A Sunday New York Times article on Judge Roberts’ work as a Supreme Court Law Clerk,  As Clerk for Rehnquist, Nominee Stood Out for Conservative Rigor, had yet another example of the Supreme Court dissing tax cases:

Justice Rehnquist let the clerks decide who would handle which case. They used a system similar to the NFL draft, but with a twist. The clerks could use a vote to claim a case or to reject one, all before knowing whether Justice Rehnquist would be assigned to write the majority opinion or decide to write a concurrence or dissent. A clerk who did not vote carefully . . . "could get stuck with a lot of tax cases."

I chronicled the history of Supreme Court tax slights in Tax Myopia, or Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Tax Lawyers, 13 Va. Tax Rev. 517, 525-26 (1994):

The view that tax law is less interesting or important than other areas of law pervades even the Supreme Court. For example, one proffered explanation for Justice Marshall’s productivity in the tax field is that the conservative Chief Justices under whom he served refused to assign him more important cases: "Justice Marshall was forced to write on federal income tax because he was given nothing better to do." Other members of the Court apparently share this view of tax law. For example, when asked why he sings along with the Chief Justice at the Court’s annual Christmas party, Justice Souter replied, "I have to. Otherwise I get all the tax cases." Although similar remarks have been attributed to other justices, the most recent Supreme Court appointee may help change this perception of tax law. Justice Ginsburg’s husband is one of the "tax legends" referred to earlier, and the gender discrimination case that launched her carrer was a tax case.

(Thanks to Neil Buchanan (Rutgers-Newark) and Gregg Polsky (Minnesota) for the tip.)