Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Tax News
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Tax Advisor: IRS launches online tool to help taxpayers manage tax debt
Tax Advisor, IRS launches online tool to help taxpayers manage tax debt: An online tool to help taxpayers understand and resolve tax debt is now available on the IRS website. The Tax Debt Help tool debuted Thursday, the day after the end of the filing season. It’s designed to provide businesses and individuals with an easy way
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NYT: Are Democrats Becoming a Party of Tax Cuts?
Writing for The New York Times in a piece titled “Are Democrats Becoming a Party of Tax Cuts?“, Andrew Duehren reports the following: Typically, a bill like the one Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, introduced last month would not make much of a splash. * * * The bill was the subject of
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Wall Street’s Tax Alpha Craze
In their piece for the Financial Times, titled “The Tax-Focused Hedge Fund Craze Taking over Wall Street,” Amelia Pollard and Joshua Franklin write about a fast-growing area of financial markets looking to monetize tax losses: AQR Capital Management and Quantinno Capital Management are among the hedge funds behind the surging popularity of a new wave
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IEEPA Tariff Refund Process Begins
Amanda Athanasiou, “U.S. Customs Begins IEEPA Tariff Refund Process” (Tax Notes, April 21, 2026): U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has begun the first phase of its process for refunding tariffs deemed by the Supreme Court to have been unlawfully imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). On April 20 CBP launched the
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Home Distilling Limits in Tax Code Struck Down by Appeals Court
Laura D. Francis (Bloomberg Law): Home Distilling Limits in Tax Code Struck Down by Appeals Court The US Tax Code’s Reconstruction-era ban on home distilling is unconstitutional and can’t be enforced, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. Siding with Texas-based “certified bourbon steward” Rick Morris and other members of his Hobby Distillers Association, the US Court
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Podcasts: Bearer-Friend & Polcz on Taxing AI
Jeremy Bearer-Friend (George Washington) and Sarah Polcz (UC Davis) recently discussed their forthcoming article, Sharing the Algorithm: The Tax Solution to Generative AI, on two leading law prof podcasts:
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Thorndike: Who Gets the Tariff Refund? A Lesson From 1936
Joseph J. Thorndike, Who Gets the Tariff Refund? A Lesson From 1936, 191 Tax Notes Federal 175 (Apr. 13, 2026): Shortly after the Supreme Court invalidated many of President Trump’s cherished tariffs, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) sent the White House a bill. “On behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every
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NY Times: Our Tax System Should Make You Furious
New York Times: Our Tax System Should Make You Furious, by Ezra Klein: As you may know, April 15 was Tax Day here in the U.S. If you’re a regular American, you make money through wages, and it’s probably not your favorite day of the year. If you make a median income or above, you’re
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Reconciliation 2.0, Meet the Smaller IRS
Two tax stories collided in Washington this week. House Speaker Mike Johnson set a “skinny” scope for Reconciliation 2.0, the potential partisan legislative package that would help end what’s now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.* And, on Tax Day, Senators grilled IRS CEO Frank Bisignano about the Trump Administration’s proposed $1.4 billion cut
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WSJ: America’s New Tax Mantra: “The IRS Isn’t Going to Catch Me”
In advance of Tax Day, Richard Rubin has a long read on enforcement dynamics in today’s leaner IRS. Lots on evolving taxpayer attitudes, the IRS’s plans for AI, and practitioners’ frustrations. Most notable is that these issues appear cross-cutting and pervasive. They stretch from low-income households to the most sophisticated businesses, from the EITC to
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NY Times: “Mamdani’s Tax Return: $1,600 From Rapping and $131,000 From Politics”
Dana Rubinstein and Sally Goldenberg, Mamdani’s Tax Return: $1,600 From Rapping and $131,000 From Politics (New York Times, April 16, 2026) Springtime in City Hall can mean many things: pothole-filling news conferences, budget battles, parks department ribbon cuttings. On Thursday, another of those springtime rites of passage arrived anew, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his joint tax
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Taxing Consumption and Work: The Cost to Black Households
On April 9, 2026, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies hosted the webinar, Taxing Consumption and Work: The Cost to Black Households:
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Tax Day 2026
Today is well-known as Tax Day, or the day that the procrastinators among us finally get around to filing our tax returns (or file for an extension so that we can continue to put off the day of reckoning). Tax Day is often an object of lampooning and humor (after all, who likes paying taxes),
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Prediction Market Tax Proposals Gain Momentum in State Houses
Michael Bologna (Bloomberg Law): Prediction Market Tax Proposals Gain Momentum in State Houses Initiatives to regulate and tax prediction markets are accelerating in the closing weeks of state legislative sessions, with many lawmakers denouncing the fast-growing trading platforms as a form of unlicensed and unregulated gambling. State lawmakers contend the markets resemble sports wagering that
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9th Cir. Oral Arguments in Hawaii Cruise Ship Tax Federal Preemption Case
Perry Cooper & Peyton Rhodes (Bloomberg Law): Hawaii ‘Green Fee’ Case to Test Limits of Federal Involvement The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments [today] on the cruise industry’s federal statutory and constitutional claims against the fee, enacted to offset the environmental impacts of the ships’ visits to Hawaii.
