Whether she is confirmed as the country’s surgeon general or not, [Surgeon General nominee Nicole] Saphier joins a [bipartisan] list of well-off New Jerseyans who use a farmland law to shave money off their property tax bills. . . .

Saphier’s Instagram bio also describes her as a part-time “farmer” — although she has contradicted herself.

“The reality is, I’m not a real farmer,” she said in one post last May. “I just kind of pretend like I am.” . . .

Through the White House, [Saphier] declined a request to tour the farm.

The post Trump’s Surgeon General Pick Also Is a Farmer for Tax Purposes appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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1. Georgetown 

2. George Washington

3. Fordham

4. Temple University (Beasley)

5. University of Houston Law Center

6. TIE

George Mason University (Scalia)

Loyola Law School (Los Angeles)

University of San Diego

9. American University

10. Northeastern University

It seems like a good mix of law schools. Part time programs fill a niche serving working professionals interested in a law degree.

The post U.S. News: 2026 Best Part-Time Law Programs appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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Top-ten lists for BigLaw and federal clerkships, as well as links to coverage and an interactive jobs tracker, below the fold.

Daniel Moritz-Rabson, The Top Law Schools For Legal Industry Jobs: A Data Review, Law360 Pulse (May 6, 2026):

The rate of graduates starting their careers at law firms continued a yearslong increase, rising from 54.4% to 55.9% for the class of 2025. Meanwhile, the proportion of graduates taking jobs in government, business and public interest roles, as well as landing clerkships, all declined.

Tracey Read, Aiming For BigLaw? These Schools Deliver, Law360 Pulse (May 6, 2026):

Cornell University Law School, which ranked No. 1 in the class of 2024 in percentage of grads employed by law firms of 501 or more lawyers, slipped to No. 10 in that category as more found work in other sectors.

Law360’s interactive jobs tracker is here.

And finally, top-ten lists for BigLaw and federal clerkships. The only schools on both lists? Duke University and the University of Chicago, with combined percentages of 82.6% and 82.4%, respectively.

Please note: just as with the U.S. News rankings, small variations in outcomes can cause big movements in numeric rank. And small class sizes may produce varying year-over-year outcomes. So these lists should be used for amusement only.

Top Ten Law Schools by 2025 Grads in BigLaw (Percentage)

Top Ten Law Schools by 2025 Grads in Federal Clerkships (Percentage)

Previous TaxProf Blog coverage:

• The Best Law Schools For Getting A Biglaw Job (2026)—What Does It Mean? (May 9, 2026)
• Legal Ed News Roundup (May 1, 2025) (covering Law360’s Class of 2024 analysis)

The post Law360’s Jobs Data by Law School—Including BigLaw and Federal Clerkships appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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“Backtalker is the powerful and intimate story of how a little girl from Canton, Ohio, came up with a new way to look at the world. Crenshaw’s memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn’t as the daughter of a strong-minded teacher and a pathbreaking public servant, and as the sister of a protective, yet bullying older brother. She starts to talk back, and that backtalking has continued throughout her life. It happens when she is denied a role in the kindergarten school play. When she is escorted to the back door of a private club. When Anita Hill is exiled for testifying against Clarence Thomas. When OJ Simpson goes on trial. When Obama launches My Brother’s Keeper, a movement focused on boys of color only. When the movement against police violence overlooks Black women. Crenshaw is there for all of it.”

Professor Crenshaw is a pathbreaker — and backtalker! And the NPR interview was interesting.

The post NPR: A legal scholar defends critical race theory — a term she helped coin appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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We study how replacing bureaucrats’ discretion with algorithmic assessment affects the accuracy, equity, and public acceptance of tax decisions. Using Senegal’s first digital property tax census in the capital, we experimentally vary reliance on bureaucrats versus algorithms to value properties, and compare results to benchmark values provided by real estate assessors. Algorithms significantly improve accuracy and both horizontal and vertical tax equity, with fully rule-based systems outperforming hybrid methods. Performance gaps reflect bureaucrats’ limited knowledge rather than collusion. Conditional on liability, taxpayers are indifferent to algorithmic decisions, making algorithms a promising tool to expand the tax base without political backlash.

The post IFS Working Paper: Discretion Versus Algorithms appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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Here is the publisher’s pitch for the book:

“The renowned legal experts behind Say the Right Thing return with this clarion call for reimagining the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in a divided nation.

Equality in America is under siege. Corporations and universities are abandoning the DEI programs they previously championed. The tools Americans had for advancing fairness are facing a relentless political and legal assault. So how do we build a more just nation when the old playbook is no longer viable?

In this groundbreaking manifesto, Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, candidly unpack where DEI went wrong and offer a roadmap to rebuild equality for the new era.

Drawing on their peerless legal expertise and extensive experience advising leaders in corporate America, academia, and the non-profit sector, Yoshino and Glasgow share tangible strategies to put this nation back on a more inclusive path, such as by fostering free speech and dissent, reclaiming the concept of merit, and welcoming groups that felt neglected by DEI. In doing so, they provide an urgently needed blueprint to ensure the work of equality can overcome the backlash and emerge stronger on the other side.

