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

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

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

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

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UCLA Hosts 35th Annual Tax Controversy Conference

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UC-Davis/ACTEC Symposium: An Empirical Analysis Of Wealth Transfer Law

The UC Davis Law Review hosted its 53rd annual symposium on Friday on An Empirical Analysis of Wealth Transfer Law,  co-sponsored by the ACTEC Foundation (call for papers here): 

Panel #1: Marriage

• David Horton (UC-Davis) (moderator)
• Naomi Cahn (George Washington), What's Wrong about the Elective Share Right
  Commentator: Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis)
• Alyssa DiRusso (Samford), Using Empirical Data on the Widowhood Effect to Optimize Simultaneous Health Law and Drafting
  Commentator: Andrea Chandrasekher (UC-Davis)
• Russell James (Texas Tech), Empirical Analysis of Charitable Bequest Transfers: A Comprehensive Review, New Findings, and the Emerging Potential of Longitudinal Data
• Jeffrey Pennell (Emory), Individuated Determination of a Surviving Spouse's Elective Share

Panel #2: Research Using Probate Records

• Adam Hirsch (San Diego) (moderator)
• Bridget Crawford (Pace), What Probate Courts Cite: A Study of the New York County Surrogate's Court 2017-2018
  Commentator: Donna Shestowsky (UC-Davis)
• David Horton (UC-Davis), Do-It-Yourself-Wills
  Commentator: Alexander Boni-Saenz (Chicago-Kent)
• Alberto Lopez (Alabama), Antebellum and Postbellum Testamentary Transfers in Three Kentucky Counties
• Reid Kress Weisbord (Rutgers), Fiduciary Authority and Liability in Probate Estates: An Empirical Analysis
  Commentator: Jane Baron (Temple)

Panel #3: Nonprobate Transfers, Estate Planning, and Intestacy

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Call For Tax Papers And Panels: Law & Society Annual Meeting On Rule And Resistance

Neil Buchanan (Florida) has issued his annual call for tax papers and panels for next year's annual meeting of the Law & Society Association in Denver (May 28 - 31, 2020):

For the sixteenth year in a row, I will organize sessions for the Law, Society, and Taxation group (Collaborative Research Network 31).  For the fourth year in a row, I am pleased to be joined (or, more accurately, carried) in these organizational efforts by Professors Jennifer Bird-Pollan and Mirit Eyal-Cohen.

Although there is an official call for papers, please remember that you are not bound by the official theme of the conference ("Rule and Resistance"). We will give full consideration to proposals in any area of tax law, tax policy, distributive justice, interdisciplinary scholarship, and so on.

The deadline for submissions is before midnight (Eastern Time) Wednesday, November 13, 2019.

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ABA Tax Section Fall Meeting

The ABA Tax Section kicks off its three-day joint fall meeting with the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section today in San Francisco. The full program is here. The highlight is:

Teaching Taxation: Technology-Driven Trends in Tax Law Training
This panel explores the changing ways in which lawyers can, and are expected to, train themselves to excel in tax practice in an age of pervasive technology. Formal law firm training of associates is less common than before the Great Recession. Clients no longer are willing to subsidize the training of new associates. Tax associates must arrange to train themselves, outside their full-time, billable work obligations. The panel will discuss various training options (including residential and online LLM programs, online courses, webinars, podcasts, and mixed programs) by which tax lawyers can create a solid foundation for their tax practice and expand their knowledge into new tax subspecialties. These training options employ a range of pedagogical approaches, reflecting ongoing study and experimentation in online learning. The panel will highlight educational best practices, based on learning theory. In addition, the Panel will explore parameters by which lawyer-consumers of such training and employer-firms can assess the success of various training options.

• Leslie Book (Villanova)
• Steven Dean (NYU)
• Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama)
• Heather Field (UC-Hastings) (moderator)
• Samuel Greenberg (EY, Los Angeles)
• Michael Hunter Schwartz (McGeorge)
• Ryan Montgomery (Morgan Lewis, Boston)
• Annette Nellen (San José)
• Katherine Pratt (Loyola-L.A.)

