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 appearing on the list at #4 and #5:

1. [455 Downloads]  Rotten to the Core: The EU's Court of Justice Decision in Apple, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
2. [312 Downloads]  The Quiet Evolution In International Tax: Domestic Law And Double Taxation, by Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland; Google Scholar)
3. [239 Downloads]  The Consequences Of Limiting The Tax Deductibility Of R&D, by Mary Cowx (Arizona State; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lester (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Michelle L. Nessa (Michigan State; Google Scholar)
4. [192 Downloads]  Tax Neutrality and Distribution Regimes, by Pablo Hernández González-Barreda (Comillas Pontifical University; Google Scholar)
5. [191 Downloads]  The Spiderweb Of Partnership Tax Structures, by Ryan Hess (Georgia), Emily Black (NYU), Zaynah Javed (Stanford; Google Scholar), Jonathan Hennessy (Stanford; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lester (Stanford; Google Scholar), Jacob Goldin (Chicago; Google Scholar), Daniel E. Ho (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Annette Portz (IRS)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Next Week’s Tax Workshop

Monday, January 13: Kristin Hickman (Minnesota; Google Scholar) will present A Study Evaluating OIRA Review of Treasury Regulations (with Bridget C.E. Dooling (Ohio State; Google Scholar)) as part of the San Diego Tax Law Speaker Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Michelle Layser. 

For individual tax workshop posts, see here.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews Mehrotra's The Intellectual Origins Of The Modern International Tax Regime

This week, Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) reviews a new work by Ajay K. Mehrotra (Northwestern; Google Scholar), The Intellectual Origins of the Modern International Tax Regime: Edwin R. A. Seligman, Economic Allegiance, and the League of Nations’ 1923 Report, 5 J. L. & Political Econ. 995 (2025).

As someone deeply fascinated by history and its nuanced narratives, I find immense value in exploring works that shed light on pivotal moments in intellectual and policy evolution. This Article reflects one such cornerstone of tax history literature by offering a unique opportunity to glimpse into how Edwin R. A. Seligman and the League of Nations’ 1923 Report shaped the development of international tax governance. Through a detailed exploration of historical context, intellectual contributions, and lasting impacts, Mehrotra does a great job uncovering the foundational principles that continue to influence contemporary tax policy.

The devastation of World War I left many economies in disarray, burdened with immense debts and the need for reconstruction.

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The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors Of 2024

Rank	Name	School	Downloads
1	Jonathan Choi	USC	14,026
2	Reuven Avi-Yonah	Michigan	12,982
3	Amy Monahan	Minnesota	8,754
4	Zachary Liscow	Yale	6,831
5	Daniel Hemel	NYU	4,768
6	Bridget Crawford	Pace	4,748
7	Kim Clausing	UCLA	4,606
8	Kristin Hickman	Minnesota	4,575
9	D. Dharmapala	UC-Berkeley	3,966
10	Darien Shanske	UC-Davis	3,761
11	David Gamage	Missouri-Columbia	3,705
12	Louis Kaplow	Harvard	3,631
13	Brad Borden	Brooklyn	3,546
14	David Weisbach	Chicago	3,539
15	Robert Sitkoff	Harvard	3,293
16	Ruth Mason	Virginia	3,265
17	Michael Simkovic	USC	2,882
18	Kyle Rozema	Northwestern	2,779
19	Brian Galle	Georgetown	2,519
20	Ellen Aprill	Loyola-L.A.	2,434
21	Young Ran (Christine) Kim	Cardozo	2,363
22	Yariv Brauner	Florida	2,210
23	Edward McCaffery	USC	2,178
24	Richard Ainsworth	Boston University	2,156
25	Andy Grewal	Iowa	2,120
26	Dan Shaviro	NYU	2,076
27	Richard Pomp	Connecticut	1,903
28	Jim Hines	Michigan	1,901
29	Diane Ring	Boston College	1,866
30	Francine Lipman	UNLV	1,772
31	Lily Batchelder	NYU	1,765
32	Ari Glogower	Northwestern	1,719
33	Jordan Barry	USC	1,710
34	John Brooks	Fordham	1,708
34	Chris Sanchirico	Penn	1,708

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Kuehn: The Employment Benefits Of Law Clinics And Externships

Robert R. Kuehn (Washington University; Google Scholar), The Employment Benefits of Law Clinics and Externships, 33 Clin. Legal Educ. Newsletter __ (2025):

One of the reasons law students enroll in a law clinic or externship is the belief that the experience will improve their marketability. Surveys of recent law graduates and employers show that students' perceptions of the positive impact of a clinic or externship experience on their job opportunities upon graduation are well founded. The research summarized herein demonstrates that clinics and externships do aid graduates in obtaining their first job and that potential employers value entry-level candidates with law clinic and externship experience. ...

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Avi-Yonah On FDII And Domestic Manufacturing Tax Rate

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), Should FDII Be Abolished in 2025?, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 2209 (Dec. 16, 2024): 

Avi-Yonah describes the looming international conflicts regarding the U.S. foreign-derived intangible income provision.

