Taxation & Estate Planning

Tax policy colloquium on "Long-Term Objectives for Government Debt"

Posted on April 11, 2008
At yesterday's NYU Tax Policy Colloquium, my past and future co-convenor Alan Auerbach presented "Long-Term Objectives for Government Debt," a paper he wrote for a conference in Sweden (arranged by a new government entity there, the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council)...

Ray Davies concert

Posted on April 09, 2008
Last night, after a very full day devoted to intensive labor on my Senate Finance testimony for next week plus sundry internal NYU matters, I returned home feeling a bit beaten down ("It's hard work," as Bush would say) but with an evening event on my schedule - a Ray Davies concert at the Beacon Theater...

NYU hiring

Posted on April 09, 2008
We've now gone public on the fact that Mitchell Kane is joining the NYU law faculty. Mitch is a rising star in the international tax field and has things to say about, among other topics, recent convulsions in international tax policy thinking about the worldwide and national welfare considerations that underlie optimal (whether or not actual) rule design...

NYU Tax Policy Colloquium on "Making Social Security Work"

Posted on April 07, 2008
Last Thursday at the colloquium, Jonathan Barry Forman of U Oklahoma Law School presented (or, given our format, responded concerning) "Making Social Security Work," a chapter from his recent Urban Institute Press book, "Making America Work."The chapter describes the Social Security fiscal crisis - which some people call large, others small, even when they agree about its actual size (a bit like arguing about whether a spill on the floor is big or small - what the heck, either way at some point we'll have to wipe it up)...

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Forthcoming testimony

Posted on April 05, 2008
I've been invited to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on April 15, from 10 am to noon, regarding tax reform basics.  More details to follow, but the panel seeks to lay the groundwork for thinking about fundamental reform of the income tax variety that in theory might start taking shape next year...

Just a small point about John Yoo's torture memo

Posted on April 02, 2008
Footnote 10 of the Yoo memo states that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military operations.Apparently, the commander-in-chief clause in the original, unamended Constitution (and/or the doctrine of necessity) trumps.An interesting question for John Yoo: Once the Constitution was adopted, was there any possible Constitutional amendment that would have overridden the commander-in-chief clause?Is the last-in-time rule inapplicable to it?Insofar as he is relying on the doctrine of necessity, is there any possible constitutional text that would limit the president's domestic military power?Is this guy actually a lawyer?

Yes, it's April Fool's Day, and no, I wasn't born yesterday

Posted on April 01, 2008
Earlier today I got the following e-mail:"Dear Professor Shaviro:"We represent a very small but very wealthy nation that has asked us to approach you. This nation is about to launch a revolutionary effort to adopt some of the values of countries that have been developed economic powers throughout recent history...

New publication

Posted on April 01, 2008
An article of mine from late 2006, "Disclosure and Civil Penalty Rules in the U.S. Legal Response to Corporate Tax Shelters," has finally been published, in Wolfgang Schon (ed.), Tax and Corporate Governance.On second thought, if you press the link you'll see that Amazon lists it as coming out later this month...

Ready for the 80s?

Posted on April 01, 2008
I'm starting to think I'm not, or at least not ready enough to purchase the new B-52s and R.E.M. albums.

NYU Tax Policy Colloquium on "How Americans Think About Taxes"

Posted on March 31, 2008
Last Thursday at the colloquium, MIT political scientist Andrea Louis Campbell presented a couple of draft chapters from her forthcoming (but still in progress) Princeton University Press book, "How Americans Think About Taxes."  Once again, as when we had a paper by Carnegie-Mellon political scientist Christina Fong last year, a session with a political scientist outside our usual circles here at the colloquium proved to be a big success, intellectually broadening for all concerned, and fun...

My version of Amy Winehouse

Posted on March 31, 2008
They say I got to go to rehab, I say "No, no, no"First it's my knee and then it's my hamstring, ow, ow, ohMy elbow's still inflamed, can't play no tennis gameAnd still I have to go to rehab, I just go, go, go.I'd much rather get to playThan spend thirty minutes every dayCause there's nothing, there's nothing getting betterIt seems like I'll never be okayBut they say I got to go to rehab,  I just go, go, goI used to play lots of squashBut then that got the kiboshThey say I have to go to rehab, I just go, go, goI ain't got the time, and if I gave up I'd be fineBut if I want to play again it's rehab, so I say, ow, ow, oh...

Doing their homework

Posted on March 27, 2008
I recently was invited to participate in a DC tax policy forum discussing the Clinton and Obama tax plans. I couldn't go, but I gather that the Clinton people had thought I might be a good person to discuss Obama's tax plan. This in turn is interesting, because many months ago (well before even the Iowa caucuses) I had a blog post that was critical of Obama's then-newly announced proposals...

Work, publication, and reading update

Posted on March 23, 2008
One work-related item that I did have to take care of in Mexico was the exploding offer (mentioned in an earlier post) for my article on taxable and accounting income. The offer was from the Georgetown Law Journal, and after very minimal efforts to stir up a couple of expedited reviews I decided to accept...

Back from vacation

Posted on March 23, 2008
We returned yesterday from a week in the Iberostar Tucan in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (near Cancun but much quieter). A pleasant week on a family resort that mixed the idyllic with, I suppose, the tired (such as some of the all-you-can-eat buffets). At my age, the real good news is avoiding injury (from sunburn, being smashed by waves, testing my elbow tendonitis, etc...

Ouch

Posted on March 14, 2008
Well I'm glad on balance, but I got a law review exploding offer (96 hours) for my tax and accounting piece, less than 12 hours before I'm scheduled to leave for the airport.  Managing this from a beach resort while trying to unwind is going to be interesting.

