Christoph B. Rosenberg (IMF) & Marius van Oordt (Independent), Taxing Harmful Habits, Fin. & Dev. Mag. (IMF, Mar. 2026):
Taxation is more than a fiscal instrument; it is a powerful lever for shaping healthier societies. . . .
Read More
Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
-
IMF’s F&D Magazine: Taxing Harmful Habits
-
National Jurist: Top law schools for trial advocacy
Top law schools for trial advocacy
National Jurist lists the following law schools as earning a place on itsr Trial Advocacy Honor Roll:
School Name Honor Roll Albany Law School B+ American University A Arizona State University A- Brigham Young University B+ Cardozo School of Law A+ Case Western Reserve U. A- Chapman Fowler School of Law A- Cleveland State University B+ Cornell Law School B+ Drake University A- -
NY Times: They Want to Stop Paying Taxes as a Protest. There Are Consequences.
Tara Siegel Bernard, They Want to Stop Paying Taxes as a Protest. There Are Consequences, N.Y. Times (Mar. 22, 2026):
“How can I pay taxes when I don’t want to pay for things I abhor, while neglecting things I care about?” asked [a retired chaplain in Sonoma, California], who objects to paying for immigration detention camps and the U.S. war on Iran. “Is there a monetary conscientious objector program?” . . .
Read More -
Above the Law: The Law Schools That Are Working The Hardest To Expand The Pipeline To The Legal Profession
Above the Law brought another ranking of law schools to my attention — and attempting to measure something important at that. According to preLaw magazine, the are the law schools on the Justice & Opportunity Honor Roll earned A grades for their efforts to expand access to legal education (listed in alphabetical order):
- CUNY School of Law
- Elon University
- Georgetown University
- Gonzaga University
- Lewis & Clark Law School
- Lincoln Memorial University
- Loyola University New Orleans
- Mitchell Hamline
- Purdue Global Law School
- Roger Williams University
- Seattle University
- South Texas Houston
- Southwestern Law School
- St. Mary’s University
- Suffolk University
- Touro Law
- University at Buffalo
- University of Arkansas at Little Rock
- University of Houston
- University of Tennessee
- Widener University Commonwealth
Click here to see the rest of the Honor Roll.
-
Book of the Week
Beth Macy, author of the widely acclaimed Dopesick, which tells the story of the pharmaceutical’s role in the opioid crisis, now brings us a searing memoir detailing her very personal story of how the hollowing out of America’s heartland has devastated her hometown and wreaked havoc with her family. Taking its title, Paper Girl, from her job delivering newspapers as she grew up with little money in Urbana, Ohio, the book goes far beyond previous attempts by others to capture what has gone wrong in day to day life in middle America. A renowned journalist and now candidate for Congress, Macy makes readers feel what others have merely described. Don’t miss it.
-
SSRN Review & Roundup: Saito Reviews Noked, Kim & Avi-Yonah’s How the U.S. Constitution Shapes International Tax Law
This week, Blaine Saito (Ohio State, Google Scholar) reviews a new work by Noam Noked (CUHK, Google Scholar), Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo, Google Scholar) & Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan, Google Scholar), How the U.S. Constitution Shapes International Tax Law: Instrument Choice in Tax Agreements (Feb. 26, 2026).
The United States has not ratified a major new tax treaty in over a decade. While the President possesses the Article II power to negotiate and sign these instruments, they remain essentially dead on arrival without the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. This supermajority requirement has effectively handed a veto to a motivated minority, allowing the U.S. treaty network to stagnate even as the global tax landscape undergoes its most significant transformation in a century. This paralysis is not merely a bureaucratic hurdle. As Noam Noked, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, and Reuven Avi-Yonah argue in their vital new piece, How the U.S. Constitution Shapes International Tax Law: Instrument Choice in Tax Agreements, this constitutional bottleneck is fundamentally reshaping how international tax standards are set and enforced.
Read More -
Herzfeld: Wars and Oil Crises Drive Tax Policy Shifts
Mindy Herzfeld (Florida), Wars and Oil Crises Drive Tax Policy Shifts, 121 Tax Notes Int’l 2101 (March 23, 2026)
The U.S. bombing of Iran has disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, leading to wild swings in the price of oil and reports of windfall profits for U.S. oil companies. (See “U.S. Oil Groups in Line for $63bn Windfall From Gulf War Disruption,” Financial Times, Mar. 14, 2026.) This $60 billion in projected excess profits far exceeds the cost of the first two weeks of the war, estimated at approximately $16 billion.
In the past, such unexpected returns accruing through wartime price inflation have led to enactment of windfall profits taxes. More generally, the history of the U.S. tax system is a story of policy choices made in response to the disruptions caused by wars and energy crises, suggesting that this war, too, could lead to notable tax policy changes….
-
American Constitution Society Convention in June
Early bird registration for this year’s ACS convention ends Tuesday. March 31. Here’s a preview. You can register here.
Join the American Constitution Society as we celebrate our 25th Anniversary and welcome new ACS President Phil Brest for the premier progressive legal gathering of the year.
The 2026 ACS National Convention will bring together lawyers, law students, judges, scholars, activists, and policymakers to address some of the most urgent and challenging issues confronting our nation. Expect dynamic programming, networking opportunities, and conversations with nationally recognized legal and policy experts.
Stay tuned for details on speakers and panels!
-
University of San Diego School of Law Hosts the Inaugural Law and PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) Workshop
The University of San Diego School of Law hosts the inaugural Law and PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) Workshop today (Friday, March 27, 2026). The workshop brings together legal scholars (including several tax professors) whose work treats philosophy and economics as complementary rather than competitive approaches to legal questions.
The program features five papers with paired discussants:
- Michael Gilbert (Virginia), “Distribution and Social Preferences,” with discussant Nicholas Almendares (Indiana)
- Brookes Brown (Toronto), “A New Framework for Fair Play: Beyond Acceptance, Benefit, and Predation,” with discussant Yuan Yuan (UC San Diego)
- Matthew Adler (Duke), “Prioritarianism, Animals, and Dual Aggregation,” with discussant Michael Livermore (Virginia)
- Prasad Krishnamurthy (Berkeley), “Forgiving Student Loans: Progressivity, Inequality, and Welfare,” with discussant Lewis Kornhauser (NYU)
- Miranda Fleischer (USD), “Equality of Opportunity and the Case for a Universal Child Allowance,” with discussant Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia)
The workshop is organized by Adam Kern (USD), Andrew Hayashi (Virginia), and Rebecca Stone (UCLA).
-
Financing Law School as Feds Pull Back
Law Schools everywhere will be thinking hard about how students will pay the bills once the $50,000 federal cap kicks in this fall. Now the University of Kansas and Washington University have decided to launch their own loan programs with fixed interest rates to spare students some of the less advantageous features of private loans. Inside Higher Education has the full story here, along with information on other promising experiments.
TaxProf Blog delivers timely, insightful coverage of tax law and legal education to inform, connect, and inspire scholars, practitioners, and students.
