Archives

David Barnhizer (Cleveland State), A University President’s Frank Look at Law Schools: Not too long ago I had an intriguing and frank conversation with a university president who had once served as a law school dean. He leads a university that is home to a middle-rung law school that is…

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration yesterday released Additional Consideration of Prior Conduct and Performance Issues Is Needed When Hiring Former Employees (2015-10-006): Between January 2010 and September 2013, IRS records show that the IRS hired more than 7,000 former employees (78 percent were temporary or seasonal positions). Most…

The Blaze, GOP, Dems: Let’s Make It Easier to Fire IRS Officials: Dozens of House members, including three Democrats, have put forward a new bill that would require the IRS to fire anyone who targets people or groups based on their political beliefs. The Prevent Targeting at the IRS Act…

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia) presents Rational Decisions Under Legal Uncertainty at Virginia today as part of its Law & Economics Workshop Series: Law is full of rules that are neither clear nor socially optimal. How do rational actors respond to these rules? What are the implications of these responses? These deceptively…

Susan C. Morse (Texas) presents Safe Harbors, Sure Shipwrecks at UCLA today as part of its Colloquium on Tax Policy and Public Finance hosted by Jason Oh and Alexander Wu: Safe harbors and sure shipwrecks are rule-standard hybrids that appear throughout statutory, regulatory and case law. Safe harbors guarantee compliance,…

Kirk Stark (UCLA) presents Tax Policy in the Super Zips at Northwestern today as part of its Tax Colloquium Series hosted by Lawrence Zelenak: As the distribution of income and wealth has grown more skewed, households have increasingly sorted into income homogenous neighborhoods. The rise of income segregation entails increased…

Following up on my previous post, Marquette Suspends Tenured Professor for Blogging, Orders Him Off Campus: Inside Higher Ed, Firing a Faculty Blogger: A controversial professor on Wednesday revealed that Marquette University is trying to revoke his tenure and fire him for statements he made about a graduate instructor, with…

Wall Street Journal, Strange but True: Deduct Expenses That Others Paid: In a 2010 decision that is worth reviewing this tax season, the U.S. Tax Court concluded that a daughter could deduct medical expenses and real-estate taxes on her Form 1040 even though they were covered by gifts from her…

New York Times Room for Debate, Can Tax Policy Distinguish the Rich from the Middle Class?: President Obama’s plan to eliminate the tax breaks for college savings accounts known as 529s, which primarily benefit the 5 percent of households earning more than $200,000, was swiftly shot down as an affront…

Steven M. Eisenstat (Suffolk), A Game Changer: Assessing the Impact of the Princeton/UCLA Laptop Study on the Debate of Whether to Ban Law Student Use of Laptops During Class, 90 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. ___ (2015): In this Article I discuss the impact on legal education of a recent…