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), A Lower Corporate Tax Rate for Domestic Manufacturing?, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 2401 (Dec. 23, 2024): 

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Challenging The Johnson Amendment: What SAFE SPACE Gets Right—And Wrong

Benjamin M. Leff (American; Google Scholar), Challenging the Johnson Amendment: What SAFE SPACE Gets Right—and Wrong, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 51 (Oct. 7, 2024):

In this article, Leff argues that the IRS’s interpretation of section 501(c)(3)’s prohibition on campaign intervention (the Johnson Amendment) is unconstitutional, as claimed in a recent Tax Court petition, but that the petitioner in that case unnecessarily asserts a dangerously broad strategy for vindicating charities’ free speech rights.

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Cryptocurrency Public Key Reporting: Using Embedded Technology To Aid Tax Compliance

Haozheng Jiang (J.D. 2026, St. Louis) & Henry Ordower (St. Louis), Cryptocurrency Public Key Reporting: Using Embedded Technology to Aid Tax Compliance, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 2119 (Dec. 16, 2024):

This report proposes that U.S. taxpayers report each blockchain public key they control and associate it with their taxpayer identification numbers or with the TINs of the beneficial owners of the public keys and the underlying cryptocurrency positions. Public key disclosure and association will enable the IRS to develop the capability to match public blockchain transactions with the U.S. taxpayers engaged in them and thereby counteract the anonymity or, more accurately, pseudonymity of cryptocurrency. This reporting would (1) supplement the contentious and incomplete existing third-party reporting of cryptocurrency transactions involving U.S. taxpayers; (2) diminish the perceived competitive disadvantage that third-party reporting places on hosting services; (3) limit demands for legislation requiring the marking to market of cryptocurrency transactions or outlawing cryptocurrency unless governing software automatically collects owner data and reports it to governmental authorities; and (4) facilitate the determination and collection of income tax from taxpayers who invest or transact in cryptocurrencies.

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More T In ESG: Tax As A Crucial Component Of ESG

Lisa Chen (J.D. 2023, UC-SF), More T in ESG: Tax as a Crucial Component of ESG, 75 UC L.J. 1245 (2024):

ESG is a framework used to assess the sustainability of a company and to measure financial risk arising from potential environmental, social, and governance issues. Investors and consumers typically rely on ESG ratings generated by third-party ratings agencies to evaluate a company’s ESG quality. Critics of ESG assert that ESG ratings are misleading because neither the rating agencies nor the ESG disclosures used to generate ratings are regulated. Despite these criticisms, demand for ESG-related products has grown four-fold in the last decade, reflecting the change in societal expectations regarding corporate behavior.

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Spring 2025 Law Review Article Submission Guide

Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC) have updated their incredibly useful document, which contains two charts for the Spring 2025 submission season covering the 196 main journals of each law school.

We have created hyperlinks for each law review to take you directly to the law review’s submissions page. Again the chart includes as much information as possible about what law reviews are not accepting submissions right now and what months they say they’ll resume accepting submissions. 

The most interesting change here is the approximately sixty journals (that aren’t already open) that say they plan to reopen for submissions in February (February 1 is a popular date).

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Current Developments In Tax Malpractice: Basics And Beyond

Jacob L. Todres (St. John's), Current Developments in Tax Malpractice: Basics and Beyond, 57 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 423 (2024):

It was always assumed that “tax malpractice” referred to a situation in which an error occurred with respect to some tax provision or in a tax-related administrative or legal proceeding. However, several recent cases have expanded this thinking, introducing the possibility that tax malpractice may also occur where damages include an increase in taxes—irrespective of whether there was an error that directly involved tax law. Beginning with a discussion of the evolving definition of that term as seen in the New York cases of Serino v. Lipper and Bloostein v. Morrison Cohen LLP and whether these cases may have returned New York to its traditional negligence measure of damages in such tax malpractice situations, this Article presents a survey of current developments in the tax malpractice area.

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Lesson From The Tax Court: The 150 Day Rule For Filing Tax Court Petitions

Section 6213 generally gives taxpayers 90 days after the IRS mails them a Notice of Deficiency (NOD) to petition the Tax Court for review.  That’s the 90-day rule.  But some lucky taxpayers get 150 days instead of the usual 90.  That’s the 150-day rule.  Who are those lucky taxpayers?  Well, the statute says the 150-day rule applies “if the notice is addressed to a person outside the United States.”  The Tax Court has interpreted that phrase to mean that taxpayers get the 150-day rule when they are outside on foreign travel when the IRS mails the NOD, or maybe when the Post Office delivers the NOD.  Hmmmm ... it's hard to say exactly because there is no bright line here.  Case law varies.  Not everyone who is outside the United States on one of those two days automatically gets the 150 period.  It just depends on whether the Tax Court believes that the travel interfered with the taxpayer’s ability to meet the 90 day deadline.  That’s partly what makes these taxpayers lucky.

Today we learn that a taxpayer who is in the country on both the day of mailing and the day of delivery will probably not be lucky.  Later travel outside the country will not trigger the 150 day deadline.  That’s one takeaway from Rosa M. Marcano v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2024-26 (Dec. 23, 2024) (Judge Abeit).  There, the taxpayer was in the country when the NOD was mailed and delivered.  But she then traveled outside the country for approximately 50 days and did not file her Tax Court petition until 107 days after the IRS mailed the NOD.  The Tax Court, however, did not give allow her the 150-day rule because, it said, “the crucial inquiry” (Op. p. 3) was the taxpayer’s location on two crucial dates: the date the IRS mailed the NOD and the date the Post Office delivered it.  Here, the taxpayer was in the country on both those particular days.  Unlucky!

