It is with heavy hearts that Jim Repetti and I share the news that our friend, mentor, and co-author Paul McDaniel, James J. Freeland Eminent Scholar in Taxation and Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, is seriously ill with stage IV mesothelioma. We join Paul’s wife Ginny and family in fervently praying for Paul.

By any reckoning, Paul is one of the most influential tax scholars and teachers of the past 50 years. Paul’s signal scholarly achievement among his fifty law review articles and ten books is his pioneering work on tax expenditure analysis with Stanley Surrey, culminating in their 1985 Harvard University Press book, Tax Expenditures. Paul has influenced generations of tax students with his six casebooks (Federal Income Taxation, Federal Income Taxation of Business Organizations, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations, Federal Income Taxation of Partnerships and S Corporations, Federal Wealth Transfer Taxation, and Introduction to United States International Taxation).

For us, being asked to join Paul as a co-author was one of the proudest (and most intimidating) moments of our careers. In working with Paul, we have been repeatedly struck by his encyclopedic knowledge of the tax law, clear yet elegant prose, and organizational genius. But what stands out most for us has been Paul’s incredible grace and patience in nurturing two junior co-authors struggling to match the high standards he set in prior editions. Jim is especially grateful to have also benefitted from Paul’s tutelage as his student at Boston College Law School and later as his colleague at Hill & Barlow and Boston College.

We had to convince a reluctant Paul to allow us to share this news with his many friends and admirers in the tax community. We know you will appreciate the opportunity to send Paul your best wishes and to let him know what he has meant to you. We will print the comments received to this post in a book for Paul and his family.