Linda McKissack Beale

Office: Room 3379
Telephone: (313) 577-3941
E-mail: lbeale@wayne.edu
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LL.M., New York University School of Law
J.D., Cornell Law School
Ph.D., Cornell University
M.A., Cornell University
B.S., Duke University
Corporate Taxation
Partnership Taxation
Income Taxation
Professor Linda M. Beale received a B.S. degree in chemistry magna cum laude from Duke University, an M.A .and Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell, where she was a Herbert Lehman Fellow, a J.D. summa cum laude from Cornell Law School, and an LL.M. in taxation from New York University. Prior to her entry in law teaching, Professor Beale clerked with Judge Dorothy Nelson on the Ninth Circuit and worked at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in New York (with one year in Washington, D.C.) as a tax associate. Her work with Cleary’s many financial institution and multinational corporate clients included a wide range of tax issues such as securitizations, partnerships, and cross-border corporate mergers and acquisitions. She has also served as a congressional staffer, a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, and a university administrator at Binghamton University.
Beale’s scholarship has focused on various aspects of corporate tax shelters, proposing more transparent financial reporting of aggressive tax transactions and higher standards for taxpayers and tax advisers as a means of discouraging the tax minimization norm that facilitates aggressive tax positions. She has also written and spoken extensively about the patenting of tax strategies, most recently at the Drake-Tundra 2009 Intellectual Property Roundtable, and serves on the ABA Tax Section's task force on tax strategy patents. Her scholarship can be accessed through SSRN at http://ssrn.com/author=83521. Beale also maintains a weblog, http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/, dedicated to discussion of tax and budgetary matters in the context of the demands of democratic egalitarianism.
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Corporate Taxation (LexisNexis) 2012Corporate Taxation is part of the LexisNexis Graduate Tax Series, which is geared toward LLM degree programs in tax. The book's co-author is Charlotte Crane, Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law.
Click here for more info.
"Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law," University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology and Policy 2008, no. 1.
"Tax Shelters and the Tax Minimization Norm: How Does the Patenting of Tax Advice Transform the (Global) Playing Field?" Wayne State University Journal of Law in Society 9, no. 2 (2008).
"Point and Counterpoint: Tax Exemptions for Home State Bonds under the Supreme Court’s Dormant Commerce Clause Jurisprudence," Taxation News Quarterly 2006.
"Tax, Taxpayers and Religious Institutions," The Advocate 7 (2006).
"Tax Advice Before the Return: The Case for Raising Standards and Denying Evidentiary Privilege," Virginia Tax Review 25 (2006): 583.
Review of From Elections to Democracy: Building Accountable Government in Hungary and Poland, by Susan Rose-Ackerman, Law and Society Review 40 (2006): 744.
"Proposed Mark-to-Market Regs: Four Requirements, Three Limitations, Two Procedures, and One Safe Harbor," Tax Notes 109 (2005): 781.
"Should the Individual AMT Be Repealed?” Taxation News Quarterly (2005). Reprinted in Tax Notes 106 (2005): 1723-1726.
"Congress Fiddles While Middle America Burns: Amending the AMT (and the Regular Tax)," Florida Tax Review 6 (2004): 811. Reprinted in Tax Analysts (2005). Abstracted in Tax Notes 107 (2005): 371.
"Book-Tax Conformity and the Corporate Tax Shelter Debate: Assessing the Proposed Section," Virginia Tax Review 24 (2004): 301.
"Putting SEC Heat on Corporate Tax Shelters and Audit Firms: Responding to Tax Risk with Sunshine, Shame and Strict Liability," Journal of Corporation Law 29 (2004): 219. Digested in The Monthly Digest of Tax Articles 31 (2006).
"Law Professor Offers Suggestions for Fighting Shelters," Tax Notes 103 (2004): 125.
"Tax Court’s Decision in Bank One Raises More Questions Than It Answers," Journal of Taxation of Investments 21 (2003): 3.
"Developments May Lead SEC to Ban Certain Tax Services Under Sarbanes-Oxley Independence Rules," Journal of Taxation of Investments 16 (2003): 5.
"Tax Profs Urged SEC to Take Tough Stance on Auditor Independence," Tax Notes 98 (2003): 765-773.
"An Overview of the U.S. Federal Income Tax Treatment of Collateralized Debt Obligation Transactions," co-authored with David Miller and Paul Wysocki, Journal of Taxation of Financial Institutions 14 (2001): 27-66.
"Don’t Subject Fixed Investment Trusts to Foreign Trust Reporting Rules," co-authored with James M. Peaslee, Worldwide Tax Daily 2000 (2000).
