Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
2013
-
Heriot: The Sad Irony of Affirmative Action
National Affairs: The Sad Irony of Affirmative Action, by Gail Heriot (San Diego): The biggest change since Grutter, though, has nothing to do with Court membership. It is the mounting empirical evidence that race preferences are doing more harm than good — even for their supposed beneficiaries. If this evidence is correct, we now have fewer African-American…
-
Listokin Presents Tax Expenditure Salience Today at Toronto
Yair Listokin (Yale) presents Tax Expenditure Salience (with Jacob Goldin (Ph.D. Candidate (Economics), Princeton) at Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Ben Alarie: We provide survey evidence regarding taxpayer perceptions of two important tax expenditures — the charitable contribution deduction (CD) and the home mortgage…
-
Merritt: Law School Applications, Starting Salaries (But Not Tuition) Sink to Pre-1985 Levels
Deborah Jones Merritt (Ohio State), Historic Levels: According to the Law School Admission Council, about 68,000 students applied for spots in this fall's entering class. Almost half way through the current admission cycle, it looks like about 53,000 students will apply for the fall 2013 class. When did law schools last see that number of applicants? Not in…
-
9th Circuit: The Tax Court, the APA, and Innocent Spouse Relief
Wilson v. Commissioner, No. 10-72754 (9th Cir. Jan. 15, 2013): Affirming the Tax Court’s grant of innocent spouse relief under § 6015, the panel held that the Tax Court properly reviewed new evidence outside the administrative record and correctly applied a de novo standard of review in determining the taxpayer’s eligibility for equitable relief based…
-
TIGTA: IRS Has 60% Error Rate in Policing Noncash Charitable Contribution Deduction
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Many Taxpayers Are Still Not Complying With Noncash Charitable Contribution Reporting Requirement (2013-40-009): TIGTA estimates more than 273,000 taxpayers claimed approximately $3.8 billion in potentially erroneous noncash charitable contributions in Tax Year 2010, which resulted in an estimated $1.1 billion reduction in tax. … IRS controls…
-
Galler: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Farid But Were Afraid to Ask
Linda Galler (Hofstra), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Farid But Were Afraid to Ask, 13 Fla Tax Rev. 461 (2012): If you are or have been a student of federal income tax, chances are that you have studied Farid-Es-Sultaneh v. Commissioner, 160 F.2d 812 (2d Cir. 1947), a case addressing a wife’s tax…
-
SSRN Tax Professor Download Rankings
SSRN has updated its monthly rankings of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database. Here is the new list (through January 1, 2013) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads…
-
Fleischer: ‘Tax Extenders’ That Slip Under the Radar
New York Times DealBook: ‘Tax Extenders’ That Slip Under the Radar, by Victor Fleischer (Colorado): The best tax loopholes hide in plain sight. While the recent fiscal negotiations focused mostly on changes to the top income rate, the final bill (H.R. 8) contains a bonanza—52, to be exact—of what are known as “tax extenders.” The…
-
2012 Law School Survey of Student Engagement
The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) has released its 2012 Annual Survey Results: The Law School Survey of Student Engagement focuses on activities that affect learning in law school. The results show how law students use their time, what they think about their experience in law school, and what schools can do to…
-
Cato Hosts Book Forum Today on Tamanaha’s Failing Law Schools
The Cato Institute hosts a Book Forum today at noon EST (free live webcast here) on Brian Tamanaha (Washington U.), Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012)): For decades, American law schools enjoyed one of the world’s great winning streaks. Amid swelling enrollments and what seemed an insatiable demand for new lawyers, they went on…
-
ObamaCare Tax Will Hit U.S. Citizens Working Abroad
Financial Post: Obamacare Could Cost Some Canadians a Lot of Money: In the wee hours of Jan. 1, 2013, as most of the country was catching some shuteye after the previous night’s New Year’s Eve festivities, the U.S. Senate passed the American Taxpayer Relief Tax Act of 2012 or, as some people refer to it,…
-
Provost’s Refusal to Reappoint Long-Serving Dean Roils SMU
Memorandum from Provost Paul W. Ludden to SMU Law Faculty and Staff (Jan. 3, 2013) ABA Journal, LawSchool Benefactor Resigns From its Executive Board to Protest Surprising News of Dean’s Ouster Above the Law, Dean’s Ouster Inspires Outrage From Trustees, Joy From Students Dallas Morning News, SMU Ousts Law School Dean Leiter’s Law School Reports,…
-
IRS Announces Optional $1,500 Home Office Deduction in Lieu of Depreciation
IR-2013-5: IRS Announces Simplified Option for Claiming Home Office Deduction Starting This Year; Eligible Home-Based Businesses May Deduct up to $1,500: The IRS today announced a simplified option that many owners of home-based businesses and some home-based workers may use to figure their deductions for the business use of their homes. In tax year 2010,…
-
What Rights Do Faculty Have in the Decision to Close a Law School?
