Here are the new 2012 U.S. News Tax Rankings, along with last year’s rankings. The big changes from 2011 are (1) Florida moving ahead of Georgetown at #2, and (2) the number of schools without tax LL.M. programs moving up in the rankings (10) and the number of schools with tax LL.M. programs moving down (6):

2012 Rank	Tax Program	2011 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Florida	3
3	Georgetown	2
4	Northwestern	4
5	Miami	5
6	Harvard	8
7	UCLA	11
8	Virginia	10
9	Boston University	6
10	Columbia	14
10	Loyola-L.A.	9
10	Stanford	13
10	Texas	18
14	Michigan	16
14	USC	16
16	Boston College	18
16	Pennsylvania	n/r
16	San Diego	6
16	Villanova	21
20	U. Washington	n/r
21	Chapman	n/r
22	Chicago	21
22	UC-Hastings	18
n/r	Denver	12
n/r	SMU	14

Here are the rankings of the graduate tax programs, along with last year’s rankings:

2012 Rank	Grad Tax Program	2011 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Florida	3
3	Georgetown	2
4	Northwestern	4
5	Miami	5
6	Boston University	6
7	Loyola-L.A.	8
8	San Diego	6
8	Villanova	11
10	U. Washington	n/r
11	Chapman	n/r
n/r	Denver	9
n/r	SMU	10

The U.S. News tax survey instrument states that it is intended “to identify the law schools having the top programs in tax law.” The survey is sent “to a sample of law school faculty listed in the AALS Directory of Law Teachers 2009-2010 as currently teaching a course or seminar in tax law.” Recipients are asked “to [i]dentify up to fifteen (15) schools that have the highest-quality tax law courses or programs. In making your choices consider all elements that contribute to a program’s excellence, for example, the depth and breadth of the program, faculty research and publication record, etc.”

As Donald Tobin (Ohio State) has noted, it is more than strange that NYU has finished ahead of Florida and Georgetown each year that U.S. News has conducted the survey.  Because the survey ranks the schools by how often they appear on the respondents’ “Top 15” lists, this means that some folks list NYU, but not Florida and Georgetown, among the Top 15 tax programs.

For more on tax rankings, see our article, Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Where?, which compiles information about 13 highly ranked tax LLM programs: (1) NYU; (2) Florida; (3) Georgetown; (4) Northwestern; (5) Miami; (6) Boston University; (7) San Diego; (8) Loyola-L.A./LMU; (9) SMU; (10) Denver; (11) University of Washington; (12) Villanova; and (13) Chapman. The topics on which information is reported in the Article include: (1) tuition; (2) scholarships; (3) the full-time tax professors who teach in each program and the tax courses they teach; (4) the number of full-time and part-time students enrolled in each program; (5) general information about adjunct professors teaching in each program; (6) required courses; (7) elective courses, specialty certificates, and concentrations; (8) opportunities to develop tax practice skills by taking experiential learning courses and simulated practice courses; (9) extracurricular tax activities; (10) opportunities to graduate with honors or receive academic prizes; and (11) career planning and placement services offered to students in each program. The article also ranks the tax faculty at these thirteen law schools by citations (the Top 5 are NYU (1), Florida (2), Georgetown (3), Miami (4), and Northwestern (5)) and SSRN downloads (the Top 5 are Loyola-L.A. (1), NYU (2), Chapman (3), Florida (4), and San Diego (5)).

Other resources available on TaxProf Blog include:

• Links to All 32 Graduate Tax Programs
• Tax Faculty Rankings
• Graduate Tax Faculty Rankings
• Tax Professor Rankings
• Tax Faculty Metropolitan Area Rankings
• Links to Tax Colloquia Workshop Series (left column of the blog)