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In recent debates over reducing the budget deficit, even politicians adamant about not raising taxes have been discussing the elimination of tax loopholes, or “tax expenditures.” We turned to Professor of Practice Stephen Shay, and asked the former deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Treasury: What are tax expenditures, and should they be repealed as a means to lower tax rates, reduce the deficit or both?
Appearing at Harvard Law School a year and a half after being released from federal prison, a contrite Jack Abramoff expressed a desire to thwart the political corruption he once infamously practiced. The event on Dec. 6 was sponsored by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, whose director, HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig, interviewed Abramoff, a former lobbyist who pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials. “His experience,” said Lessig, “has an enormous amount to teach us.”
Mihir A. Desai, who currently serves as the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance, the Senior Associate Dean for Planning and University Affairs, and the Chair of Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School, has accepted a joint appointment to the faculty of Harvard Law School as a tenured Professor of Law.
The Uniform Law Commission has formed a new drafting committee to prepare a Uniform Act on Powers of Appointment. Robert H. Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has been named as a member of the drafting committee. An expert in trusts and estates, Sitkoff serves under gubernatorial appointment as a Uniform Law Commissioner from Massachusetts.
Harvard Law School has announced the appointments of U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner and Stephen Shay, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as Professors of Practice.
Robert H. Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, was elected an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a national professional organization of approximately 2,600 lawyers who specialize in trusts and estates.