It seems to me this is not the only lesson here.  Despite the language in Judge Arbeit's well-written opinion, I would resist reading this case as creating a bright-line rule.  Reading it that way makes it difficult to square with its past approaches.  Detail below the fold.

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Wendel: The Good Lawyers Of January 6

W. Bradley Wendel (Cornell; Google Scholar), The Good Lawyers of January 6:

Much of the response by the community of legal ethics and professional responsibility scholars to the 2020 presidential election has been focused on the wrongs committed by lawyers like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro, who created the alternate elector scheme to throw the decision regarding the election to the House of Representatives. Yet there was a group of lawyers, that I will refer to as the good lawyers of January 6, who forcefully and unequivocally opposed this plan, refused to cooperate in its execution, advised Vice President Mike Pence that it was not legally supportable, and in some cases threatened to resign in protest if President Trump went forward with it. These lawyers are, almost without exception, card-carrying movement conservatives, with pedigrees including clerkships for conservative Supreme Court Justices, membership in the Federalist Society, and service in prior Republican administrations. They include Greg Jacob, counsel to Vice President Pence; White House Counsel Pat Cipollone; White House Senior Advisor Eric Hershmann; retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig; Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen; and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue. 

As a normative legal ethics theorist I am interested in whether there a coherent and attractive ideal or set of principles of ethical conduct by lawyers that would align with the refusal of these lawyers to advice or assist in the overthrow of the election.

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“How Do I Design My New Law Course?”

Steven Arrigg Koh (Boston University; Google Scholar), “How Do I Design My New Law Course?”: 

How should a professor design a new law course? This question is a particular challenge for new law professors, who lack resources for course design. While some scholarship exists on specific law courses and pedagogy, trans-substantive course design literature is comparatively rare. This Essay closes this gap by providing a framework: the four major categories of decisions regard the semester structure, classroom, final exam, plus "professorial personality." It argues that, for each decision, reasonable minds can differ. 

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list.

1. [430 Downloads]  Rotten to the Core: The EU's Court of Justice Decision in Apple, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
2. [355 Downloads]  ETFs and the Wash Sale Loophole, by Michael Dambra (SUNY-Buffalo), Andrew Glover (University of Washington), Charles M.C. Lee (Stanford) & Phillip Quinn (University of Washington)
3. [315 Downloads]  False Idols In The Early History Of International Taxation, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)
4. [273 Downloads]  The Quiet Evolution In International Tax: Domestic Law And Double Taxation, by Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland; Google Scholar)
5. [232 Downloads]  The Consequences Of Limiting The Tax Deductibility Of R&D, by Mary Cowx (Arizona State; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lester (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Michelle L. Nessa (Michigan State; Google Scholar)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Rapoport: Training Law Students To Model Civility In An Uncivil Social Media World

Nancy B. Rapoport (UNLV; Google Scholar), Training Law Students to Model Civility When Social Media Makes Civility Harder to Maintain, 85 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 511 (2024): 

This paper, presented as part of a symposium honoring the Hon. Joseph F. Weis Jr., discusses two relatively recent law student behavioral failures, triggered in part by the effect of the anonymity of social media posts on social discourse.  It suggests better ways of dealing with public disagreements.

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Stepping Up Basis In Living Taxpayer Assets With Upstream Wealth Transfers Through Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts

Michael J. Schaum (J.D. 2024, St. Thomas-FL), Comment, Stepping up Basis in Living Taxpayer Assets with Upstream Wealth Transfers through Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts, 36 St. Thomas L. Rev. 80 (2023): 

This paper will begin with a brief background discussion on the tax and estate planning principles underlying the legality of the wealth transfer including (A) the Taxable Gross Estate; (B) the Unified Tax Credit against the Estate and Gift Tax; (C) Basis and Adjustments; (D) Defective Grantor Trusts; and (E) Downstream Sale Combined with a Grantor Trust. The paper will then discuss the absence of guidance from the IRS on the legality of these trust structures and finally conclude that the IRS should allow wealth preservation through the transactions described herein because the current Code, properly construed, allows for it.

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Nguyen & Maine: Tax Treatment Of Crypto Losses

Xuan-Thao Nguyen (University of Washington) & Jeffrey A. Maine (Maine), Crypto Losses, 2024 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1119 (reviewed by Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo; Google Scholar) here):

The crypto industry has been hit hard with various market forces and scams, leaving investors with trillion-dollar losses in recent years. The appropriate tax treatment of such losses has yet to be fully examined, as there is scant guidance and a dearth of academic literature on the subject. This Article attempts to fill this gap by applying general tax principles to crypto losses and making several recommendations to improve the clarity and consistency of tax results.

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Equality In Tax Law: The Tension Between Democracy And The Rule Of Law

Hans Gribnau (Tilburg), Equality in Tax Law: The Tension Between Democracy and the Rule Of Law:

Taxes make a decent existence in human society possible. But at the same time, they are an infringement upon a person's freedom. These two diverging interests - the undisturbed enjoyment of one's freedom and the levying of taxes in the interest of all citizens - are accommodated by the principle of the rule of law: government is to exercise power according to the law and to govern via laws. Therefore, taxes should be levied by pre-established laws. The rule of law aims at protection against arbitrary interferences. Laws are supposed to promote certainty and equality.

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Does The 1L Curriculum Make A Difference?