"Connecticut v. Doehr and Procedural Due Process Requirements for Prejudgment Remedies: The Sniadach Tetrad Revisited," Cornell Law Review 79 (1994): 1603.
- April 19, 2012
Linda Beale'sblog, http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/, has been included in a new blog aggregator, EconomicAcademics.org, launched by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to highlight and promote the discussion of economics research. - February 28, 2012
Linda Beale published a new book, Corporate Taxation (LexisNexis, 2012). Co-authored with Charlotte Crane, the book is part of the LexisNexis Graduate Tax Series. - February 20, 2012
Linda Beale'sblog, http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/, was selected to the Top 50 accounting blogs by MastersinAccounting.info, an informational site for people interested in accounting careers and education. According to editor Charles Swipe, "Law professor Linda Beale delves deeply to demystify tax topics ranging from A to Z in order to enlighten wage earners and small employers - instead of fat cats and politicians with Swiss bank accounts; understanding the tax system to avoid being unfairly burdened is a message driven home on 'A Taxing Matter.'" - December 5, 2011
Linda Beale presented at the Joint Fall CLE Meeting of the ABA Section of Taxation and Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Division in Denver in October on the topic of "Recent amendments to Circular 230 and their impact on the Office of Professional Responsibility's role in practitioner discipline." In November, she presented at the Central States Law School Association annual conference in Toledo in November on "Fairness in Context." She also participated in the University of Chicago's Tax Conference, an annual conference that invites prominent tax lawyers from prestigious national firms, corporate tax counsel, and academia for a two-day conference on advanced tax concepts. - June 9, 2011
Linda Beale and her blog, A Taxing Matter, were mentioned in a post titled "Top 50 Tax Policy Blogs" by The Acclaimed Accountant at http://www.mastersinaccounting.org/2011/top-50-tax-policy-blogs/. - May 10, 2011
Linda Beale - on May 6 at the ABA Tax Section's annual meeting in Washington - led the"pro" position in spirited debate on the ethics of tax practice before the IRS, put together for a session of the Standards Committee of which she is vice-chair. The debate format, content and performance were a resounding success. The debate was an outgrowth of Professor Beale's dissent on a critical recommendation of the Standards Committee in comments on proposed amendments to Circular 230. The Tax Council had overruled the Standards' Committee's position that favored harmonization of statutory and Circular 230 ethics standards. Professor Beale suggested that a broader discussion was mandated, and recommended this program as the first post-comment dialogue in that broader discussion.The same day, Professor Beale and the incoming chair of Standards presented a brief overview of the developments in respect of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). A court in Massachusetts, which permits same-sex marriages, has ruled DOMA unconstitutional, and the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, has announced that the Department of Justice has also concluded that DOMA is unconstitutional. As a result, DOJ will enforce DOMA, but does not intend to defend it in court. A number of ethical concerns are raised by these recent developments, regarding whether a tax lawyer can advise a client to file jointly without disclosure under the substantial authority (statutory) or realistic possibility of success (ethical) standards, and how to take into consideration the potential forum shopping results of the DoJ's decision not to defend in court. Much will depend on the IRS's interpretation of its duty to enforce, but it may be that couples will have a better chance of success in district courts, in which DOJ is the government representative, than in tax courts.
