Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Teaching
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Washington Post Disses PowerPoint
Interesting article in yesterday’s Washington Post: PowerPoint: Killer App?. Here is a sample of the antiPowerPoint theme: Like all forms of torture, though, PowerPoint degrades its practitioners as well as its victims. Yes, boring slides were plentiful in the pre-PowerPoint era — remember the overhead projector? Yes, it can help the intellectually inept organize their…
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Demographics of the Class of 2008: Teaching Blue State Law Students in a Red State Law School
With most law schools having already started classes or starting this week, I thought it would be interesting to share some demographic information from the entering law school class of 2008 at Cincinnati. I taught a section of 43 incoming 1Ls in our week-long Introduction to Law course last week, and asked them a series…
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civics and the law school tax curriculum
Larry Zelenak Although I think I spend a reasonable amount of time in the basic income tax class teaching students stuff they might actually find useful in practice, I also spend considerable time on stuff I think of as civics. The civics category includes things like the policy arguments for and against the current income…
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Law School Lets Conservative Prof Teach Con Law After Outside Panel Attests to His Competence
We previously blogged the case of Montana law prof Robert G. Natelson, a self-described conservative who claimed he had been denied the opportunity to teach con law solely because of his political views (see here and here). News reports today say that he has prevailed in his quest to teach con law: Law School Dean…
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Can Packers Fan Deduct Season Tickets Donated to Charity to Avoid Jail Time?
More classroom tax fodder ripped from the news headlines: a Wisconsin judge "ordered a woman convicted of theft to decide whether to spend 90 days in jail or donate her family’s Packers tickets next season to charity." The TaxProf Discussion Group sprang into action, debating whether the woman will be able to claim a charitable…
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Per Diem Per DeLay
When teaching the per diem expense rules, recent press reports about Tom DeLay’s per diem travel expenses offer an interesting comparison. The Wall Street Journal reports that DeLay and his wife spent $28,000 for a 10-day trip in 2000 to London and Scotland; the hotel and meal costs were $584 per day. The State Department’s…
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2005 Tannenwald Tax Writing Competition
The 2005 Tannenwald Writing Competition is sponsored by the Theodore Tannenwald, Jr. Foundation for Excellence in Tax Scholarship and The American College of Tax Counsel: Named for the late Tax Court Judge Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., and designed to perpetuate his dedication to legal scholarship of the highest quality, the Tannenwald Writing Competition is open to…
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IRS May Consider eBay Sales Taxable Income
Interesting Associated Press story: IRS May Consider eBay Sales Taxable Income. Here is the opening: Hawking baby and children’s clothes – along with some garage sale and thrift store bargains – on eBay helps Sunni Wojnarowsky bring in some extra money so she can afford to stay home with her two young boys. The additional…
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Tax Treatment of Marsh & McLennan Settlement of Bid-Rigging Charges
The news headlines provide yet another classroom example of the ways folks in the real world plan around the limitations on business deductions for payments of fines and penalties. Under § 162(f), no deduction is allowed "for any fine or similar penalty paid to a government for the violation of any law." In its $850…
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Can We No Longer Discuss Tax Policy in Class in Ohio?
The local media reports that a bill was introduced in the Ohio Senate last week "to prohibit instructors at public or private universities from ‘persistently’ discussing controversial issues in class or from using their classes to push political, ideological, religious or anti-religious views." Yikes — we spent the better part of our first Estate &…
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Tax Profs at ABA Tax Section Mid-Year Meeting
Tax Profs are playing a prominent role in the mid-year meeting of the ABA Tax Section in San Diego. Tax Profs on today’s panels include: 7:30 a.m.- 8:30 a.m.: Exempt Organizations Subcommittee on Political & Lobbying Organizations and Activities: Co-Chair: Miriam Galston (George Washington) 7:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m.: Teaching Taxation: Advising on Foreign Tax Systems:…
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“Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Deductions”: Jimmy Buffett and Matt Lauer Discuss Hobby Loss Rules on the Today Show
Matt Lauer’s interview of Jimmy Buffett this morning on the Today Show provides a nice vignette for the classroom on the § 183 hobby loss rules. At around the 1:50 mark of this clip, Buffett explains how he sailed around the Caribbean for 5 years as research for his new book, A Salty Piece of…
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Tax Advice for Bruce Willis
Following up on yesterday’s post on the application of §104(a)(2) to the melee involving Ron Artest that broke out at last week’s Indiana Pacers – Detroit Pistons NBA game: Actor Bruce Willis has filed a lawsuit against Revolution Studios, contending that he suffered "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain and suffering" as a result of…
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PowerPoint Slide Show on American Jobs Creation Act
Roth & Co. have posted a 54-slide PowerPoint presentation on the American Jobs Creation Act.