David A. Hyman (Georgetown), Jing Liu (East China University) &  Joshua C. Teitelbaum (Georgetown; Google Scholar), Does the 1L Curriculum Make a Difference?, 21 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 375 (2024): 

Georgetown Law’s Curriculum B (also known as Section 3) offers a unique opportunity to study an alternative 1L curriculum. The standard 1L curriculum has been around for decades and is still offered at the vast majority of U.S. law schools. Leaders in the legal academy often talk about experimenting with the 1L curriculum, but hardly anyone does it. Georgetown Law has. We study whether Georgetown’s Curriculum B yields measurable differences in student outcomes. Our empirical design leverages the fact that enrollment in Curriculum B is done by lottery when it is oversubscribed—meaning our study is effectively a randomized controlled trial. 

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A Flawed Critique Of Progressive State Tax Policy

Darien Shanske (UC-Davis; Google Scholar), Michael Mazerov (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), Dan Bucks (Multistate Tax Commission), Peter Enrich (Northeastern) & Carl Davis (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy), Incidence Is Not Incidental: A First Response to COST's Flawed Critique of the Pursuit of Progressive State Tax Policy, 114 Tax Notes St. 173 (Oct. 21, 2024):

SALT in the Public Interest presents government and academic perspectives on state and local tax issues in a roundtable discussion format featuring former Multistate Tax Commission Executive Director Dan R. Bucks; Peter D. Enrich, professor emeritus at the Northeastern University School of Law; Michael Mazerov, who recently retired from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and professor Darien Shanske of the University of California, Davis, School of Law (King Hall). This column also features guest commentator Carl Davis, research director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Tax Notes State senior editor Doug Sheppard moderates the discussion.

In this installment, the authors respond to a recent article by Karl Frieden of the Council On State Taxation [Wearing Blinders in the Debate Over Business’s ‘Fair Share’ of State Taxes, 112 State Tax Notes 91 (Apr. 8, 2024)], arguing that it attributes a position to them that they’ve never taken and is fundamentally flawed because it evaluates tax fairness without considering incidence.

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Call For Papers: UCLA Business And Tax Roundtable For Aspiring Law Professors

Call for Papers:

The Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law is pleased to announce its first annual Business and Tax Roundtable for Upcoming Professors (“BATRUP”). This in-person Roundtable will take place at UCLA from Friday evening June 13th through Sunday June 15th.  The program will feature commentary by invited senior scholars as well as an opportunity to meet fellow aspiring scholars while enjoying Los Angeles.  We warmly invite scholars preparing for the academic job market to participate.

Roundtable Purpose and Eligibility

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SSRN Tax Professor Rankings

SSRN has updated its monthly ranking of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database.  Here is the new list (through December 1, 2024) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months):

		All-Time			Recent
1	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	239,661	1	Jonathan Choi (USC)	16,013
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	137,084	2	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	12,555
3	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	130,870	3	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	10,374
4	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	130,127	4	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	6,616
5	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	129,268	5	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,794
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	122,804	6	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	4,584
7	David Kamin (NYU)	115,971	7	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,502
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	109,674	8	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	4,341
9	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	106,049	9	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	3,790
10	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-SF)	105,566	10	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	3,711
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	105,240	11	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	3,698
12	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	56,054	12	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	3,577
13	Michael Simkovic (USC)	51,499	13	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,401
14	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	45,500	14	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,183
15	Jonathan Choi (USC)	44,612	15	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,107
16	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	42,765	16	David Weisbach (Chicago)	2,937
17	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	42,764	17	Kyle Rozema (Northwestern)	2,785
18	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	41,021	18	Michael Simkovic (USC)	2,674
19	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	36,798	19	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	2,457
20	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	36,019	20	Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.)	2,265
21	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	35,649	21	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	2,237
22	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	34,227	22	Andy Grewal (Iowa)	2,116
23	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	32,719	23	Edward McCaffery (USC)	2,063
24	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	31,666	24	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	2,003
25	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	30,744	25	Yariv Brauner (Florida)	1,978

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Rankings Without U.S. News: A Revealed Preference Approach To Evaluating Law Schools

Jesse Rothstein (UC-Berkeley; Google Scholar) & Albert Yoon (Toronto; Google Scholar), Rankings without U.S. News: A Revealed Preference Approach to Evaluating Law Schools, 21 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 279 (2024): 

Since their inception in 1989, the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings have influenced how schools, students, and the legal profession itself think about legal education. In the Fall of 2022, however, several of the most selective law schools formally withdrew from the annual rankings. In so doing, these schools laid bare longstanding criticisms of the rankings’ questionable criteria and opaque methodology. While the long-term effect of this boycott remains to be seen, school rankings are likely here to stay. In this Article we design a more informative approach to rankings, based on actual decisions students make. 

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The Great British Bake Off And Critiquing Student Legal Writing

Carolyn Young Larmore (Chapman; Google Scholar) & Abigail Patthoff (Chapman), Flour, Fondant & Feedback: What the Great British Bake Off Can Teach Us About Critiquing Student Legal Writing: 

We've all been there: a stack of legal memos towering, grading deadlines approaching, and suddenly that British baking show on Netflix seems irresistible. But what if your "Great British Bake Off" binge could actually make you a better legal writing professor? As it turns out, this delightful distraction serves up more than just a sweet escape from grading—it offers a surprisingly apt model for critiquing student work.

