Legendary Tax Prof James S. Eustice, Gerald L. Wallace Professor of Taxation Emeritus at NYU, died yesterday at the age of 77. From NYU Dean Richard Revesz:
Jim was a legendary figure in the field of tax law and a beloved member of the Law School community since he joined our faculty in 1960. After graduating from the Law School with his LL.M. in taxation in 1958, he went on to work for White & Case for two years before returning to NYU to become a full professor at age 32. A distinguished scholar, Jim’s treatise on corporate tax law has long been viewed as the authoritative work on the subject, widely cited by the Supreme Court and regularly used by academics and practitioners. He was deeply committed to the Law School during his more than five decades here, teaching thousands of students in almost every tax course available. After retirement, he remained dedicated to his work as of counsel at the firm of Cooley LLP, where he founded the tax department in 1970, and continued to teach at the Law School. He was co-teaching Taxation of Affiliated Corporations this Spring, and remained active and engaged to the very end.
Jim was a wonderful mentor, a generous colleague, and a dear friend. A familiar presence around the institution, Jim will be deeply missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Carol Fonda Eustice, daughter Cynthia Lapier, son James M. Eustice, and their families during this incredibly difficult time.
I will share further details about funeral arrangements as soon as I have more information.
From Jim’s NYU faculty web page:
Eustice’s main philosophy is to teach the Internal Revenue Code itself, rather than the policy implications of that document. “I’ve always viewed my main mission as getting people up to snuff on what the law is, rather than what it ought to be. This is the only area of the law where you really do close-in-cape-work with a detailed and complicated statute. There are some statutory courses, but there’s nothing really like the Code and its six volumes of regulations.”
10 responses to “Death of Jim Eustice”
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
The tax world loses a giant
The TaxProf reports sad news: The Death of Jim Eustice. Anybody who has practiced in corporate tax owes a debt…
I had the luck to take Professor Eustice’s class in Reorgs while working on an LLM at NYU in the 70s. A brilliant and kind man. I will keep him in my prayers
The only problem with Jim was that while I could keep up at first, pretty soon he was up somewhere in the stratosphere, and I was unable to follow or tell how he got there. I doubt I could follow today.
An extraordinary brilliant professor. I have a clear recollection of this young man in the early sixties lecturing on assignment of income and illustrating his point by drawing a figure of a tree and its fruit on the blackboard. It seems like yesterday to me.
When there’s a tax professor that students know of at another law school, you know that it’s someone important. He’ll be missed.
He is important and I loved his book and writing style.
Not to quible, but the legendary Corporate text was co-authored by the equally lengendary Boris Bittker. Let’s credit them both
I was a full-time student in the “tax school” during the 1962-1963 academic year. Simply stated, Jim Eustice was a great teacher and my personal favorite. Robert M.
A memorial service for my father, Jim Eustice, will be held on Monday, May 9th at 2:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York on Fifth Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets. Donations may be made in his memory to Hospice through http://www.mjhsfoundation.org.