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From Liberace to Tupac Shakur: Using Celebrity Wills in the Classroom
This month’s Trusts & Estates has an article of interest for those of us who like to punch up our tax classes with real life examples involving the rich and famous. In A Century of Celebrity Wills, Herbert Nass (Herbert E. Nass & Associates, New York City) discusses the wills of these folks drawn from…
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Mining Supreme Court Justices’ Financial Disclosure Forms
Thursday, June 10, 2004 As one who enjoys using Presidential tax returns in tax class, I am intrigued by the wonderful web site sent in by a reader that contains copies of the detailed financial disclosure forms filed by the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The forms certainly are of prurient interest (at least…
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Sherman on Tax Prof Teaching Law & Literature
Thursday, June 3, 2004 Jeffrey Sherman (Chicago-Kent) has published A Tax Teachers Tries Law and (Dramatic) Literature, 37 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 255 (2004). Here is part of the Introduction: Teachers of Law and Literature tend to overlook the wealth of suitable material lodged within the world of dramatic literature. A comprehensive survey of Law…
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Tax Court: Day Trader Is Stock “Investor,” Not Stock “Trader”
Wednesday, June 2, 2004 One of the perennially interesting areas in the basic tax course is the sometimes inane distinction between stock traders and stock investors. Taxpayers and the IRS, of course, argue different sides of the coin, depending on whether there is a gain (investor status results in a lower capital gains tax rate)…
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A Tax PLoS?
Wednesday, June 2, 2004 Malcom Campbell has an interesting piece on the benefits of teaching with open-access materials, Open Access: A PLoS for Education. Here is part of the conclusion: Teaching is a lot like raising children. Like parents, teachers provide learning opportunities in part by modeling the behavior we want our students to learn.…
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Gershon on Teaching Tax Using Socioeconomics
Sunday, May 30, 2004 Richard Gershon (Dean, Charleston) has published Teaching Federal Income Taxation Using Socioeconomics, 41 San Diego L. Rev. 401 (2004). Here is the Introduction: I have very fond memories of sitting around the dining room table at my mother’s house in Atlanta, Georgia, and enjoying Shabbat dinner. My older brother had recently…
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Summer 2004 Graduate Tax Courses
Monday, May 3, 2004 Several tax LL.M. programs have released their Summer 2004 schedule of classes, including Baltimore Denver Florida
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Update on NY Times Article on New Technology in Tax Teaching
Friday, April 30, 2004 A follow-up on yesterday’s post about the New York Times article on the new “clicker” technology that I use in my tax classes: Jim Maule (Villanova) has posted on his blog a thoughtful explanation of why he supports the technology. Here’s the opening paragraph: It hasn’t yet been 72 hours since…
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NY Times Article on New Technology in Tax Teaching
Thursday, April 29, 2004 Forgive the shameless plug, but today’s New York Times has a story (In Class, the Audience Weighs In; Instant Feedback with Wireless Keypads Keep Lectures Lively, at G1) about a new technology that I use in my tax classes. You can access the article on-line here (requires free registration). The New…
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Brennen on Examining Race and Tax Exempt Law in Teaching and Scholarship
Tuesday, April 27, 2004 David Brennen (Mercer), the co-author of a new casebook on The Tax Law of Charities and Other Exempt Organizations, has posted Race and Equality Across the Law School Curriculum: Tax Exempt Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Race and Equality Across the Law School Curriculum: Tax Exempt Law chronicles the…