Other Tax Profs with speaking roles include:

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Tax Presentations At Today's 20th Global Conference On Environmental Taxation

Tax presentations at today's 20th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation in Cyprus, Greece:

Mona Hymel (Arizona), Suffocation: Supported by the U.S. Federal Government:

Most of us have experienced riding an elevator with strangers. Many of us have experienced the slightly uncomfortable feeling as strangers continue entering the elevator until it is full or maybe even touching strangers as the elevator fills. People vary worldwide in the amount of private space they are accustomed to enjoying. In other words, how many people have to get onto the elevator with you before you feel physically uncomfortable? Assume that so many strangers crowd on to the elevator that, as clean air in the elevator runs out, they will all suffocate to death. The elevator story provides a simple picture of humanity’s ultimate demise. This article discusses the situation of the strangers; a growing population. The article explains the most serious contributors to the increasing number of strangers: (1) existing government pronatalist policies; (2) the ugly secrets of immigration; (3) artificial intelligence dramatically reduces the need for humans; and (4) the impacts of worldwide growth.

Like the elevator, the impact of population on Earth’s wellbeing is nothing more than a scientific equation – Carry Capacity. For an elevator, consider the size of the elevator; any life sustaining resources available; the number of people supported by the elevator; and its resources before they begin to suffocate or starve to death. Fortunately, Earth has abundant space and resources. But we know that space, resources, and the population are all in critical condition. Scientists estimate that the Earth’s carrying capacity is reaching its limits. Moreover, increasing immigration and the significant increase in sourcing jobs to AI could result in the overall carrying capacity of the earth to decline. Yet, the United States operates on a growth model that can no longer be sustained. “Growing the U.S. economy” must be replaced. As population continues to grow and resources decline (jobs taken by AI), carrying capacity must be adjusted to avoid world tragedy. The elevator is full!

By analyzing U.S. Federal tax policy, the article suggests changes and additional work to be done. For example, the U.S. tax law contains conflicting tax provisions both encouraging and discouraging population growth. This article discusses how population growth negatively impacts the environment; the U.S. policies on population as subsidized through the tax system; and alternative tax policies to mitigate U.S. population growth and repeal of existing pronatal policies.

Tracey M. Roberts, (Samford University), Stranded Assets and Competitive Pricing for Regulated Utilities: A Federal Tax Solution:

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Tax Presentations At Today's 20th Global Conference On Environmental Taxation

Tax presentations at today's 20th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation in Cyprus, Greece:

Elena Belletti (Columbia), Environmental Taxation in Africa: Barriers and Policy Options:

Countries in Africa are among the most severely impacted by the effects of climate change and local pollution, with poorest households being the most vulnerable to environmental issues. Additionally, their public revenues often do not meet the 15% tax-to-GDP ratio, which is considered the minimum threshold to support development; and high inequality among the population poses a significant challenge to sustainable development. While environmental taxation would ideally contribute to tackling both those socioeconomic and environmental issues, countries in Africa often lack the necessary fiscal infrastructure to implement market-based instruments for environmental fiscal policy, and frequently face significant issues in shaping expenditure policies that would effectively offset some of the regressive effects of those instruments. Within this context, what are the options for those countries in the area of environmental fiscal policy, which would support the implementation of the Development Goals (SDGs)?

This paper provides an analysis of the current barriers faced by developing countries, least developed countries (LDCs) and other countries in special situations in Africa, both from the tax and from the public expenditure point of view, which pose challenges in the implementation of market-based instruments for environmental fiscal policy. Starting from this analysis, it then aims to provide a practical overview of which fiscal policy instruments could be practically implementable by those countries, while contributing to tackle some of the most prominent environmental issues in the continent; and which are the necessary conditions for those instruments to be successfully applied, while contributing to achieving the SDGs. The paper takes into consideration the potential for additional revenue mobilization through environmental taxation, the administrative feasibility of proposed options, and their effectiveness in tackling the most pressing environmental issues. It also analyses the suitability of those options against some of the social, economic and environmental objectives declared by those countries in national sustainable development strategies and in international agreements.

Robert Cairns, (McGill University, Canada), The Green Paradox, A Hoteling Cul de Sac:

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AALS Tax Section Call For Papers Due Aug. 15: New Voices In Tax Law & Policy

The AALS Section on Taxation has issued a Call for Papers to be presented at a works-in-progress session at the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The works-in-progress session is tentatively scheduled for Friday, January 3, 2020. This program will provide speakers the opportunity to present their work and receive feedback from commentators in the field.

Eligibility: Scholars teaching at AALS member schools or non-member fee-paid schools with seven or fewer years of full-time teaching experience as of the submission deadline are eligible to submit papers. For co-authored papers, all authors must satisfy the eligibility criteria.

Due date: 5 p.m. PDT, Thursday, August 15, 2019.

