Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Linda Beale (Illinois) has been promoted to Associate Professor at Illinois. Here is the announcement from Dean Heidi Hurd:

Professor Linda Beale focuses on issues relating to book and tax accounting differences and the role of external auditors in reporting companies’ tax-motivated transactions. She published two comment letters on the impact of tax planning on auditor independence as Current and Quotable, Tax Profs Urged SEC to Take Tough Stance on Auditor Independence, 98 Tax Notes 765 (Feb. 3, 2003). A longer article on the relationship between tax risk and auditor independence, Putting SEC Heat on Audits and Corporate Tax Shelters: Responding to Tax Risks with Sunshine, Shame and Strict Liability, appeared in the Journal of Corporation Law (Winter 2004). Professor Beale’s most recent article, Book-Tax Conformity and the Corporate Tax Shelter Debate: A Mark-to-Market Safe Harbor? (forthcoming in the Virginia Tax Review, 2004), considers the role of structural coherence and voluntary compliance in assessing book-tax conformity rules and applies those concepts to the government’s proposal for a conformity safe harbor for fair market evaluation of interest rate swaps under mark-to-market rules. A shorter article dealing with the Tax Court’s Bank One decision on dealer mark-to-market valuations, Tax Court’s Decision in Bank One Raises More Questions Than It Answers, appears in the Journal of Taxation of Investments (Autumn 2003). Professor Beale’s publications also include An Overview of the U.S. Federal Income Tax Treatment of Collateralized Debt Obligation Transactions (co-authored with David Miller & Paul Wysocki), 14 J. of Tax’n of Financial Institutions 27 (2001); and Developments May Lead SEC to Ban Certain Tax Services Under Sarbanes-Oxley Independence Rules, 16 J. of Tax’n of Financial Institutions 5 (2003).