What is the Great British Bake Off?
The Great British Bake Off, or GBBO as it's affectionately known, has become a global phenomenon, capturing hearts even across the pond in America. While it hardly needs an introduction, we’ll briefly set the scene. Each season, twelve amateur bakers from across Great Britain compete in a giant kitchen tent on the lawn of a picturesque manor home. Weekly themed challenges, such as "French Patisserie Week" or "Bread Week," test the bakers' skills in timed trials. Two witty hosts provide commentary and narration, while judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith offer critiques and determine the bakers' fates. Each week, one baker is eliminated and another is crowned "Star Baker." There's no cash prize at stake; the ultimate winner receives only a commemorative cake plate and bragging rights—yet the show's popularity endures.

So what does this baking show have to do with legal writing? GBBO serves up a masterclass in project feedback—a crucial aspect of our roles as legal writing instructors.

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Juries And Tax: The Effect Of Income Taxation On Tort Damages

Jeffrey H. Kahn (Florida State) & John E. Lopatka (Penn State), Juries and Tax: The Effect of Income Taxation on Tort Damages, 76 S.C. L. Rev. 49 (2024):

In some shape or form, most tort damages for personal injuries have been excluded from federal income taxation since 1919. Despite this rule having celebrated its 100th birthday, the tax policy justification for the exclusion eludes consensus. Whether the policy is justified or not, the exclusion raises two other issues: should compensatory damage awards reflect non-taxability, and should juries be informed about tax treatment when determining awards? Like the disagreement over policy justifications for the exclusion, states are not in accord on their damage rule or approach to jury instructions.

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A Year Of Lessons From The Tax Court (2024)

Here is a chronological listing of all the Lessons From The Tax Court I posted in 2024, with links to the Lesson, the primary case discussed, and its author.  I have also listed the primary Code sections mentioned or discussed in the Lesson.  At the end of the chronological listing, you will find a table listing the posts by which Tax Court Judge authored the Court's opinion.

January 22: Changes

February 5: For Whom The SOL Tolls, Madiodio Sall v. Commissioner, 161 T.C. 13 (Nov. 30, 2023) (Judge Buch) — §7503, §7451, §6213(a), §7502, Rule 26(b)(1)(A), 135 Stat. 149, 1336 

March 4: Choose Your Return Preparer Carefully, Stephanie Murrin v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-10 (Jan. 26, 2024) (Judge Urda) — §6662, 31 U.S.C. §330, §6501, §6663, §250

April 1: Taxpayer Excused From Providing Sewage-Soaked Receipts, H. DeForest Boegart v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2024-4 (Mar. 4, 2024) (Judge Panuthos) — §162

April 1: The Interplay Of SSDI Benefits And The §104(a)(1) Exclusion, Donald Ecret and Kristen Ecret v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2024-23 (Feb. 14) (Judge Lauber) — §104(a)(1), §86(d), 42 U.S.C. 424a

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Perlman: Generative AI And The Future Of Legal Scholarship

Andrew M. Perlman (Dean, Suffolk; Google Scholar), Generative AI and the Future of Legal Scholarship:

Since ChatGPT's release in November 2022, legal scholars have grappled with generative AI's implications for the law, lawyers, and legal education. Articles have examined the technology's potential to transform the delivery of legal services, explored the attendant legal ethics concerns, identified legal and regulatory issues arising from generative AI’s widespread use, and discussed the impact of the technology on teaching and learning in law school.

By late 2024, generative AI has become so sophisticated that legal scholars now need to consider a new set of issues that relate to a core feature of the law professor's work: the production of legal scholarship itself.

To demonstrate the growing ability of generative AI to yield new insights and draft sophisticated scholarly text, the rest of this piece contains a new theory of legal scholarship drafted exclusively by ChatGPT. In other words, the article simultaneously articulates the way in which legal scholarship will change due to AI and uses the technology itself to demonstrate the point.

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Frequently Unanswered Questions: Scrutinizing The IRS's Informal Guidance

Marilyn Hajj (Virginia), Frequently Unanswered Questions: Scrutinizing the IRS's Informal Guidance:

Every year, a majority of Americans file taxes—but their tax returns often contain errors. The Internal Revenue Service provides informal tax guidance, including FAQs posted on their website, to assist taxpayers in fulfilling their obligations. These FAQs are meant to present tax information in a more readable way and offer supposedly clear information to help address taxpayers' questions. But do they actually achieve this goal? This study, the first of its kind, presents a pioneering analysis of the readability of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) posted on the IRS’s website, focusing on information most useful to lower-income taxpayers. In doing so, it makes significant interdisciplinary contributions to both the tax and poverty law literatures.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list.

1. [422 Downloads]  Rotten to the Core: The EU's Court of Justice Decision in Apple, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
2. [315 Downloads]  ETFs and the Wash Sale Loophole, by Michael Dambra (SUNY-Buffalo), Andrew Glover (University of Washington), Charles M.C. Lee (Stanford) & Phillip Quinn (University of Washington)
3. [307 Downloads]  False Idols In The Early History Of International Taxation, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)
4. [254 Downloads]  The Quiet Evolution In International Tax: Domestic Law And Double Taxation, by Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland; Google Scholar)
5. [223 Downloads]  The Consequences Of Limiting The Tax Deductibility Of R&D, by Mary Cowx (Arizona State; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lester (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Michelle L. Nessa (Michigan State; Google Scholar)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Using a Status Email Assignment In First-Year Legal Writing To Address Issues With Student Correspondence

Meredith Geller (Northern Illinois), ‘Yo, Prof!’ is Not the Proper Way to Address Me: Using a Status Email Assignment in First-Year Legal Writing to Address Issues with Student Correspondence: 

This article summarizes the status email assignment used in a first year legal writing class in order to help students with professional writing.  

