On SSRN

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) has posted three international tax papers on SSRN:

SSRNUnitary Taxation After Pillar One:

Pillar One of the G20/OECD/IF BEPS 2.0 effort is unlikely to succeed for three reasons. First, it requires a multilateral tax convention (MTC) to be implemented because Amount A requires overriding Articles 5 (Permanent Establishment, PE), 7 (Business Profits) and 9 (Associated Enterprises) of every tax treaty to abolish the PE and Arm’s Length Principle (ALP) limits enshrined therein. 

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May 30, 2023 in Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Scholarship | Permalink

NY Times: Here’s What Happens When A Lawyer Uses ChatGPT

New York Times, Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT:

Open AI ChatGPTThe lawsuit began like so many others: A man named Roberto Mata sued the airline Avianca, saying he was injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee during a flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York.

When Avianca asked a Manhattan federal judge to toss out the case, Mr. Mata’s lawyers vehemently objected, submitting a 10-page brief that cited more than half a dozen relevant court decisions. There was Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and, of course, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, with its learned discussion of federal law and “the tolling effect of the automatic stay on a statute of limitations.”

There was just one hitch: No one — not the airline’s lawyers, not even the judge himself — could find the decisions or the quotations cited and summarized in the brief.

That was because ChatGPT had invented everything.

The lawyer who created the brief, Steven A. Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, threw himself on the mercy of the court on Thursday, saying in an affidavit that he had used the artificial intelligence program to do his legal research — “a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.”

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May 30, 2023 in Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Tech, Legal Education | Permalink

Lesson From The Tax Court: Substantiating Gambling Losses On Per-Casino Basis

Camp (2017)The old saying “you win some, you lose some” is not true for most recreational gamblers.  For them, the saying is more like “you win some, you lose more.”  But proving that proves a problem.  In Jacob Bright v. Commissioner, Docket No. 10095-22 (May 4, 2023), Judge Buch teaches us how taxpayers can use their player cards to substantiate their wagering losses.  There, Mr. Bright reported some $241,000 of wagering gains on his 2019 return, and an equal amount of losses.  However, he apparently did not follow best practices—as very nicely explained in this article—of keeping daily contemporaneous records.  When audited, the IRS accepted his self-reported income (natch!) but disallowed all the losses for lack of substantiation (double natch!).

In Tax Court, Judge Buch allowed Mr. Bright to introduce reports of his player card activity, from each of the three Casinos he gambled at in 2019.  That created a sufficient basis for the Court to use the Cohan rule, albeit differently for each Casino.  The Court used this method to estimate $191,000 of losses.  In taking this approach for calculating wagering losses, Judge Buch gives us a new idea of “per session” netting worth considering, not only for proving up wagering losses, but also for calculating wagering gains.  I would call it a “per establishment” approach.  It makes a good bit of sense.  Details below the fold.

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May 30, 2023 in Bryan Camp, New Cases, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Daily, Tax Practice And Procedure, Tax Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)