Professor Shanske's Analysis on Republican Tax Plan Featured in LA Times

Professor Darien Shanske’s commentary on the Republican-sponsored tax plan currently before Congress appeared in a variety of media this week, impacting coverage of the plan as details emerged about its potential effects on state budgets. His comments were included in articles in the Los Angeles Times and Law360, and he contributed blog posts on the subject to Medium.

In addition, Professor Shanske co-authored a paper, “The Games They Will Play: Tax Games, Roadblocks, and Glitches Under the New Legislation,” that was downloaded more than 8,000 times during the first day of its availability and tweeted by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to his nearly 4 million followers. The article also drew coverage in Slate and the Sacramento Bee.

Professor Shanske told Law360 that states “are going to respond aggressively” to problems presented by the tax plan.  In a blog post and then in the co-authored paper, Shanske outlined some ways that he and other academics have considered for states to respond to the federal reform proposals and in particular how the states could change their tax systems so as to retain more of the value of the State and Local Tax deduction for their taxpayers.  

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Shanske commented on the provision of the tax plan that would eliminate private activity bonds. The bonds are usually used to finance infrastructure projects such as toll roads and affordable housing. Some analysts have suggested that eliminating them would run counter to the Trump administration’s stated goal of building more infrastructure.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for Republicans to have chosen this particular program to cut,” said Shanske.

Darien Shanske is a Professor of Law at UC Davis. His academic interests include taxation, particularly state and local taxation, local government law, public finance, and political theory, particularly jurisprudence.