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Florida Tax Review Publishes New Issue

The Florida Tax Review has published Vol. 27, No. 1 (Fall 2023): 

• Donald Lamar Ariail (Kennesaw State; Google Scholar), Dennis R. Lassila (Texas A&M; Google Scholar), Anita Reed (Texas A&M), Murphy Smith (Texas A&M; Google Scholar), Ethical Attitudes toward Taxes in the US: Changes Over 20 Years and Demographic Differences, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 1 (2023)
• Karen C. Burke (Florida; Google Scholar), Business-Entity Charitable Workarounds, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 37 (2023) 
• Mark J. Cowan (Boise State; Google Scholar) & Joshua Cutler (Boise State), ESG and the Demand for State Tax Incentives, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 78 (2023) 
• Yehonatan Givati (Hebrew University) & Andrew T. Hayashi (Virginia; Google Scholar), Tax Law Enforcement and Redistributive Policies, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 149 (2023) 
• Michael Hatfield (University of Washington; Google Scholar), Safeguarding Taxpayer Data, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 212 (2023) 
• Henry Ordower (St. Louis; Google Scholar), Unbundling Social Security from the Payroll Tax, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 269 (2023)
• Eric Reis (North Texas), Guaranteed Wealth?: A New Way of Thinking About the Gift Tax Treatment of Loan Guarantees, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 304 (2023) 
• Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.), The Role of Marriage in the Internal Revenue Code, 27 Fla. Tax Rev. 348 (2023) 

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Critical Curriculum Design To Cultivate Qualities Of ‘Engaged Citizenship’

Rachel López (Temple; Google Scholar), Critical Curriculum Design: 

Legal education in the United States stands at a critical juncture. As democracy faces mounting threats both at home and abroad, law schools must grapple with their role in shaping not just competent lawyers but engaged citizens capable of safeguarding democratic institutions. Yet the traditional model of teaching students to “think like a lawyer” may be inadvertently undermining the very values and norms essential to stabilizing our democracy.

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Professional Identity Formation And The NextGen Bar Open Opportunities For Law Student And Law School Success

Neil W. Hamilton (St. Thomas-MN), Professional Identity Formation and the NextGen Bar Open Opportunities for Law Student and Law School Success, 3 J.L. Teaching & Learning __ (2025):

All law faculty, staff, and students want students and graduates to be successful with respect to: (1) academic performance; (2) bar passage; (3) meaningful post-graduation employment; and (4) excellent service to clients and the legal system.  Both the 2022 changes to ABA accreditation Standard 303  and the ongoing implementation of the NextGen Bar starting in five states in 2026 and ten more states in 2027  open substantial opportunities for law students and law schools to achieve more success at these four goals.

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Avi-Yonah & Narotzki: The Tariffs Are Coming! The Tariffs Are Coming!

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & Doron Narotzki (Akron; Google Scholar), The Tariffs Are Coming! The Tariffs Are Coming!, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1991 (Dec. 9, 2024): 

In this installment of Reflections With Reuven Avi-Yonah, Avi-Yonah and Narotzki explain the use of tariffs and, in light of the new administration’s likelihood of maintaining current tariffs and adding new ones, suggest policies to make the best of the situation, including channeling economic tax benefits to middle- and low-income taxpayers.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #5.

1. [401 Downloads]  Rotten to the Core: The EU's Court of Justice Decision in Apple, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
2. [308 Downloads]  ETFs and the Wash Sale Loophole, by Michael Dambra (SUNY-Buffalo), Andrew Glover (University of Washington), Charles M.C. Lee (Stanford) & Phillip Quinn (University of Washington)
3. [299 Downloads]  False Idols In The Early History Of International Taxation, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)
4. [235 Downloads]  The Quiet Evolution In International Tax: Domestic Law And Double Taxation, by Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland; Google Scholar)
5. [216 Downloads]  The Consequences Of Limiting The Tax Deductibility Of R&D, by Mary Cowx (Arizona State; Google Scholar), Rebecca Lester (Stanford; Google Scholar) & Michelle L. Nessa (Michigan State; Google Scholar)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Raskolnikov Presents A New View Of Formal Equality At The Italian Society Of Law And Economics

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia) presented A New View of Formal Equality at Sapienza University of Rome yesterday as part of its 20th Annual Conference of the Italian Society of Law And Economics:

When it comes to equality under the law, the contemporary focus is decidedly on substance rather than form. This is especially so when economic inequality is concerned. Formal equality of law—understood as the absence of formal legal distinctions based on the material resources of individuals—has few defenders. At least since Rawls, formal equality has been viewed as a cause of material inequality, a foundation of laissez-faire capitalism, a fig leaf of sorts designed to give a veneer of justice to the unjust exploitation of the weak in a market economy. Whatever equality under the law means in contemporary view, formal equality is not it.

This Essay argues that the contemporary view is mistaken. Legal reforms consistent with formal equality of law may, indeed, lead to more inequality, but they may also lead to less. In fact, a commitment to formally equal law offers a counterweight to the key neoliberal maxim that regulation of a market economy should aim only at maximizing economic efficiency.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Elkins Reviews Glogower's The Constitutional Limits To The Taxing Power

This week, David Elkins (Netanya, Google Scholar) reviews Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), The Constitutional Limits to the Taxing Power, 93 Fordham L. Rev. 782 (2024).

