Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Scholarship
-
Bearer-Friend: Three New AI Articles
Jeremy Bearer-Friend (GW) posted three new AI articles on SSRN:
-
Harpaz Presents “Taxing AI” at Mizzou Law Tax Policy Colloquium
Assaf Harpaz (Georgia) presented Taxing AI at the Mizzou Law Tax Policy Colloquium on October 22: Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world and is introducing numerous challenges to legal and regulatory frameworks. These tensions are highlighted in federal income taxation, which broadly serves three principal goals: revenue generation, redistribution, and regulation of taxpayer behavior.…
-
Schmalbeck: Taxing Endowments
Richard Schmalbeck (Duke), Taxing Endowments, Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series (October 08, 2025) In the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” Congress included several amendments to the Internal Revenue Code, including a provision that reduced the scope of an existing tax on income from college and university endowments, but more importantly…
-
Blank & Osofsky: Audit Guides and the Administrative State
Joshua D. Blank (Irvine) and Leigh Z. Osofsky (UNC), Audit Guides and the Administrative State, 29 Florida Tax Review __ (forthcoming, 2026) Scholars are engaged in deep debate about the transformative power of recent Supreme Court cases that appear to limit the role of agencies in making rules of law. In Loper Bright and West Virginia v. EPA,…
-
Herzfeld: Rationalizing the Post-OBBBA International Tax Rules
Mindy Herzfeld (Florida), Rationalizing the Post-OBBBA International Tax Rules, 120 Tax Notes Int’l 431 (Oct. 20, 2025) The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) included several important revisions to international tax rules. For the most part, these changes tweaked the law to address concerns about how provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act operated, or to fix…
-
The Law Professor As Public Intellectual: Felix Frankfurter And The Public And Its Government
R. B. Bernstein (City College of New York), The Law Professor as Public Intellectual: Felix Frankfurter and The Public and Its Government, 39 Touro L. Rev. 795 (2024): Professor R.B. Bernstein was a legal historian with a J.D. from Harvard Law School who taught at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at…
-
Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Elkins Reviews Behavioral Frictions And Limits Of Tax Advice In Tax Regime Choice
This week David Elkins (Netanya; Google Scholar) reviews Kay Blaufus (Leibniz University of Hannover; Google Scholar), Ralf Maiterth (Humboldt University of Berlin), Michael Milde (Leibniz University of Hannover; Google Scholar) & Caren Sureth-Sloane (Paderborn University), Choosing the Wrong Box? Behavioral Frictions and Limits of Tax Advice in Tax Regime Choice (2025). Business entities are ordinarily…
-
Next Week’s Tax Workshops
Monday, August 25: Diane Kemker (Loyola-Chicago; Google Scholar) will present Illness/Wellness, Ableism & Perfectibility in the Tax Code, 93 UMKC L. Rev. ___ (2026), as part of the Pepperdine Tax Policy Workshop Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Deanna Newton. Wednesday, August 27: Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar) will present Racial Integration and Tax…
-
Cauble: Exceptional Cases And Automated Agencies
Emily Cauble (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), Exceptional Cases (reviewing Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance (Cambridge University Press 2025)): In their recent book, Automated Agencies, Professors Blank and Osofsky offer what the book front matter aptly describes as “the definitive account of how automation…
-
Pepperdine Tax Policy Workshop Series (Fall 2025)
Here is Deanna Newton‘s lineup for the Fall 2025 Pepperdine Tax Policy Workshop Series: If you would like to attend any of the workshops, please contact Deanna Newton.
