Just to develop the tax / nonprofit angle a bit more, the last sentence (allowing donors to claw back donations) would violate every 501(c)(3) organization's governing documents, and make them ineligible for deductible contributions. State orgs a little more complicated but likely same result.

We're grateful for this generous Jotwell write-up of "Taxing Dynasties" from Kent Schenkel (who is seemingly not on bsky). trustest.jotwell.com/a-prescripti...

We all know that Fed governor Lisa Cook was not fired "for cause." Indeed, in court, the administration will surely argue that for-cause protections are unconstitutional. Most other scholars say that recent decisions on indep. agencies portend an admin win on this issue. Aziz Huq & I disagree. 🧵

Unpopular opinion right now, but I do think the Fed can be said to have a different constitutional status than other independent agencies. Ofc, they all should be constitutional. But the Fed is different, because w/out it the borrowing power would be useless. lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archiv...

Since IRS is within "all executive agencies," this directive appears to violate the criminal prohibition on presidents ordering tax audits. www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...

The proposed 2% "Zucman Tax" on wealth in France is garnering huge crowds and overwhelming support. It's reveals the political durability of proposals to tax the rich, as Harold Meyerson writes. prospect.org/economy/2025...

If anyone noticed a little rattle in Berkeley this morning, that was me dropping my manuscript on some commenters. Sorry.

From what I'm hearing we're about to explore the legal boundaries of www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...

Read the entire thread. See also www.regulations.gov/comment/ED-2... - co-written by several of the brightest minds and academics in the area of nonprofit and tax exemption law.

A impressive team of nonprofit law experts (+me), have banded together to comment on the new proposed rules from the Education Dept. on public service loan forgiveness. The rule purports to give ED authority to strip PSLF eligibility from any employer that acts with an "illegal purpose." 🧵 1/13

Not that I disagree with the general point, but avoiding estate tax is a complex & time-consuming dance, which is to say that the system arbitrarily rewards those who can hire the best dance instructors. More here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Another reason that encouraging tips, whether through the tax system or otherwise, is bad economic policy. Tips make workers (very) junior partners in the business, with much of the volatility but none of the control or bankruptcy cushion business owners enjoy.

No, Area 53-Year-Old Would Not Like His Drink With Boba

The holding that "pocket recissions" are illegal starts at page 31.

The Vdare 990's are certainly fishy. E.g., the 2023 990 reports that the org spent > $500,000 on "legal fees" (more than 1/3 of all expenses), yet does not disclose any legal services provider as one of its top-5 most highly compensated contractors (the whole field is blank).

We all know that Fed governor Lisa Cook was not fired "for cause." Indeed, in court, the administration will surely argue that for-cause protections are unconstitutional. Most other scholars say that recent decisions on indep. agencies portend an admin win on this issue. Aziz Huq & I disagree. 🧵

Coming from DC, where developers were frantically building 10-story condos for a couple of years before the new NoMa station even opened, the lack of development near BART stations is just baffling. The North Berkeley BART stop is basically an empty field, some ranch-style houses, and a tumbleweed.

First day of class, internet. What statutory interpretation classic lesson plan am I teaching today?

Once again I am puzzled about the reporting of the church/politics settlement. This is a deal a Harris administration probably would have happily made (since the alternative is an Alito opinion you know will be awful). It doesn't bind any future admin. Settle down. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/u...

At SEC we had to write 500-page explanations for our rules and still the 5th Circuit was like "nuh uh, moar regressions." Meanwhile, the complete explanation IRS gives for canceling Direct File is "I don't care about Direct File." news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-re...

Hit "send" on the first draft of my monograph with @rooseveltinstitute.org , "How to Tax the Rich." (Spoiler: no, the answer isn't "lots of tariffs"). Look out, @mikemadowitz.bsky.social ! Interested persons should feel free to email for advanced access.

To answer your urgent questions, no, I did not pose for this art after sticking my face in a bowlful of blueberries (though I would totally do that). I just have the natural coloration of a badger.

UC Berkeley Law has once again had a banner hiring year, adding seven new professors across a wide range of fields and disciplines to an already stellar faculty: www.law.berkeley.edu/article/seve... #UCBerkeleyLaw

Some interesting organizational-law questions in the Columbia settlement. If board members want to help government extort their own organization out of ideological alignment, is that self-dealing? If it helps board members avoid personal extortion? Something for the NY AG to think about.

An unusually well-done deep dive into the recent IRS filings, misleadingly reported elsewhere as allowing churches to engage in partisan politics: www.deseret.com/faith/2025/0... Featuring quotes from me & @smbrnsn.bsky.social

People, I am coming here to warn you that 9.67 of the (shitty first drafts of the) 10 chapters of my monograph are done. If you are a tax policy geek, there is a serious danger it will be landing in your inbox soon. Consider turning on your "out of office" notifications. Status: feeling good.