Tax policy colloquium on EC tax policy

Posted on March 14, 2008
Yesterday in the Tax Policy Colloquium, in our 9th of 14th sessions and the last before our one-week spring break (which I will blissfully spend in warmer climes), Ruth Mason presented her paper, "Made in America for European Taxation: The Internal Consistency Test...

Musical update

Posted on March 12, 2008
Stephen Malkmus' new album sounds at times a bit like the Allman Brothers. All those long hippie guitar rave-ups, albeit on songs that have characteristic Malkmus chord sequences and start-stop dynamics. I'm quite enjoying it, although the analogy isn't entirely praise...

Intellectual progress at the NYU Tax Policy Colloquium

Posted on March 07, 2008
Yesterday at the colloquium, Mihir Desai, who will be co-leading things with me for the rest of the semester, presented his empirical paper "Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic Economic Activity," which concludes from firm-level data that outbound investment by US multinationals (MNEs) is a complement to, rather than a substitute for, their domestic investment...

My letter to the editor of Tax Notes

Posted on March 05, 2008
This Monday my letter to the editor of Tax Notes regarding Al Warren's critique of the BEIT business tax reform proposal (mentioned in an earlier post) came out. The cite is 118 Tax Notes 1048-1050 (March 3, 2008), and a relevant extract goes as follows: [A]t least one of [Warren's] key conclusions, dismissing the BEIT plan as having no apparent rationale, is overly harsh in an important way...

Published at last

Posted on March 04, 2008
My Stanford Law Review article, "Beyond the Pro-Consumption Tax Consensus," has finally been published, along with a response from Joe Bankman and David Weisbach, who I suppose I accused in my piece of intellectually overselling a bit.The Tax Prof blog has more of the details at http://taxprof...

Overheard in my Pilates class

Posted on March 04, 2008
... from a middle-aged woman:"Obama is STUPID. He should have waited his turn. All my friends are voting for McCain if he wins. His wife is a problem."Talk of being true to your demographic ...

Adventures in rock concerts

Posted on March 03, 2008
If anyone who will be in the vicinity of NYU Law School by mid-afternoon on Tuesday, 3/4, wants two tickets that I am holding to a potentially very interesting concert but will be unable to use, please let me know. The concert is by Dengue Fever, an LA group with a Cambodian chanteuse that mixes indie /psychedelic rock with 1960s Cambodian pop music...

Tax policy colloquium session on my tax & accounting paper

Posted on March 03, 2008
Last Thursday at the NYU Tax Policy Colloquium, we discussed my paper from last fall, "The Optimal Relationship Between Taxable Income and Financial Accounting Income: Analysis and a Proposal." Kevin Hassett did his last co-leading gig of the semester unless required to pinch-hit later on...

Academic wars in corporate tax reform

Posted on February 26, 2008
In this week's Tax Notes, Al Warren of the Harvard Law School has an article critiquing Ed Kleinbard's "business enterprise income tax" (BEIT) proposal for corporate (and broader business) tax reform. I would be very surprised if Ed doesn't have a reply in next week's Tax Notes, and I am also planning to submit a short letter to the editor responding to Al's article...

Tax policy colloquium session on horizontal equity

Posted on February 22, 2008
Yesterday at the colloquium, Brian Galle of FSU Law School presented his paper, "Tax Fairness," arguing that rumors in the recent tax policy literature of the death of horizontal equity (HE) as a tax policy norm are greatly exaggerated. I was not persuaded, but unfortunately there was a bit of a ships passing in the night quality to the session...

Vignettes from a short trip

Posted on February 20, 2008
Last evening through tonight I was in Washington to discuss international tax issues on a panel run by the apparently prestigious Tax Council Policy Institute, a rather generic name for a group run out of KPMG that has conferences with lots of CFOs and such in attendance...

Tax policy colloquium session on probability of tax positions' correctness

Posted on February 15, 2008
Yesterday at the NYU Tax Policy Colloquium, Sarah Lawsky presented her paper, "Probably? Understanding Tax Law's Uncertainty."One thing I'll say for Sarah, she definitely came in with some flair. A key feature of the paper that she came to NYU to present is its criticizing moi (of all people), in this case for a hypothetical in a paper of mine discussing tax penalties, in which I suggest that a taxpayer taking ten positions, each 90 percent likely to correct, might on average have one incorrect position...

Bright side of the Clemens hearings

Posted on February 13, 2008
As a Mets fan, I am all the more inclined to believe that Clemens is lying and that he is only getting what he deserves. But I also feel sorry for him and (emotionally speaking) not at all vengeful.But the true bright side of today's Congressional hearings relates to a comment I made at the colloquium last week...

Change in NYU Tax Policy Colloquium schedule

Posted on February 13, 2008
For those who are interested in the NYU Tax Policy Colloquium but don't regularly travel to its website (at http://www.law.nyu.edu/colloquia/taxpolicy/schedule08.html), I've had to trade dates with Jason Furman. So I will be presenting my paper, "The Optimal Relationship Between Taxable Income and Financial Accounting Income," on February 28, while his, "Dynamic Distributional Scoring," will now be on April 24.

Longest exercise session ever

Posted on February 10, 2008
This morning I went to the health club to do my regular elliptical machine routine (36 minutes, with cool-down).  In addition to the TVs for each machine, they have huge ones dominating the room that people can look at while exercising.The one dominating my line of sight was set to Fox, although at first I didn't realize this...

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