Seminar Series

Every year the Center for Tax Law and Policy invites a selection of the nation’s leading tax scholars to present their best new work in the Center’s Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series. The series also invites prominent tax policy personnel from nearby Washington D.C. to talk about the practical application of policy principles. This year the seminar series is being organized by Center Co-Directors Chris Sanchirico and Reed Shuldiner.

Fall 2019 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 213
September 25	Richard Prisinzano (Penn Wharton Budget Model), Policy Evaluation under the Penn Wharton Business Model
October 2	Daniel Hemel (U. Chicago Law), Phaseouts
October 9	Robert Peroni (U. Texas Law), An Updated Look at Expanded Worldwide Taxation v. Territorial Taxation After the TCJA
October 16	Mitchell Kane (NYU Law), Collecting the Rent: The Global Battle to Capture MNE Profits
October 23	John Vella (U. Oxford Law), Residual Profit Allocation by Income (by videoconference)
October 30	Andy Grewal (U. Iowa Law), The President’s Tax Returns
November 6	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham Law), Unraveling the Tax Treaty
November 13	Leslie Robinson (Dartmouth Business), Negotiated Tax Havens
November 20	Kerk Phillips and Jaeger Nelson (CBO), Overlapping Generations Models: Comparisons from a Stylized Social Security Experiment
December 4	David Schizer (Columbia Law), Getting the Most out of Nonprofit Subsidies: Challenges in Measuring Success and the Need for Better Disclosure

Fall 2018 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 213
September 26	Richard Prisinzano (Penn Wharton Budget Model), The Penn Wharton Budget Model: Informing the Tax Policy Debate
October 3	Kimberly Clausing (Reed College Economics Department) [by teleconference] Profit Shifting Before and After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
October 10	Joseph Rosenberg (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center), Investment Responses to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
October 17	William G. Gale (Brookings Institution, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center), Fiscal Therapy: Curing America’s Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2019)
October 24	Ari Glogower (Ohio State College of Law), A Constitutional Wealth Tax
October 31	Wei Cui (University of British Columbia School of Law), Arguments in Defense of the Digital Service Tax
November 7	Jon Bakija (Williams College Economics Department), Would a Bigger Government Hurt the Economy?
November 14	H. David Rosenbloom (NYU School of Law), The BEAT and the Treaties
November 28	Jason Oh (UCLA School of Law), The Effects of Capital Gains Rate Uncertainty on Realization
December 5	Lilian Faulhaber (Georgetown Law), Is Digital Different?: Economic Nexus and Other Efforts to Respond to the Changing International Tax Landscape

Fall 2017 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 214
September 27	George Yin (University of Virginia School of Law) Topic: “Codification of the Tax Law and the Emergence of the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation ”
October 4	David Walker (Boston University School of Law) Topic: “The Practice and Tax Consequences of Nonqualified Deferred Compensation ”
October 11	Omri Marian (University of California Irvine School of Law) Topic: “Is All Corporate Tax Planning Good for Shareholders?”
October 18	Hon. James S. Halpern (US Tax Court) Topic: “Litigation in the Tax Court ”
October 25	Elaine Maag (Urban- Brookings Tax Policy Center) Topic: “Complex Families, Complex Taxes: Why Changing Family Dynamics are Making the Tax Code Obsolete, Particularly for Low-Income Families” Main Paper , Supplementary Paper
November 1	Fadi Shaheen (Rutgers Law School) Topic: “Income Tax Treaty Aspects of Nonincome Taxes“
November 8	Alan Viard (American Enterprise Institute) Topic: “Taxes, Transfers, Progressivity and Redistribution ”
November 15	Benjamin Lockwood (Business, Economics and Public Policy Department, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania) Topic: “Regressive Sin Taxes”
November 29	Chris William Sanchirico (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School) Topic: “Expensing and Interest in the GOP Blueprint: Good Deal? Good Idea? ”
December 6	Mark Gergen (University of California Berkeley School of Law) Topic: “The Securities Tax and Cross-Border Investment ”

Fall 2016 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 214
September 28	Joel Slemrod (University of Michigan, Ross School of Business) Topic: “The Impact of Public Tax-Return Disclosure”
October 5	Peter Merrill (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Topic: “Innovation Boxes: Patent Medicine? ”
October 12	Ruth Mason (University Of Virginia School of Law) Topic: “Citizenship Taxation ”
October 19	Victoria Perry (International Monetary Fund) Topic: “Taxing Transfers of Domestic Assets Through Offshore Indirect Ownership”
October 26	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University School of Law) Topic: “Blockchain to Stop VAT Fraud: VATCoin”
November 2	Conor Clarke (Yale Law School) Topic: “Income Inequality and the Corporate Sector: 1913 - 2012“
November 9	Gregg Polsky (University of Georgia Law) Topic: “The Up-C Revolution”
November 16	Len Burman (Urban- Brookings Tax Policy Center) Topic: “Is U.S. Corporate Income Double-Taxed?”
November 30	Scott Dyreng (Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business) Topic: “How Economic and Accounting Incentives Interact in the Tax Avoidance Activities of U.S. Multinationals ”
December 7	Itai Grinberg (Georgetown Law) Topic: “Issues to Consider in the EU State Aid Investigations” Collected Writings on State Aid