Moore v. United States, decided in June of this year, has sparked a renewed interest in Constitutional issues by tax scholars. Much of the discussion focuses on the issue of whether the term “income” as used in the sixteenth amendment requires realization. Others have gone further, asserting that under the original Constitution, Congress has the power to impose tax on income, whether realized or not, and the sixteenth amendment was therefore unnecessary. At the heart of this broader outlook lies the Constitutional mandate that direct taxes be apportioned among the states by population. This provision would probably invalidate almost any direct tax except a capitation tax. For example, if an income tax were to be apportioned among the states proportionally by population, the tax rate in poorer states would need to be higher than it is in richer states. Thus, a key question is what the Constitution means by the term “direct tax.” The broader one interprets this term, the more one narrows Congress’s power to choose the tax base that it wishes, and vice versa.

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Hoopes: Should The IRS Regulate Tax Return Preparers?

Jeffrey L. Hoopes (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Should the IRS Regulate Tax Return Preparers?, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1963 (Dec. 2, 2024):

Tax compliance in the United States is costly and cumbersome. It is no surprise that more than half of all U.S. taxpayers believe it necessary to pay a return preparer to help them comply with their tax filing obligations. Tax advice, like legal advice, medical advice, and other forms of professional advice, is often given by extremely competent advisers who have spent a lifetime mastering the complex and changing environment in which they advise. And like legal advice and medical advice, the consequences of bad tax advice can be catastrophic. However, unlike legal and medical advice, tax advice is relatively unregulated in the United States. In this brief article, I review a single question poll to gauge what tax experts, mostly university-based accounting, law, and economics tax experts, think about the IRS’s regulation of return preparers. ...

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Glogower: The Constitutional Limits To The Taxing Power

Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), The Constitutional Limits to the Taxing Power, 93 Fordham L. Rev. 781 (2024):

The modern U.S. Supreme Court has elevated the apportionment requirement for direct taxes into the most important constitutional limitation to Congress’s taxing power. The U.S. Constitution requires that any “direct tax” must be apportioned among the states by population, which is impracticable or impossible for a tax today. The modern interpretative approach focuses on the formal categorization of the tax base, as either a “direct tax” or not. This approach could bar Congress from enacting certain taxes—such as a federal wealth tax or possibly even capital income tax reforms—simply through their formal labeling as direct taxes.

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Symposium: Tributes To Michael Olivas

Symposium, Tributes to Michael Olivas, 61 Hous. L. Rev. 881-952  (2024): 

• Gerald Torres (Yale), Celebrating Michael Olivas, 61 Hous. L. Rev. 881 (2024)
• Steven W. Bender (Seattle) & Ediberto Román (Florida Int'l), Sin Vergüenza: Michael Olivas and Crop Cultivation, 61 Hous. L. Rev. 889 (2024)

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Thirty-Ninth Annual Survey Of White Collar Crime: Tax Violations

Sophia Li, Luke Meyer, Savannah Myers & Lucas Quinn, Thirty-Ninth Annual Survey of White Collar Crime: Tax Violations, 61 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1113 (2024): 

This Article outlines the elements, defenses, and sentencing consequences of select criminal tax violations of Title 26 of the United States Code, the Internal Revenue Code ("I.R.C."), which are prosecuted under an array of criminal tax statutes. Section II of this article examines the policies and procedures of Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") criminal investigations. In doing so, it addresses the basic elements of, defenses to, and sanctions for five principal tax crimes: (i) tax evasion under I.R.C. § 7201; (ii) willful failure to collect tax under § 7202; (iii) willful failure to file taxes under § 7203; (iv) tax perjury and aiding and assisting tax fraud under § 7206; and (v) interference with the administration of internal revenue laws under § 7212(a). 

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After Affirmative Action: Contextual Admissions And The Future Of African American Law School Enrollment

Nathan L. Bennett Fleming (Wake Forest), After Affirmative Action: Contextual Admissions and the Future of African American Law School Enrollment, 76 Okla. L. Rev. 629 (2024): 

The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (“SFFA v. Harvard”) signaled the end of affirmative action in higher education, launching higher education law into unchartered territory. The Court’s mandate of race neutrality in admissions is expected to lead to a steep decline in higher education participation for underrepresented minorities, particularly African Americans. For law schools, the impact of the Court’s decision is expected to be even more harmful because the underrepresentation of African Americans persisted during the affirmative action era. Many scholars have called for implementing socioeconomic admissions preferences as a substitute for race-conscious admissions; however, experts predict that one-third of Harvard’s Latino admits and at least half of Harvard’s African American admits would likely be rejected through use of a class-based admissions. Universities must explore all available tools to secure diversity in higher education.

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Wallace & Welton: Luxury, Pigouvian, Sin, Oh My — A Politically Agreeable Carbon Tax

Clinton G. Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar) & Shelley Welton (Penn), Luxury, Pigouvian, Sin, Oh My: A Politically Agreeable Carbon Tax, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1755 (Dec. 2, 2024):

Policymakers and commentators mostly treat economic inequality and climate change as distinct and unrelated challenges. In contrast, the public has been taking a less siloed view: Kim Kardashian, Jeff Bezos, and Kylie Jenner have all received blowback, often on social media, for their consumption that produces carbon emissions. Most recently, critics berated Taylor Swift for the massive carbon emissions caused by her private jet use, arguing that her actions belie her everywoman political orientation. The climate change implications of the lifestyles of the rich and famous are starting to permeate the public consciousness.

