NYU Launches New Tax Law Center, Seeks To Fill Several Full-Time Tax Positions

NYU Law News, The New Tax Law Center at NYU Law Aims to Protect and Strengthen the Tax System:

Tax Law Center at NYU Law will focus on tax law issues that have profound implications for the government, businesses, and individuals. The center will be hosted by NYU Law, whose pioneering Graduate Tax Program has long recognized how tax-related issues affect all aspects of society.

The Tax Law Center will seek to protect and strengthen the nation’s tax system through rigorous, high-impact legal work in the public interest. The new center’s work will include offering technical input on tax legislation, submitting comments on tax regulations, and intervening in tax litigation, with the goals of protecting and improving the integrity of the tax system, saving and raising revenues, and advancing equity.

The center’s founding faculty directors, Robert C. Kopple Family Professor of Taxation Lily Batchelder and Professor David Kamin ’09 (currently on public service leave), each bring estimable credentials from their work in tax policy. So does Chye-Ching Huang, the center’s founding executive director, who spent a decade at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington, DC, focused on the impact of federal tax, fiscal, and economic policies. All three have testified before Congress on tax law and policy issues.

Careers:

Join our team! The recently formed Tax Law Center at NYU Law seeks to protect and strengthen the tax system through rigorous, high-impact tax legal work in the public interest. Our work includes offering technical input on tax legislation, submitting comments on tax regulations, and intervening in tax litigation, with the goals of protecting and improving the integrity of the tax system, saving and raising revenues, and advancing equity.

The Tax Law Center at the NYU School of Law is seeking one or more full-time Legal Research Associates to assist the Executive Director and other senior staff with cross-cutting research, writing, and project management. ...

The Tax Law Center at the NYU School of Law is seeking one or more full-time Attorney Advisors to work closely with the Executive Director to contribute to rigorous, high-impact tax legal work in the public interest ...

The Tax Law Center at the NYU School of Law is seeking one or more full-time Senior Attorney Advisors to work closely with the Executive Director to contribute to rigorous, high-impact tax legal work in the public interest. ...

The Tax Law Center at the New York University School of Law is seeking one or more full-time Tax Law and Policy Fellows to assist the Executive Director and other senior staff with cross-cutting research, writing, and project management.

Daniel Shaviro (NYU), Great New Development at NYU Law School:

The problems that the Tax Law Center can help to address have been well-known, as well as chronic, for more than 60 years. Stanley Surrey wrote about them in an ahead-of-its-time Harvard Law Review article from 1957 (!). As he noted about tax legislation in particular — but it is also true with respect to the tax regulatory process and tax litigation — there is rarely a public interest voice that could counterbalance private companies pushing their own interests.

At times, tax academics have made ad hoc efforts to fill the gap and address the imbalance. During the 2017 act's highly truncated legislative process, Kamin directed the writing and publication of the "Tax Games I and II" articles, pointing out a lot of the problems, that were so widely downloaded at the time. A number of us have also participated in writing and signing amicus briefs in federal tax cases where there was a risk of really bad and poorly informed outcomes. But the Tax Law Center moves towards institutionalizing the creation of an independent, expert voice that can reduce the information imbalances and faulty, biased analyses that can so contribute to bad outcomes.

 NYU may also do well here by doing good. Creating the Tax Law Center strengthens and expands our tax law community and enterprise, while also bringing opportunities here that are not so available elsewhere.