- April 6, 2011
Linda Beale was recognized as one of the Top 50 Tax Bloggers by TaxConnections. Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, is often cited by publications such as the Wall Street Journal. - January 3, 2011
Linda Beale's paper, "Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for PSN: Public Policy (Topic). - December 6, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for CGN: Governance Law & Arrangements. - November 10, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for Derivatives eJournal. - November 8, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for Monetary Economics eJournal. - October 29, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for CGN: Securities Regulation (Sub-Topic). - October 26, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for Macroeconomics: Prices, Business Fluctuations, & Cycles eJournal. - October 21, 2010
Linda Beale's paper, "In the Wake of Financial Crisis," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for History of Finance eJournal. - April 1, 2010
Linda Beale was again featured as a top tax blogger - this time by a Wall Street posting as one of the best 20 independent financial blogs. More information at http://247wallst.com/2010/03/31/the-247-wall-st-twenty-best-financial-blogs/ - March 26, 2010
Linda Beale had an article, "Bilski at the Supreme Court," published in the March 15, 2010 issue of Tax Notes magazine. It was the second most viewed item on Tax Notes Today on the day it was posted. - February 3, 2010
Linda Beale was one of the "top economics bloggers" surveyed by the Kaufman Foundation on economic and tax policy issues. Click here for more information. - December 16, 2009
Linda Beale will serve as a panelist in a discussion titled "Teaching Beyond the Appellate Opinion" that will be presented at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans on Jan. 9, 2010, from 1:30-3:15 p.m. The panel will focus on a range of different approaches in core courses such as the use of non-appellate opinion casebooks, the use of Foundation Press Stories books, case studies (more common in business schools), students doing actual observations of police and other methods. - December 7, 2009
Linda Beale participated, as a member of the steering committee for the Tax Literary Project, in mid-November in an intensive workshop launching the Project, which is a national effort founded at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law by tax professor Marjorie Kornhauser. The Project seeks to increase knowledge and understanding of taxation among the general public by means of popular media such as electronic games and other online activities. It focuses on the federal income tax, with content and method aimed toward individuals between the ages of 16 and 30 who are about to enter-or have just entered-the workforce. The intent is to educate young Americans about the purposes of taxation, the connection between taxing and spending, fairness issues in the distribution of the tax burden, including choice of tax base and rate structure, and basic tax concepts, such as the difference between statutory rates and the effective tax rates actually paid by taxpayers. The steering committee is made up of academics, practitioners, former government officials and non-profit organization representatives. - December 3, 2009
Linda Beale was an invited speaker at the International Monetary Fund's 10th Seminar on Current Developments in Monetary and Financial Law. On Dec. 3, 2009, Prof. Beale participated in a panel on recent developments in financial accounting standards, with a presentation on "Legal and Accounting Implications of Proposed Financial System Reforms." A book with presentation articles from the seminar will be published early next spring by the International Monetary Fund. - November 16, 2009
Linda Beale participated in the first workshop meeting of the steering committee for The Tax Literacy Project Nov. 13-14, 2009, at the O'Connor Law School, Arizona State in Tempe, Arizona. The Project's purpose is to increase knowledge about the tax system among young adults age 16-30 through internet games, website information and modules that can be adapted for classes from high school to college to organizational workshops. The steering committee includes academics, practitioners, media experts and representatives of various non-profit organizations that have an interest in countering the widespread misleading or downright wrong information about the way taxes work and why taxes are important in a democracy. - October 5, 2009
Linda Beale was the moderator for the Center for the Study of Citizenship's Fifth Annual Corporate Citizenship Symposium on October 5 at the Law School. - September 30, 2009
Linda Beale who is serving as vice-chair of the ABA Tax Section Standards of Tax Practice Committee, moderated a panel representative of small, large and in-house practices to discuss the impact of the changes to Circular 230. The panel was part of the ABA Tax Section's fall meeting in Chicago September 25-26. Prof. Beale noted that the initial amendments to Circular 230 drew widespread criticism from practitioners, complaining of a "sea change" to the rules that would wreak havoc on attorney-client relationships and cause enormous additional transaction costs for the simplest planning. The panel concluded that the changes had been less onerous than predicted, and that they had encouraged practitioners to focus on quality control issues that are always worthy of attention. Panelists even suggested that it was time for the Treasury and IRS to just leave the rules alone -more tweaking to address the few remaining complaints would likely just create more problems as practitioners have to adjust their current procedures to suit. - July 20, 2009
Linda Beale serves as a contributing blogger on the Angry Bear blog, a blog that was recently listed by the Wall Street Journal as among the "top 25" economics blogs. Angry Bear highlights topics as varied as worldwide trade, industrial production, US government programs and regulations like Social Security. Professor Beale also maintains her own blog, A Taxing Matter. - June 4, 2009
Linda Beale is a contributing blogger on the Angry Bear blog. This blog highlights topics as varied as worldwide trade, industrial production, US government programs and regulations like Social Security. Professor Beale also maintains her own blog, A Taxing Matter. - April 9, 2009
Linda Beale has been appointed Vice Chair of the Committee on Standards of Tax Practice for a two-year term starting July 1. Her selection as a Committee Vice Chair and a part of the Section of Taxation's leadership for 2009-2010 represents recognition by her peers of her abilities and contributions to the work of the Section. - March 4, 2009
Linda Beale was recognized by Taxrascal.com for being a top-ten tax blogger. Beale's blog is titled "A Taxing Matter." - March 4, 2009
Linda Beale's tax blog, "A Taxing Matter," was recognized by Jim Maule, Professor of Law at the Villanova University School, on Blogs.com for being one his favorite 10 tax blogs. - February 19, 2009
Linda Beale's tax blog, "A Taxing Matter," was recognized by Paul Caron, Associate Dean of Faculty and Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, on TaxProf Blog for being one of the top 10 best tax blogs. - February 12, 2009
Linda Beale will be presenting "Is Bilski the final word on tax strategy patents?" at the Drake IP Conference-Tundra Roundtable, to be held at the Intellectual Property Center at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, on Feb. 27, 2009. - January 28, 2009
Linda Beale organized and participated in a competitive "open source" program at the AALS annual meeting (Jan. 9, 2009, in San Diego) on "The business of tax patents." - June 27, 2008
Linda Beale presented a paper at the annual Law and Society conference, May 29, in Montreal, called "Tax Practitioners as First Interpreters." The paper considers statutory construction in the context of tax rules and asks how text should be approached by practitioners in order to ensure a coherent analysis and push practitioners away from aggressive, loophole-exploiting interpretations.Her paper entitled, "Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law" was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for SEIN Subject Matter Journals and Social & Environmental Impact Network.
