NYU/UCLA Tax Policy Conference

As detailed here, NYU Law School and UCLA Law School have agreed to launch a "joint annual conference focusing on tax policy issues from both a legal and economic perspective." The term is potentially ongoing although only the first two years are definitely set.

Quoting from the official announcement, the first conference, "Tax Policy and Health Care Reform," will be held in October 2011 in Los Angeles, with a focus on the tax policy implications of health care reform. Topics will include tax alternatives to fund health care reform, tax subsidies and penalties for health insurance, using the tax system to implement individual health insurance mandates, and the desirability of tax benefits for non-profit health care providers in the post-health care reform world.

The second conference will be held in October 2012 in New York. Tentatively titled "The Income Tax at 100," it will observe the hundredth anniversary of the modern U.S. income tax in 2013. Participants will take stock of the American income tax at its centennial, and consider prospects for tax reform as the income tax begins its second century.

Papers presented at the conferences will generally be published in the Tax Law Review.

I think of the niche that these conferences will serve as similar (the Tax Law Review aspect aside) to that of a number of recent conferences in Los Angeles that typically were co-sponsored by one or more of the law schools there and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington DC. Recent examples include "Starving the Hidden Beast: New Approaches to Tax Expenditure Reform," co-sponsored by Loyola Law School of Los Angeles and the Tax Policy Center, and held on January 14, 2011; and Train Wreck: A Conference on America's Looming Fiscal Crisis, co-sponsored by USC Law School, the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics, and the Tax Policy Center, and held on January 15, 2010.