Daniel Hemel gave the Norman A. Sugarman Tax Lecture, titled “Taxation and Animals,” at Case Western Reserve University School of Law on March 17, 2026. The accompanying piece will appear in volume 77 of the Case Western Law Review. Here is the abstract to that piece:

Animals have played a central role in tax systems for at least five millennia. Over that long stretch, tax systems have shaped and reshaped the relationship between humans and nonhumans. Tax systems historically have reflected and projected four sometimes-overlapping and sometimes-incompatible images of nonhuman animals: as sources of income and wealth; as luxury accoutrements; as generators of external harm; and as ends in themselves. This lecture traces each of these four images through tax history, explains how tax systems have influenced the evolution of human-animal relations, and explores the potential for tax law to play a productive part in reducing the amount of suffering that humans inflict upon nonhuman animals every day.