The Columbia Journal of Tax Law has published its fifth issue (Vol. 3, No. 1):

• Linda Sugin (Fordham), Tax Expenditures, Reform, and Distributive Justice, 3 Colum. J. Tax. L. 1 (2012):  "Tax reform is coming, and it will be an important part of any plan to avert national fiscal disaster. The President’s Fiscal Commission recently presented a proposal for comprehensive tax reform that will form the basis for serious legislative discussion. At the center of that proposal is elimination of “tax expenditures,” which are provisions in the tax law that operate like direct government spending. They include the charitable deduction, the home mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, the child credit, the earned income credit, education credits and deductions, the tax preference for retirement savings accounts like IRAs and 401(k) plans, and dozens of others. This article argues that elimination of tax expenditures is a flawed approach to tax reform. Tax expenditures are not an undifferentiated mass, but reflect a wide variety of federal policies, each of which requires independent evaluation. Before policymakers can decide whether to abolish tax expenditures, they need to know a lot more than the tax expenditure budgets currently reveal about what tax expenditures do, who benefits from them, and how much revenue could be raised by their repeal. They also need to decisively identify which provisions are tax expenditures, a perennial source of disagreement. This article argues that proposals to repeal tax expenditures reflect a normative preference for efficiency over equity, the traditional twin goals of tax policy, squandering the tax law’s unique role in economic justice."
• Ilan Benshalom (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Law) & Kendra Stead (J.D. 2010, Northwestern)), Realization and Progressivity, 3 Colum. J. Tax Law 43 (2012):  "The realization requirement is the income tax’s original sin. Although long-standing, it is widely considered the main source of tax complexity, inequity, and economic distortion. Despite these problems, realization is also considered a fundamental element of modern income tax regimes. It is explained early in most federal income tax courses as necessitated by problems of asset valuation and taxpayer liquidity. To the dismay of certain professors, this explanation usually generates little class discussion. More worrisome, it is also widely accepted outside the classroom—prompting few political objections or normative academic inquiries. The goal of this article is to provide a normative framework that allows policymakers to better understand the role of the realization requirement. It makes two related arguments. First, with respect to certain emotionally non-fungible (personal) assets, the realization requirement is normatively justified because the market price is not a good indication of the assets’ value to their owners. Second, contrary to the traditional view of realization as a regressive element, taxing only these personal assets upon realization would promote income tax progressivity. This article’s normative approach provides a basis for developing a more effective and coherent redistributive income tax policy. This analysis contributes to the broader tax reform debate and opens a novel theoretical inquiry with respect to the distributive impact of different types of errors.
• Tamar E. Lusztig (J.D. 2011, Columbia), Note, Deducting the Cost of Sex Reassignment Surgery: How O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner Can Help Us Make Sense of the Medical Expense Deduction, 3 Colum. J. Tax. L. 86 (2012):  "In February 2010, the Tax Court held that a taxpayer’s expenses incurred for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery were deductible as medical expenses under § 213 because they treated the disease of gender identity disorder. The court, however, was deeply divided in its determination of whether sex reassignment surgery qualifies as nondeductible cosmetic surgery under § 213(d)(9). In 1990, Congress amended § 213 to exclude cosmetic surgery from the definition of deductible medical care. Since then, the Tax Court and the IRS have rarely addressed the meaning and extent of that exclusion. The judges’ divergent opinions in O’Donnabhain make it clear that a thorough examination of the statutory meaning of cosmetic surgery is timely. This Note considers what should qualify as cosmetic surgery within the context of the medical expense deduction. It argues that a medical procedure that improves physical appearance should be deductible under § 213 when it is physician-prescribed treatment for a specific disease, and consistent with generally accepted medical practice. This analysis is grounded in the statutory language of § 213, and is supported by broader principles that bear on the policy debate surrounding the medical expense deduction more generally."