The Tax Law Center at NYU Law seeks to protect and strengthen the tax system through rigorous, high-impact legal work in the public interest.
The legal choices that shape the tax system can be complex and opaque for people who are not tax experts, but they can have profound impacts, including on how much revenue the tax system raises and who pays tax. Private interests often invest heavily in shaping these choices. The Tax Law Center aims to be a strong public interest voice weighing in on these technical yet consequential tax law issues. To do so, the Center provides technical input on tax legislation, comments on tax regulations, and submits amicus briefs in tax litigation, with the aim of improving the integrity of the tax system, saving and raising revenues, and advancing equity.
The Tax Law Center at NYU Law was created to bring deep tax law expertise to bear in the public interest—of the quality that well-resourced filers regularly use to seek preferential treatment. The Tax Law Center’s tax attorneys have expertise across the tax system, including in the administration, private practice, and legislative branches. This includes staff who have held roles at: the IRS Chief Counsel’s office (which drafts new guidance and represents the IRS in legal disputes); the Department of Treasury Office of Tax Policy (which leads in policy decisions affecting the tax system for the executive branch); the House Ways and Means Committee (which drafts major pieces of tax legislation); and private law and accounting firms that represent high-net worth individuals and large businesses seeking top-flight legal advice to navigate the tax system to their best advantage.
Our staff also use their expertise to seek and evaluate the perspectives of practitioners and experts who can point to holes in the tax system based on years of experience practicing, drafting, and implementing tax law. These include practitioners at law and accounting firms, former IRS and Treasury officials ranging from career staff to Senate-confirmed leadership, and tax academics and researchers at the cutting edge in the study of tax law and administration in the US and globally. The Tax Law Center also benefits from our Advisory Board, which provides guidance in our work to bring a public interest perspective and strong legal expertise to consequential tax policy decisions.