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LatCrit/SALT Annual Faculty Development Workshop

We are writing to invite you the LatCrit, Inc./SALT Annual Faculty Development Workshop (FDW), which will take place on October 17, 2019. The FDW will be held the day before the 2019 LatCrit Biennial Conference The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting the Second Redemption in América Posfascista (Postfascist America) in Atlanta, Georgia.

The FDW is designed for those who are planning to enter or who have recently joined the legal academy. The day-long workshop includes sessions on topics facing prospective, junior, and pre-tenured faculty, while providing generous opportunities to network and form mentoring relationships with established faculty. The FDW is an invaluable learning and professional development opportunity!

Registration for the FDW is free for attendees of the LatCrit conference. Please see the attached flyer for more information. Additionally, please feel free to e-mail Professor Ron Hochbaum at rhochbaum@luc.edu with any questions.

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Symposium: Uncomfortable Conversations About Legal Education — Student Debt, Diversity, And More

The ABA Young Lawyers Division and Law School Transparency are hosting a symposium on Uncomfortable Conversations About Legal Education: Student Debt, Diversity, and More today at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco:

Introduction
Kyle McEntee, Abhay Nadipuram, Tommy Preston Jr.
Law schools face an unrelenting system of incentives that make lowering prices, equitable access, and curricular innovation extremely difficult. This half-day program examines how to cause positive change in legal education.

Law School Deans Panel: Obstacles to Lowering Costs
Ben Barros (Toledo), Camille Nelson (American), Carla Pratt (Washburn)
Three current law school deans will discuss barriers to more accessible and affordable legal education. The discussion will cover U.S. News & World Report rankings, accreditation, university culture, and more.

Lightning Talks
Introduction to the Blue Sky Initiative (more here and here)
Maggie White, an Iowa attorney and member of Law School Transparency’s board of directors, will describe a wide-ranging initiative from Law School Transparency and other partners to address the cost of legal education.

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Tax Panels Today At SEALS

Tax panels today at the 2019 SEALS Annual Conference in Boca Raton, Florida:

Tax Law Workshop: Tax Law and Practice — A Critical Review
This panel considers both the realities of tax practice and tax practitioners in the 21st Century, as well as necessary updates to the tax law in a variety of areas. In particular, panelists in this group consider the future of the uncovering and punishing of tax evasion, standards of professionalism for tax practitioners, the role of blockchain technology in tax evasion (particularly in the international context), philanthropy and the tax law, and the role of the states in creating and enforcing tax laws.

• Jennifer Bird-Pollan (Kentucky) (moderator)
• William Byrnes (Texas A&M)
• Alyssa DiRusso (Samford)
• David Hasen (Florida)
• Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Utah)
• Stephanie McMahon (Cincinnati)
• Andrew Swain (Indiana)
• Richard Winchester (Seton Hall)

Tax Law Workshop: Tax Policy Reforms in the 21st Century

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Today's Tax Panel At SEALS

Tax panel today at the 2019 SEALS Annual Conference in Boca Raton, Florida:

Tax Law at the Crossroads
The ever-changing social and political landscape makes it necessary to constantly revisit the tax law and determine whether the current status of the law matches the needs and goals of the society it serves. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the most recent example of a massive overhaul in the tax system but even that significant reform effort left many issues unaddressed. The papers on this panel consider a variety of tax law concerns related to families, businesses, and international transactions. Both federal- and state-level tax matters are addressed.

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Caron Presents A Dean's Perspective On Diversity, Socioeconomics, The LSAT, And The U.S. News Law School Rankings Today At SEALS

One of the Legal Ed panels today at the 2019 SEALS Annual Conference in Boca Raton, Florida:

Building Bridges: Socioeconomics, the LSAT and U.S. News and World Report Rankings
This panel explores methodologies and programs that will help students from low income and diverse backgrounds have opportunities available to them to attend law school. AALS President Wendy Perdue of the University of Richmond has said: “As our society struggles with this problem of deep polarization, lawyers and law schools have an important role to play. Lawyers, are, after all, in the dispute resolution business. Resolving conflict is central to what we do. And today, perhaps more than ever before, the skills that we as lawyers have, and we as law professors teach, are of critical importance.” In order to resolve these conflicts, we need to make sure that all communities have access to engage in these important conversations. The Before the J.D. Study shows that African American and Hispanic students think about going to law school before going to high school and college. In addition, the study highlights that over 60% of students report the most important advice about going to graduate or professional school comes from a family member or relative. Many students from low-income backgrounds do not have family members who are lawyers and are at a disadvantage in getting advice about going to law school because they may not be encouraged by these close family members or friends. There is still a small percentage of African American and Latino/a attorneys Nationwide 5% of lawyers are African American and 5% are of Hispanic origin. These percentages have remained consistent for almost the past ten years. So many students from these racial and ethnic backgrounds also can’t readily turn to family members or friends for inspiration and advice about going to law school. The ABA reports that the entering class for 2017 has an aggregate African American enrollment of 8.6% and 13.2% for Hispanics. Meanwhile, African Americans consist of approximately 13% and Hispanics approximately 18% of the overall U.S. population. These two racial groups, along with Asian Americans, are on target to be a majority of the U.S. population in the next 30 years. Given the growth trends in these demographic groups, there will be an insufficient percent of lawyers from these groups to meet their (and society’s) legal needs in the next few years. Moreover, some scholars have argued that there is a strong tie between socioeconomics and law schools admissions. There has recently been a very passionate Twitter discussion of this issue on Lawprofblawg. Some believe that the LSAT and U.S. News privileges those from middle- and upper middle-class backgrounds. Others point out the LSAT’s strength in providing an accurate assessment of core skills required for success in law school and that an admission process that correctly uses the LSAT as one factor in a multi-factor holistic admission process is fairest to applicants. Recently, U.S. News attempted to reduce economic privilege in its rankings of undergraduate schools by injecting socio economic factors. The formula now includes indicators meant to measure "social mobility" and drops an acceptance rate measure that benefited schools that turned the most students away. A recent Politico article reported that U.S. News will change its methodology at the college level. This panel consists of experts who examine these issues in terms of the LSAT, U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, and socioeconomic and diversity issues.

• Leonard Baynes (Dean, Houston), Pre-Law Pipeline Program: We’ve Got The Power
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), A Dean's Perspective on Diversity, Socioeconomics, the LSAT, and the U.S. News Law School Rankings
• Victor Quintanilla (Professor & Co-Director, Center for Law, Society & Culture, Indiana), Initial Results on Relationship Between the LSAT, USNWR, SES, and Demographics From the Productive Mindset Intervention Study
• Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News), Building Bridges: Socioeconomics, the LSAT and U.S. News and World Report Rankings  
• Kellye Testy (President & CEO, LSAC; former Dean, University of Washington), Adversity and Admission: Tackling “Opportunity to Learn”

Today's Tax Panel At SEALS

Tax panel today at the 2019 SEALS Annual Conference in Boca Raton, Florida:

New Tax Scholars Workshop
This workshop gives New Scholars the opportunity to present a work-in-progress in a welcoming and supportive environment and to receive feedback on their presentation from more senior scholars in their fields. New Scholars are also assigned a mentor. The program is open to junior faculty at member schools. New Scholars are nominated to participate in the New Scholars Workshop by the deans of their respective law schools.

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Classism In The Legal Academy Panel Today At SEALS

One of the Legal Ed panels today at the 2019 SEALS Annual Conference in Boca Raton, Florida:

Discussion Group: Classism in Academia
Lawprofblawg, an anonymous blogger, has raised some compelling critiques about race, class and gender issues in academia. Specifically, he has called out the academy’s top cited list as being classist, pointing out that few of the faculty on that list ever graduated from a law school lower than top 10. Few on the list are women, and few on the list are people of color. Moreover, many of those on the list currently work and write at a top 10 law school. These critiques have garnered a great deal of publicity of late, including a rebuttal on Prawfsblawg. Topics would include the following questions: Why are 94 percent of all Faculty members at top 10 schools graduated from top 10 schools? Why are nearly all of the 2017 top 10 law review authors from those schools as well? Why are only 30 percent of those academics at top 10 law schools women? Why don’t we care about the most cited legal writing professors, clinical professors, or law librarians? Why can’t they seem to get published in top 10 law reviews?

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Webinar Today: How Law Schools Can Save $150 Million Using Open Casebooks

AALS Summer Webinar Series: How Law Schools Can Save $150 Million Using Open Casebooks:

The casebook is over 100 years old. It’s mostly filled with public domain cases, but yet, it often costs over $200. The economic system that outsources casebook production to traditional publishers could be handled by a nimble non-profit and paid authors — paid MORE than they get from royalties, I claim.

This would also fuel innovations in teaching materials, better updates, richer interaction. Is this all a unicorn hunt?

In this presentation, John Mayer, Executive Director of CALI, will talk about open casebooks. Besides CALI’s eLangdell Press, many other law faculty are self-publishing or opening up their casebooks for students to freely download. You should too.

The webinar is today at 2:00 p.m. EST. Registration is here.

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