Inside Higher Ed: Shared Crisis: Citing a recent wave of unilateral moves to eliminate academic programs by university administrators claiming financial crisis, the American Association of University Professors today released new guidelines designed to tighten the definition of financial exigency and increase faculty participation in deciding whether to close programs. … AAUP accepts that academic…
-
Fleming, Peroni & Shay: Designing a U.S. Exemption System for Foreign Income When the Treasury is Empty
J. Clifton Fleming Jr. (BYU), Robert J. Peroni (Texas) & Stephen E. Shay (Harvard), Designing a U.S. Exemption System for Foreign Income When the Treasury is Empty, 13 Fla. Tax Rev. 397 (2012): This article springs from two concurrent phenomena. First, U.S. federal deficit spending projections indicate that any feasible deficit reduction plan will require…
-
Free Live Webcast: Pepperdine/Tax Analysts Symposium — Tax Advice for the Second Obama Administration
For those unable to join us in Malibu this Friday (Jan. 18) for our symposium on Tax Advice for the Second Obama Administration: please check out the free live webcast beginning at 8:45 a.m. PST: Introduction and Welcome Deanell Tacha (Dean, Pepperdine) Chris Bergin (President, Tax Analysts) Keynote Address: Michael Graetz (Columbia) Occupy the Tax…
-
Zelinsky: The Counterproductive Nature of Tax Expenditure Budgets
Edward A. Zelinsky (Cadozo), The Counterproductive Nature of Tax Expenditure Budgets, 137 Tax Notes 1317 (Dec. 17, 2012): Paradoxically, the tax expenditure movement has succeeded procedurally but failed substantively: As tax expenditure budgets were firmly implanted in the federal and state budget processes, tax expenditures burgeoned. An explanation for this paradox is that tax expenditure…
-
Parents’ College Financial Assistance Decreases Their Children’s GPA
New York Times; Parents’ Financial Support May Not Help College Grades: Parents saving for college costs, take heed: A new national study has found that the more college money parents provide — whether in absolute terms or as a share of total costs — the lower their children’s college grades. Students from wealthy families are…
-
2013 Law Firm Outlook
Citi Private Bank and Hildebrandt Consulting LLC have released 2013 Law Firm Outlook: [W]e expect that the trends of the past four years will continue into the foreseeable future. Demand, revenue and profit growth will be modest, although overall potential for increased demand exists as financial markets settle down and the economy strengthens. Law firm…
-
NY Times: Deductibility of Multibillion-Dollar Mortgage Settlements
New York Times: Paying the Price, but Often Deducting It, by Gretchen Morgenson: With multibillion-dollar mortgage settlements making headlines this year and last, the question has come to the fore again. Why should taxpayers subsidize corporations that are paying to right sometimes egregious wrongs? That is a particularly weighty question, given the urgent need for…
-
Peer Reviewed Scholarship Marketplace Seeks Authors and Reviewers
Following up on my prior posts (here and here): the Peer Reviewed Scholarship Marketplace has issued this press release seeking authors and reviewers: Peer Reviewed Scholarship Marketplace (“PRSM”), a consortium of student-edited legal journals, exists to provide student-editors with peer evaluations of legal-scholarship manuscripts and to assure the publication of quality articles. PRSM connects authors and…
-
NY Times: An Incomplete AMT Fix
New York Times editorial: An Incomplete Fix: Thanks to the fiscal cliff deal, the alternative minimum tax will not ensnare tens of millions of middle-class Americans for whom it was never intended. The deal raised the income thresholds before the AMT kicks in and indexes them for inflation going forward. As a practical matter, this…
-
New York to Consider Making Third Year of Law School Optional
New York Law Journal: FDR Did Fine Without a 3L Year: New York May Let Law Students Once Again Take the Bar Exam After Two Years: The third year of law school has long been a punching bag for critics who argue it's a waste of time and drives up the costs of a law…
-
Starkman: E-Filing and the Explosion in Tax-Return Fraud
Wall Street Journal op-ed: E-Filing and the Explosion in Tax-Return Fraud, by Jay Starkman: Tax-identity theft exploded to more than 1.1 million cases in 2011 from 51,700 in 2008. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration last summer reported discovering an additional 1.5 million potentially fraudulent 2011 tax refunds totaling in excess of $5.2 billion.…
-
Diamond: Lawyers for America: A J.D. Version of Teach for America
Expanding on an idea he raised in a comment to my prior post, Diamond: Law School Is Not a 'Scam': Stephen Diamond (Santa Clara), Beyond the “Scam” Debate About Law Schools: Lawyers for America – A Modest Proposal: The debate over whether or not law school is a “scam” would seem to be largely over.…