Apologies to quant friends here for using data repeatedly as a singular noun.

I guess it's time again to tell my Kevin Hassett story, which is that his co-author workshopped a paper here at Georgetown. Their data were fake -- they were claiming it showed things it could not be used to show. We pointed this out, & they agreed! They then published the paper without changes.

So now we see that there will be a spiral of embarrasing scandals or failures, to be pushed from headlines with a new outrage, which inevitably will fail disastrously, requiring an even more outrageous headline-grabbing outrage. Can't we even spend a week talking about how terrible OBBB is?

Anyone who would accept the post of Fed Chair under these circumstances is not qualified to occupy it.

In print now! "Money Moves: Taxing the Wealthy at the State Level" www.californialawreview.org/print/state-...

Wow, a front-page WaPo story about a possible unilateral administrative action. That seems like an important issue. A major question, one might even say. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Although I'm as hyped as anyone to write my "Deregulation by Litigation" article (re: the churches lobbying story), an important note by @smbrnsn.bsky.social: IRS probably needs regulatory action to lock in its new position for anyone other than maybe the current plaintiffs.

Hey, are you confused about how the IRS can just announce that "does not participate in...any political campaign" means "belt out endorsemnts like a gospel revival singer, as long as it's a church"? Steve Shay & I have got you covered. See: www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...

Hey, are you confused about how the IRS can just announce that "does not participate in...any political campaign" means "belt out endorsemnts like a gospel revival singer, as long as it's a church"? Steve Shay & I have got you covered. See: www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...

Big new poll finds that ... are you sitting down? ... "a bipartisan majority supports raising taxes on high incomes and wealth, including restoring pre-2017 tax rates, taxing capital gains like regular income, and introducing new taxes on large fortunes."

What replaces IDR loans for grad students after OBBB passes? Some professional schools have weighed income sharing for their grads, which is economically income insurance with a small risk pool. Could we see large consortiums of schools pooling their capital & risk? Through a 3d-party nonprofit?

I'm on the Senate floor right now debating Trump's Big Ugly bill, and I really worry Americans do not fully realize just how bad it is. Please help get the word out.   This is just SOME of what's in the bill (so far).

I feel like a functioning media would probably have made a bit more of the side-by-side of a mega-billionaire's $50m+ wedding ceremony happening at the same time Congress is scheming to give him a huge tax cut, and lying about how much that will cost.

We do not yet have a full distributional analysis of the Senate GOP leadership's One Big Beautiful Bill, but here is a *rough* guess of the combined spending and tax cuts. Low-income families being asked to sacrifice on behalf of tax cuts for high-income families.

Striking the Notre Dame loophole from the endowment tax was something of a gift to the drafters since that provision was pretty blantantly unconstitutional.

WaPo op-ed today by the DHS Sec'y (I am sparing you the link) lays out their "case" for limiting foreign students at Harvard. And yeah, as expected, it's just a recitation of all the speech they're trying to suppress.

I'm not proud of it, but I skimmed the leaked Harvard Law Review memos. And yeah, some of it is cringe. But you'll also come away impressed by the immense amount of work and serious thought these students provide the academy gratis. Replacing them with peer review would be very challenging.

I'm not proud of it, but I skimmed the leaked Harvard Law Review memos. And yeah, some of it is cringe. But you'll also come away impressed by the immense amount of work and serious thought these students provide the academy gratis. Replacing them with peer review would be very challenging.

Or, think about U.S. debt as an asteroid. The OBB means we're borrowing another $3 to $4 trillion at a moment when, through other admin. actions, the cost of borrowing is both growing and growing more uncertain. It's like we're making the asteroid bigger and also firing Bruce Willis.

Two generations of Republican deficit scolds: "The Social Security trust fund is a fiscal asteroid that will kill us all, like some kind of bankrupt dinosaurs!" OBBB: "Let's make it two asteroids."

Stealth and speed are the only way to pass legislation this massively unpopular (underwater 2.5:1 among indies who know anything about it...worse than ticks or broccoli). Delay and noise are the answers.

Now that we’ve seen the full Senate text, we can say for certain: either the House or the Senate version would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in history. Each have the largest Medicaid and largest SNAP cuts ever. And each give huge tax cuts to the rich.

Reading some rumors that Senate R's will push for more, maybe even full, expensing for businesses in the Big Bad Bill. There are many reasons this is a disastrous addition to an already-terrible legislation. But many people have positive views of expensing, so let me try to dispel some of those.

Since there are already several decades-old rulings saying the opposite, this isn't a change that can likely be done without notice & comment. And since the legal position it asserts is dead wrong, I'm expecting this gets sunk eventually, tho probably only after we write a lot of briefs.