By Leandra Lederman
The 2018 Tax Policy Colloquium at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law will kick off next Thursday, January 18, with the presentation by Harvard Law School professor Tom Brennan of a fascinating and timely paper he is co-authoring with Robert L. McDonald, Debt and Equity Taxation: A Combined Economic and Legal Perspective. Tom is a terrific speaker, and I expect the workshop to be really interesting.
Last year, I did a closing post noting that some themes had emerged in the semester’s colloquium. This year, I plan to blog each workshop afterwards, with permission of the speakers. The full workshop schedule follows after the jump. If you will be in Bloomington and are interested in attending one or more workshops, just let me know and I can send you the paper once I receive it. (Most of the paper drafts will not be publicly available.)
The Tax Policy Colloquium is a course for students; I expect about 14 this semester, including a visiting scholar from another school on campus who has asked to audit. I conduct a background session with the students to help them get up to speed on the concepts presented in the paper draft. Typically, the actual workshops are attended not only by the students but also by my colleague David Gamage, senior tax attorney/Maurer alumnus Tim Riffle, and a few other faculty–law school colleagues and/or tax or economics faculty from other schools on campus. Sometimes other members of the community attend, such as a tax professor from another law school; another attorney practicing in Bloomington or Indianapolis; a student not enrolled in the class (Shuyi Oei‘s and Ben Leff‘s talks in 2016 were particularly popular with other students!); and/or a local judicial clerk. Eric Rasmusen from the IU Kelley School of Business and Margaret Ryznar from IU’s McKinney Law School in Indianapolis have each attended several of the talks.
Here is the full schedule for 2018. (Please note that some paper titles are tentative and may change.)
January 18
Thomas J. Brennan
Stanley S. Surrey Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
“Debt and Equity Taxation: A Combined Economic and Legal Perspective” (with Robert L. McDonald)
February 1
John R. Brooks
Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
“The Case for Incrementalism in Tax Reform”
February 15
Ari Glogower
Assistant Professor of Law
The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
“Taxing Income and Wealth”
March 1
Diane Ring
Professor and Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar
Boston College Law School
“Data and Legal Systems”
March 22
Emily Satterthwaite
Assistant Professor
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
“Electing into a Value-Added Tax: Survey Evidence from Ontario Microentrepreneurs”
April 5
Leonard Burman
Professor, Public Administration and International Affairs
Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
“A Universal Wage Credit: Filling the Gap in the 21st Century Labor Market”
April 12
Jennifer Bird-Pollan
James and Mary Lassiter Associate Professor of Law
University of Kentucky College of Law
“The Sovereign Right to Tax: How Bilateral Investment Treaties Threaten Sovereignty”
The Surly Subgroup 