In an era when equality is imperiled, How Equality Wins provides a bracing critique and hopeful call to action for anyone committed to creating a fairer society.”

In Time, Yoshino and Glasgow (“Why Donald Trump Can’t Kill DEI”) explain that

“[w]hat our society has come to call DEI' is just the latest embodiment of a project of advancing equality that goes back centuries. That deeper, more durable project has traveled under different banners in different eras, including equality,' dignity,' fairness,' and opportunity,' or civil rights' and human rights.’ And as we look at the past, present, and future of this country, we have every reason to believe this project will endure.”

I like the optimism of this book!

The post From the Bookshelves: How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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Jessica Riedl, Can Taxes Alone Fix Long-Term Deficits?, Brookings Inst. (May 5, 2026) (drawing on Jessica Riedl,

Myth: Long-term deficits have easy solutions, like new taxes on high earners and corporations that can close the fiscal gap without significant economic drawbacks.

Reality: While such taxes can be part of the solution, middle-class taxes and spending savings must also contribute to a plausible debt stabilization plan.

Riedl gives a chart of revenue produced from various tax proposals, with a threshold of 5% of GDP necessary to stabilize the United States’ debt over time.

Projected Revenue from Various Tax Proposals

Jessica Riedl, How Did the Budget Get Balanced in the Late 1990s?, Brookings Inst. (May 11, 2026):

The surprising reality: The elimination of the deficit was largely a temporary historical accident, driven by forces mostly beyond the control of the politicians who claimed credit for it.

Contributing Factors to the Balanced Budget of the Late 1990s

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In Aligning Reparations and Taxation, the author makes an exceptional contribution to the tax literature by examining the nontaxation of reparation remedies. Absent a statutory exclusion, current tax law generally treats reparation remedies as taxable income to the recipient. The author argues that this tax treatment undermines the rehabilitative and restorative objectives of reparations. The author proposes a new statutory tax exclusion for reparation remedies, grounded in critical normative frameworks and procedural fairness in tax administration.

The article begins by describing how the tax law applicable to the receipt of reparation remedies has been inconsistent, increasingly taxing their receipt, and thus eroding the rehabilitative remedial goals of reparations. The author argues that the critical approaches to law and policy are particularly relevant when considering the taxation of reparation remedies, which focus on how the law perpetuates power to the disadvantage of subordinated groups. This paper is therefore well-situated within the growing body of work on Critical Tax Theory and Law, as well as the literature on Law and Political Economy, as the author contends that both approaches support a tax exclusion of reparation remedies. In this context, the author invokes the helpful example of the § 1014 stepped-up basis rule as a benefit that the tax exclusion for remedies could help offset. In addition, the author explains that procedural fairness in tax administration is relevant in deciding whether to tax the receipt of reparation remedies. As history has shown, treating reparation remedies as income increases the administrative burdens on parties receiving the remedies, with specific reference to the system of tax information reporting (i.e., Form 1099).

The article then turns to analyzing modern-day tax law, the broad income inclusion standard, and relevant exclusions with respect to reparation remedies. In past decades, Congress and the IRS have authorized several exclusions on the receipt of reparation remedies, based on a combination of: (1) the General Welfare Doctrine (GWD), (2) § 104(a)(2), and (3) specific federal legislation.

The GWD, developed by the Treasury Department and IRS, has been used to repeatedly exclude government payments and benefits from income. The GWD and its connection to reparations is implicit in multiple rulings that permitted members of Native American Indian tribal nations to exclude federal government payments on this basis. Meanwhile, the § 104(a)(2) exclusion for compensatory damages received on account of personal physical injury or personal sickness (prior to its narrowing in 1996) authorized the exclusion of reparations payments for Japanese Americans interned during World War II under a 1988 statute (which included “human suffering” or the loss of “personal rights”). The author argues that the rationales for § 104(a)(2) continue to be relevant in the reparations context, even though the current version of § 104(a)(2) applies only in the case of personal physical injuries.

In some cases, specific federal legislation was enacted to exclude the reparation payment from income. For example, in 2001, Congress enacted a statutory exclusion for payments made to victims of the Holocaust. The author suggests that the legislation, which is not part of the Internal Revenue Code, is consistent with the general welfare doctrine and can serve as a model for a statutory exclusion of reparations. Another relevant example is § 139F of the Code, which relates to the state compensation payments for wrongful incarceration.

Nevertheless, the receipt of reparation remedies is more likely to be taxed now than in the past, due to the 1996 narrowing of the personal injury exclusion and the incomplete codification of the reparations strand of the GWD. The wrongful dispossession of property (Bruce’s Beach case), and noncash benefits such as discharge of indebtedness as a reparation remedy (Pigford) are noteworthy examples. In Pigford, the IRS conceptualized the claims as discrimination claims that did not qualify for the personal injury exclusion, rather than as excludable reparation claims. Pigford also raises significant procedural justice concerns because thousands of claimants lacked individual expert tax representation, and the tax issues were complex and fact-specific for each individual claimant. Without new legislation from Congress, however, the IRS did not allow exclusion of the Pigford remedies, thus failing to mitigate the economic harm to Black farmers.