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Symposium: The Rocky Mountain Collective On Race, Place, And Law

Symposium, The Rocky Mountain Collective on Race, Place, and Law (RPL), 101 Denv. L. Rev. 443-517 (2024):

• Rashmi Goel (Denver; Google Scholar), The RPL Effect, 101 Denv. L. Rev. 447 (2024)
• Katherine Steefel (Denver), From Whiteboard to Statement of Principles: The Development of the Rocky Mountain Collective on Race, Place & Law's Principles, 101 Denv. L. Rev. 455 (2024)
• Alexi Freeman (Denver), The Staying Power of RPL: Fostering Belonging Among Students, 101 Denv. L. Rev. 465 (2024)

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Raskolnikov Presents Taxes And Tournaments Today At The Italian Society Of Law And Economics

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia) presents Taxes and Tournaments, 2025 Mich. St. L. Rev. ___, at Sapienza University of Rome today as part of its 20th Annual Conference of the Italian Society Of Law And Economics:

What is the best way to reduce economic inequality? Economists, lawyers, political philosophers and politicians have pondered this question for decades. Yet there is another group of savvy and highly motivated individuals who have been thinking about redistribution for just as long. Commissioners of the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball together with team owners and player unions have been inventing and reinventing ways to redistribute resources, and they continue to do so today. The same is true of the President of National Collegiate Athletic Association along with the heads of Big Ten, Big Twelve and other powerful athletic conferences. This Article asks what we can learn from their experiences.

The answer, it turns out, is that we can learn quite a bit. Key tax policy questions-whether it is better to have one tax base or many, whether non-tax rules should take distributional effects into account, whether it is better to redistribute in cash or in kind, whether redistribution should take place at the national or local level, and whether predistribution is superior to redistribution all arise in major sports competitions.

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Johnson: The Misfocused Excise Tax On Stock Buybacks

Calvin H. Johnson (Texas), The Misfocused Excise Tax on Stock Buybacks, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1745 (Dec. 2, 2024): 

In this article, Johnson argues that the Treasury green book proposal to increase the excise tax on stock buybacks to 4 percent would do more harm than good because it would shift distributions from buybacks to unjustly taxed dividends and increase corporate accumulations and already excessive CEO salaries.

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Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping The Law School Curriculum To Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, And A Thriving Legal Field

Katya S. Cronin (George Washington), Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field, 101 U. Det. L. Rev. 257 (2024): 

For three long and harrowing years in law school, students learn to think like lawyers, to put their clients first, to interpret the law as it stands, to deftly advocate for positions they do not believe in, and to strive for successful and prestigious careers. These lessons help them develop analytical and advocacy skills, creativity and perseverance, a strong work ethic, and ambition. But there is a darker side to these learning objectives. What law students often take away from their time in law school is that their own personal beliefs, values, and experiences are irrelevant to the practice of law. They quickly learn that they must serve clients and employers, however personally distasteful or damaging it may be to them. And they begin to measure their worth and success by the yardsticks of prestige and money. Hearing these consistent albeit subliminal messages, law students frequently disassociate from the expectations that their future careers should reflect their inner selves, and they soon find themselves trapped in jobs they consider morally taxing or meaningless. When faced with such recurring conflicts between their work obligations and personal values, or with an overarching feeling of professional meaninglessness, most lawyers experience chronic cognitive dissonance, turn to alcohol or controlled substances for comfort, or develop anxiety, depression, and a host of other emotional, mental, and physical ailments. They lose interest in their work, perform worse, and experience burnout, thus jeopardizing not only their own well-being, but also client outcomes and the stability of the legal field in the long run.

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Sheffrin: Realization Makes An Intellectual Comeback

Steven M. Sheffrin (Tulane; Google Scholar), Realization Makes an Intellectual Comeback, 185 Tax Notes Fed. 1737 (Dec. 2, 2024): 

The case for taxing unrealized capital gains is based on the Haig-Simons definition of income. In this definition, income equals consumption plus savings when savings includes both realized and unrealized capital gains. If asset prices change because of changes in future cash flows, Haig-Simons income can provide an appropriate guide for designing tax policies. However, asset prices can also change because of changes in interest or discount rates. There is a long and ongoing literature in tax policy that recognizes that asset price changes arising from interest or discount rate changes do not fit into the Haig-Simons framework.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #4.

1. [371 Downloads]  Rotten to the Core: The EU's Court of Justice Decision in Apple, by Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Stephen Daly (King's College London; Google Scholar)
2. [292 Downloads]  False Idols In The Early History Of International Taxation, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)
3. [291 Downloads]  ETFs and the Wash Sale Loophole, by Michael Dambra (SUNY-Buffalo), Andrew Glover (University of Washington), Charles M.C. Lee (Stanford) & Phillip Quinn (University of Washington)
4. [204 Downloads]  The Quiet Evolution In International Tax: Domestic Law And Double Taxation, by Craig Elliffe (University of Auckland; Google Scholar)
5. [178 Downloads]  The U.N. Framework Tax Convention: Can It Bridge the North-South Divide?, by Assaf Harpaz (Georgia; Google Scholar)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.