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NYT: Inside Trump’s Supercharged Tax Season
New York Times: ‘I Got Back Every Penny’: Inside Trump’s Supercharged Tax Season The law Republicans passed last year has so far been largely imperceptible to most Americans. That’s changing as tens of millions file their taxes this spring.
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McCormick-Unilever and the Next Wave of Reverse Morris Trust Deals
On March 31, 2026, Unilever PLC announced the combination of its foods division (Foods) with McCormick & Company. The deal would unite brands such as Knorr (bouillon), Hellmann’s (mayonnaise), and Marmite (yeast extract) with McCormick’s popular spice and condiment lines—a “global flavor powerhouse.” Although food company mega-mergers have a checkered history, some prognosticators are bullish
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Becher & Alarie: Superjustice: Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Samuel I. Becher (Victoria U. Wellington) and Benjamin Alarie (Toronto), Superjustice: Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (forthcoming 2026): Justice delayed is justice denied — yet today’s legal systems are failing at an unprecedented scale. Courts are backlogged, legal services remain unaffordable, and rigid laws struggle to keep pace with the complexities of modern
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Ramamurti on the Democrats’ Ambitious, Controversial New Tax Proposals
Perry Bacon (The New Republic) interviews Bharat Ramamurti on “all this tax news on the Democratic side—big tax plans, federal, state, wealth taxes, tax cuts” (transcript). Ramamurti is a former advisor to Elizabeth Warren and was Deputy Director for the National Economic Council in the Biden Administration. Ramamurti’s interview covers a lot of ground, with
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Low-Income Families, High-Income Taxpayers, and a Looming Fiscal Crisis: A Tribute to Len Burman
Donald C. Lubick Symposium to honor the career of Len Burman, cofounder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and its director for many years. The tribute is today from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM ET:
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New Report by NYSBA Tax Section
The New York State Bar Association’s Tax Section has recently released a new report, Report Number 1525 on Notice 2025-63: [The Report comments] on Notice 2025-63 (the “Notice”), issued by the Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) on October 23, 2025. The Notice announces the intention of Treasury and
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Big Tech Legal Fight Looming After Utah Enacts Targeted Ad Tax
Utah has officially joined the digital advertising tax movement, following Maryland and (most recently) Washington State. As Bloomberg Law notes, “Big Tech” is sure to challenge the Utah tax. Although all three states are targeting the same general activity and the same general class of taxpayers, and use a gross receipts approach, each state’s statutes
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Law360: State & Local Tax Takeaways From March
Maria Koklanaris et al., State & Local Tax Takeaways From March, Law360 (Mar. 31, 2026): As state legislatures raced in March to finish their sessions, governors increasingly enacted measures such as a tax on millionaires in Washington state and a Utah excise tax on commercial entities that publish digital content deemed harmful to minors.
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Judge Blocks IRS Deal Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates; Treasury & IRS to Release New Guidance
Wall Street Journal, Judge Blocks Deal Allowing Churches to Endorse Political Candidates: A federal judge in Texas rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to allow religious leaders to endorse candidates from the pulpit. Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled Tuesday that he lacked the authority to consider an agreement that would have effectively created an exception to the so-called
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The Promise and Peril of the OBBBA’s Populist Tax Breaks
With less than two weeks before Tax Day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has touted the uptake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s big four tax breaks for individuals: “no tax on tips,” “no tax on overtime,” “no tax on car loan interest,” and the additional deduction for seniors (which really isn’t “no tax on