Spring 2016 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 213
February 3	Alex Rees-Jones (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School) Topic (co-Authored with Dmitry Taubinsky): “Attention Variation and Welfare: Theory and Evidence from a Tax Salience Experiment”
February 10	Donald Marron (Urban Institute) Topic (Co-Authored with Maeve Gearing and John Iselin): “Should Government Tax Unhealthy Foods and Drinks?” Second Topic: “Should we Tax Internalities LIke Externalities?”
February 17	Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia Law School) Topic: “From Deterrence to Compliance: Legal Uncertainty Reexamined ”
February 24	Kevin Markle (University of Iowa, Tippie College of Business) Topic (Co-Authored with Scott D. Dyreng): “The Effect of Financial Constraints on the Income Shifting of U.S. Multinationals”
March 2	Michael Simkovic (Seton Hall University School of Law) Topic: “The Knowledge Tax” Topic: “Taxes, Subsidies, and Knowledge: A Reply to Professor Oei ”
March 9	Spring Break—No meeting
March 16	Stephanie Sikes (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School) Topic (Co-Authored with Robert Verrecchia): “Aggregate Corporate Tax Avoidance and Cost of Capital”
March 23	Reed Shuldiner (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School) Topic (Co-Authored with Chris William Sanchirico: “The Deferral Effects of Passing Through Foreign Subsidiaries’ Passive Income ”
March 30	Sebastien Bradley (Drexel University, LeBow College of Business) Topic (Co-Authored with Estelle Dauchy and Leslie Robinson): “Cross-Country Evidence on the Preliminary Effects of Patent Box Regimes on Patent Activity and Ownership ”
April 6	Richard Prisinzano (US Treasury Department) Topic (Co-Authored with Michael Cooper, John McClelland, James Pearce, Joseph Sullivan, Danny Yagan, Owen Zidar, and Eric Zwick): ”Business in the United States: Who Owns it and How Much Tax Do They Pay? ”
April 13	William Gentry (Williams College, visiting University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School) Topic: “Capital Gains Taxation and Entrepreneurship”
April 20	Michael Doran (University of Virginia School of Law) Topic: “The Puzzle of Non-Qualified Retirement Pay: Optimal Contracting, Managerial Power, and Taxes ”

Spring 2015 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Gittis 213
February 4	Chris Sanchirico, Penn Carey Law Topic: “As American as Apple Inc.: International Tax and Ownership Nationality”
February 18	Omri Marian, University of Florida School of Law Topic: Home-Country Effects of Corporate Inversions
March 4	Jennifer Blouin, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Topic: “Does Organizational Form Affect Firms’ Foreign Operations? The Role of ‘Check-the-Box’ on Multinational Tax Planning”
March 11	Spring Break - No Meeting
March 18	Holger Sieg, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Economics Topic: “An Experimental Evaluation of Strategies to Increase Property Tax Compliance: Free-riding in the City of Brotherly Love”
March 25	Wolfgang Schön, Max Planck Inst. for Tax Law and Public Finance & Bok Visiting Professor, Penn Law Topic: “Neutrality and Territoriality - Competing or Converging Concepts under European Tax Law”
April 8	Mitchell Kane, NYU School of Law Topic: “A Defense of Source Rules in International Taxation”
April 15	Stephen Shay, Harvard Law School Topic: “Designing a U.S. Minimum Tax on Foreign Business Income”

Spring 2014 Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are at 4:30 in Silverman 280
January 22	Danielle Rolfes, International Tax Counsel Topic: Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)
February 5	Professor Reuven Avi-Yonah , Michigan Law School Topic: Designing a Federal VAT: Summary and Recommendations Taxation and Inequality
February 19	Professor Michael Graetz , Columbia Law School Topic: Technological Innovation, International Competition, and the Challenges of International Income Taxation
March 5	Gerald E. Auten, Senior Research Economist, Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury. Topic: Income Distribution and Mobility “New Perspectives on Income Mobility and Inequality”
April 2	Harry Grubert, Senior Research Economist, Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury Topic: Fixing the System: An Analysis of Alternative Proposals for the Reform of International Tax
April 9	Professor Richard Harvey , Villanova Law School “Offshore Accounts: Insider’s Summary Of FATCA and Its Potential Future” and “Worldwide Taxation of US Citizens Living Abroad: Impact of FATCA and Two Proposals”
April 23	Professor Douglas Shackelford , UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Topic: The Impact of Foreign Withholding Taxes on REIT Investors and Managers

Spring 2012
January 23	Harry L. Gutman, Principal-in-Charge, Federal Tax & Legislative Services,Washington National Tax, KPMG Topic: Tax Reform (1:40-2:50 pm \| Gittis 2)
February 8	Professor Victor Fleischer, University of Colorado Law School Flesicher & Staudt. “Tax and the Boundaries of the Firm”
February 22	Professor Chris Sanchirico, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School “Optimal Tax Policy and the Symmetries of Ignorance” View Paper
March 14	Professor Jennifer Gravelle, Congressional Budget Office “Corporate Tax Incidence: Review of General Equilibrium Estimates and Analysis”
April 4	Professor David Gamage, Berkeley School of Law Gamage & Shankske. “Three Essays On Tax Salience: Market Salience and Political Salience” View Paper (pdf)
April 18	Eric Toder, Urban Institute Topic: International taxation and competitiveness View Paper (pdf)

Please note: All topics subject to change.

For a list of past Seminars, click here .

Center for Tax Law & Policy

Fall 2019

Fall 2018

Fall 2017

Fall 2016

Spring 2016

Spring 2015

Spring 2014

Spring 2012