The author asserts that the rationales for the § 104 and GWD exclusions apply with equal or greater degree to reparation remedies. The article then introduces the proposal: that Congress enact a comprehensive statutory exclusion for the receipt of reparations. The proposal intends to reduce wealth inequality, prevent the tax law from undermining the rehabilitative remedial goals of reparations, and reduce potential procedural unfairness in tax administration. The author also recommends that Congress amend § 108(a)(1) relating to cancellation of indebtedness income in order to exclude cancellation of debt arising in the context of redressing systemic discrimination against members of subordinated groups. At this point, it may be worthwhile to consider whether a similar exclusion should apply at the state levels. Additionally, the author may wish to elaborate on the proposal’s prospects of adoption and implementation, as well as how the nontaxation of reparations might influence the broader discussion surrounding reparations claims and the willingness of policymakers to adopt reparative measures. The article concludes with an appendix, outlining the proposed income tax exclusion for the receipt of reparation remedies, which provides that any excludable reparation remedies received by an eligible individual shall not be includable in gross income.

In summary, this project offers a robust and comprehensive analysis of the legal landscape regarding the federal taxation of reparations. It provides a compelling account of the historical background and normative justifications for excluding reparations from recipients’ income, and makes a valuable contribution that will help inform ongoing discussions surrounding taxation and reparations.

Here’s the rest of this week’s SSRN Tax Roundup:

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Can the Corporate Tax be Delegated? (May 18, 2026)

Jeffrey Benson (Syracuse), Fiscal Architecture for a Just Society: A Comprehensive Tax and Revenue Policy Paper (May 21, 2026)

Miranda Perry Fleischer (San Diego), Symmetry and Speech: Nonprofits and the First Amendment, 103 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026)

David Gamage (Missouri) & Darien Shanske (UC Davis), Against Doctrinal Siloing: Harmonizing Fiscal Federalism and the U.S. Constitution, 103 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026)

David Gamage (Missouri) & John R. Brooks (Fordham), The Federal Taxing Power in Its New Constitutional Era, Tax L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026)

Claire A. Hill (Minnesota), What Cognitive Psychologists Should Find Interesting About Tax, 17 Psychonomic Bull. & Rev. 180 (2010)

Tarun Jain (Supreme Court of India), Taxing Supply of “Obligation to Refrain from an Act, or to Tolerate an Act or a Situation”: High Court Elucidates Indian GST Law Provisions (May 20, 2026)

Fabian Kratzlmeier (Max Planck Inst. for Tax L. & Pub. Fin.), The Tax Creditor Under European Insolvency Law: Special Treatment, Equal Treatment, or Even Worse? (May 13, 2026)

Sarah B. Lawsky (Illinois), Limiting Inconsistencies in Legal Languages, 28 Vand. J. Ent. Tech. L. 765 (2026)

Katherine Pratt (Loyola L.A.), Aligning Reparations and Taxation, J. of Race, Gender & Social Justice (forthcoming 2026)

Diane M. Ring, Assessing Decision-Making in Global Tax Organisations, 2025 Brit. Tax Rev. 61

Tamir Shanan (College of Management) & Doron Narotzki (Akron, Daverio Sch. Acct.), Taxation of Cross Border Migrations: Re-Evaluating the Allocation Between Home Country and Host Country, in Fairness in International Taxation 173 (2025)

István Simon, Cryptocurrencies in National Laws – Hungary (May 8, 2026)Manoj Viswanathan (UC Law SF), Toward Issuer-Based Certification of Qualified Small Business Stock (May 7, 2026)

Steven Utke (Connecticut. Dept. Acct.), Estimates of Revenue from Closing the Carried Interest Tax ‘Loophole’ are Highly Uncertain and Likely Overstated (May 11, 2026)

The post SSRN Review & Roundup: Harpaz Reviews Pratt’s Aligning Reparations and Taxation appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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The United States is seeing an increasing concentration of wealth at the very top and a worsening national debt. For many Americans, taxing the rich more is an obvious move.

Ask tax policy experts how to do this, and you will often hear novel proposals to curb the many intricate ways the rich make and hide their money: A wealth tax. A tax on unrealized gains. A tax on the loans that billionaires take against their stock. These ideas, now common in progressive tax thinking, come with serious catches, legal or arithmetical. The tax code has structural flaws, and many of the ideas would be good in theory. But pursuing them could result in little or no new revenue for the government.

The boring truth is that Congress can accomplish a lot simply by raising the rates of the taxes already on the books.

…

The post Liscow (NY Times): The Simple Answer to Taxing the Rich Is the Best Answer appeared first on TaxProf Blog.

     

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