-
Legal Education And The Rule Of Law
James Huffman (Lewis & Clark), Legal Education and the Rule of Law, 60 Cal. W. L. Rev. 571 (2024): There are many explanations for the current state of affairs in the American legal system. But surely, what goes on in our law schools is an important factor. For decades American youth have learned little about…
-
Hidden Taxation And The Rise Of The Shadow Fiscal State
Doron Narotzki (Akron; Google Scholar), Hidden Taxation and the Rise of the Shadow Fiscal State, 7 Ariz. St. Corp. & Bus. L.J. ___ (2026): This Article uncovers a new and troubling development in U.S. fiscal governance: the use of executive-imposed tariffs as covert instruments of sovereign debt management and fiscal redistribution. Building on a provocative…
-
The Tax Insurance Trap
Benjamin Silver (Ph.D. 2024, Chicago; J.D. 2021, Yale; Google Scholar), The Tax Insurance Trap, 2026 Wis. L. Rev. ___: Conventional wisdom holds that tax uncertainty is an unavoidable consequence of our tax laws' complexity. On this view, tax insurance-a financial product allowing taxpayers to shift tax risk to an insurer for a fee-is merely a hedge…
-
Aprill: Rejecting Pro-Taxpayer Regulations Under Loper Bright
Ellen P. Aprill (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar), 2025 Erwin N. Griswold Lecture Before the American College of Tax Counsel: Rejecting Pro-Taxpayer Regulations under Loper Bright: Rejecting Pro-Taxpayer Regulations under Loper Bright: In Memorial Hermann Accountable Care Organization v. Commissioner (“Memorial Hermann”), the Fifth Circuit relied on Loper Bright v. Raimondo (Loper Bright) to reject the appellant…
-
The Supreme Court’s 2024 Term In Tax
Jasper L. Cummings, Jr. (Alston & Bird, Raleigh, NC), The Supreme Court’s 2024 Term in Tax, 188 Tax Notes Fed. 781 (Aug. 4, 2025): In this article, Cummings examines the 2024 term of the Supreme Court, in which it seems to have returned to the norm of rendering a few “boring” tax decisions, although he…
-
The Role Of Intuitive Reasoning In Lawyering And Legal Education
N. E. Millar (Widener-DE), The Role of Intuitive Reasoning in Lawyering and Legal Education, 37 St. Thomas L. Rev. 49 (2024): Intuition-a process of "rapid cognition" that offers foresight and helps with creative problem-solving-is a powerful tool that lawyers can use to inform strategic decisions, avoid ethical pitfalls, enhance communication, and increase career satisfaction. However,…
-
Facebook Decision Enables IRS To Seek Commensurate With Income Enforcement Against Meta
Stephen L. Curtis (Cross Border Analytics), Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & David G. Chamberlain (Cal Poly; Google Scholar), Facebook Decision Enables IRS to Seek CWI Enforcement Against Meta, 188 Tax Notes Fed. 709 (Aug. 4, 2025): In this report, the authors explain how the Tax Court’s recent decision in the Facebook transfer pricing case —…
-
The Top Five New Tax Papers
This week’s list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week’s list. [441 Downloads] Hyosung Corp.: The Tax Treaty-Domestic Tax Law Interaction, by Dhruv Janssen-Sanghavi (Maastricht; Google Scholar) [412 Downloads] Rule of Law v. Rule of Power: US Tax Defense Measures in Light of the International Law of Countermeasures,…
-
Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Speck Reviews Hasen’s Pricing Low-Income Resource Volatility
This week, Sloan Speck (Colorado; Google Scholar) reviews a new work by David Hasen (Florida), Pricing Low-Income Resource Volatility. Economists and policymakers historically have approached households as static constructs, governed by rhetorics of persistent poverty or a linear trajectory of upward mobility. This perspective is complicated by current research that emphasizes contingency and precarity as…
-
Townsend: Federal Tax Procedure 2025
Jack Townsend, formerly an adjunct tax professor at the University of Houston Law School, has posted to SSRN his annual editions of the Federal Tax Procedure book: Student 2025 Edition (806 pages): This edition has no footnotes and is designed for the federal tax procedure student. I present the core tax procedure information that I…
-
Granato: Conflicting Values In Judicial Valuations
Andrew Granato (Yale; Google Scholar), Conflicting Values In Judicial Valuations: Do courts employ finance neutrally and consistently, or do different courts fashion financial tools in court-specific ways? I assemble 20 years (52,000 pages) of judicial opinions, legal briefs, and expert reports from three settings where statutes assign courts an ostensibly shared job of valuing business…
-
Aprill: Misunderstanding National Religious Broadcasters
Ellen P. Aprill (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar), Misunderstanding National Religious Broadcasters, 188 Tax Notes Fed. 581 (July 28, 2025): This piece examines the proposed order and joint motion for entry of consent judgment in National Religious Broadcasters v. Commissioner addressing the relationship between the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits campaign intervention for any entity exempt under section 501(c)(3),…
-
Zhang: Tax Procedure And Distributive Discourse
Alex Zhang (Emory; Google Scholar), Tax Procedure and Distributive Discourse, 74 Am. J. Compar. L. ___ (2026): This Article develops the concept of procedurally forced distributive discourse, and articulates its values for a legitimate, well-functioning democracy. In classical Athens, citizens dissatisfied with their assigned tax burden could dispute it under the exchange procedure (antidosis). Under an…
-
IRS Officials Trade On Confidential Tax-Related Information And Impact Tax Enforcement Outcomes
Cato Institute: IRS Officials’ Stock Holdings and Corporate Tax Outcomes, by Michael Mayberry (Florida; Google Scholar), Eashwar Nagaraj (Florida; Google Scholar) & Scott G. Rane (Florida; Google Scholar): The IRS plays an important role in improving corporate transparency and encouraging corporations to act in the best interests of their shareholders and other stakeholders. The agency makes…
-
Tax Prof Richard Winchester Helps Students Build Database To Measure Impact Of FHA Racial Segregation On Homeowners
Following up on my previous post, Tax Prof Named Urban Studies Scholar To Research Why The FHA Funded An All-Black Community Despite A Whites-Only Policy: Tulane Murphy Institute, Building A Database for Scholarly Inquiry on Racial Segregation: A team of Murphy students spent a portion of the semester helping to build a database to support…