Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Friday, July 16, 2004
Scott Kauffman of Irvine, California is the frontunner for the Best Tax Lawyer Ad of 2004. (His email address — besttaxadvocate@email.com — also ain’t bad!)
TaxProf Blog readers are invited to email me other nominees for display here.
Friday, July 16, 2004
The IRS has released a 35-page Strategic Plan for 2005-2009 that outlines three broad goals:
• Improve Taxpayer Service
• Enhance Enforcement of the Tax Law
• Modernize the IRS Through Its People, Processes, and Technology
Friday, July 16, 2004
Following up on last week’s post on Anne Alstott’s new book, No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents: Harry Brighouse has posted a review of the book on Crooked Timber. He calls it “a tremendously good book, written in a wonderfully accessible style, and very affordable for an academic hardback.”
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Cambridge University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press have published the second edition of Federal Taxation in America: A Short History by W. Elliot Brownlee (UC-Santa Barbara (History Dep’t)). Here is the publisher’s description:
Extending from the ratification of the Constitution to the present day. W. Elliot Brownlee describes the five principal stages of federal taxation in relation to the crises that led to their adoption–the formation of the republic, the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Now in a new edition, Brownlee expands his coverage to the present, with a new chapter focusing on the tax policies of the current Bush administration. This discussion is set within a larger analysis of contemporary tax and fiscal issues, including war finance, Social Security, and Medicare.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The monthly update of the 121-page directory of attorneys in the IRS Chief Counsel’s Office, arranged by Internal Revenue Code Section and Subject Matter, is available on the Tax Analysts’ web site.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The IRS has released four sets of data on tax exempt bonds issued in 1996-2000, classified by type of bond (new money issues versus refunding issues), term of issue (short-term versus long-term), and purpose of the bond (education, transportation, etc.).
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Today marks the three-month anniversary of TaxProf Blog. We have been blown away by the number of visitors (63,000+ ) in such a short period of time. In blog parlance, TaxProf Blog is a Flappy Bird in the TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem (#8 of 20 blog categories). Thanks for the many words of encouragement and support, as well as the helpful suggestions on how to improve the site. (And feel free to keep both coming!)
We are now listed among the top 10-15 law professor blogs on various sites, including LawSchool.com, JD2B, and the Law Professor Blog Honor Roll. We are grateful for the many kind comments in the media (including the Wall Street Journal) and the blogosphere, some of which we have collected here.
We think the success of TaxProf Blog can be replicated in other areas of law and are in the process of putting together a Network of Law Professor Blogs patterned after TaxProf Blog. Blogs in these subject areas are either already up and running or in the pipeline:
• Antitrust
• Criminal Law
• Legal Ethics
• Sentencing Law
• Workplace Law
Please email me if you or a colleague might be interested in starting a blog in other areas of the law school curriculum as part of our Law Professor Blogs Network — Blogs By Law Professors For Law Professors.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has issued a four-page report criticizing Republican efforts to extend various expiring tax cuts without paying for them. According to the accompanying press release:
Spurred by a White House meeting on July 7, Republican leaders in Congress are reportedly planning to use an unusual strategy to extend certain tax cuts without paying for them. The strategy is to adopt these policies by reviving a moribund conference committee on a largely unrelated bill and attaching the tax-cut extensions to a “conference report” on that bill, thereby bypassing normal consideration in the Senate Finance Committee and on the Senate floor of whether the tax-cut extensions should be paid for. This gambit is designed to force a single up-or-down vote on a conference report that would consist primarily of tax-cut extensions the Senate has not previously considered. Those who vote against the conference report would likely be attacked as favoring “tax increases” on middle-class families, despite the fact that nearly all Senators and Congressmen who voted “no” would favor legislation to extend these tax cuts and offset the costs of doing so.
(Thanks to Donald Tobin (Ohio State) for the tip.)
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The BNA Tax Management Advisory Board meets today at 5:30 pm EST (followed by a reception at 7:00 pm) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City to discuss three corporate tax papers:
• Proposed Contingent Swap Regulations, by David Shapiro (PriceWaterhouse Coopers (Washington, D.C.))
• Check The Box Conversions: Is Form Always Respected?, by Jim Sowell (Deloitte & Touche (Washington, D.C.))
• The Tax Treatment of Legal Fees Incurred in Intellectual Property Matters, by David Click (KPMG (Boston, MA))
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Citizens for a Sound Economy has criticized Sen. Kerry’s plan to repeal the Bush dividend tax cut.
TaxProf Blog delivers timely, insightful coverage of tax law and legal education to inform, connect, and inspire scholars, practitioners, and students.