- May 27, 2008
Linda Beale paper entitled, "Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law" was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for BPA: Public Policy (Topic). - April 21, 2008
Linda Beale gave a presentation to BC Tax Colloquium on March 27, 2008, called "Tax Patents: At the Crossroads of Tax and Patent Law."She will also soon be published in the Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy (forthcoming 2008).
- October 30, 2006
Linda Beale was elected president of Central States Law School Association for 2007.Professor Beale also presented a paper on Davis and the Supreme Court's dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence at the 2006 Central States Law School Association Conference and Annual Meeting at the University of Louisville School of Law.
- September 18, 2006
Linda Beale taught a two week course in U.S. federal income tax law as part of the Anglo-American Law Program at the Universidad Catolica in Lisbon, Portugal this May.
She spoke at an economics panel at the first "Yearly Kos" conference, attended by about 1,000 bloggers and blog readers, in Las Vegas in June. (That panel is available through a streaming video link on the Daily Kos website.)She presented a paper July 8, Brave New World after the Jobs Act: Changing Roles of Tax Professionals, Tax Administration, and the Courts, that further developed arguments for a higher standard for tax advice, as part of a panel on "Law, Society, and Taxation: Ethics and Taxes" at the 2006 Law and Society Conference in Baltimore.
Her tax blog, A Taxing Matter, (available at http://www.ataxingmatter.us) continues to receive recognition and invite commentary (both publicly on the blog and through individual emails to me), as evidenced by this statement on Paul Caron's TaxProfBlog link (below) about a recent posting: "For an extraordinarily thoughtful discussion of Murphy, see Linda Beale, Murphy: Emotional Distress Awards, Taxes and the Constitution." The link to the TaxProf item (and through it the link to Professor Beale's Murphy posting) is: Murphy: "Textbook Example of Why Blogs Beat Textbooks"
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/09/murphy_textbook.html
- Linda Beale was quoted in an article in The Street titled "General Electric, Citigroup Tax Break Intact After Fiscal cliff Deal."
Read Article - Linda Beale is quoted in an article posted on The Street. The report is titled "GE, Citigroup 2012 earnings in limbo over tax fight."
Read Article - Linda Beale'sblog, "A Taxing Matter," from Feb. 23 was posted on the Forbes.com website.
Read Article - Linda Beale blogged about estate taxes on Oct. 23 ("American Family Business Foundation Pushes Tax Relief For Wealthy Heirs") on ataxingmatter.blogs.com. A link to this blog ("cut in estate taxes") appeared in thefiscaltimes.com article "Income Inequality Is Hobbling the Middle Class."
Read Article - Linda Beale was one of two speakers on "The Exchange," the New Hampshire NPR show, on Oct. 26, talking about the "flat tax" and other proposals of Presidential candidates Rick Perry and Herman Cain. Her co-panelist was Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and editor of the website downsizinggovernment.org.
Read Article - Linda Beale wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times about Herman Cain's flat tax plan.
Read Article - Linda Beale was quoted in a Huffington Post article on a possible repatriation tax rate reduction.
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was picked up again by the Wall Street Journal. The specific post featured is titled "They're Bamboozling Us: Chang's '23' Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism."
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was picked up again by the Wall Street Journal. The specific post featured is titled "Banks who aided taxpayers in hiding accounts under more scrutiny."
Read Article - Linda Beale was quoted in an article titled "Patent Office Reexamining Controversial Tax Strategy Patent" by Jeremiah Coder in the May 23 issue of Tax Notes.
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was picked up again by the Wall Street Journal. The specific post featured is titled "What Corporations Want (Daily Show)."
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was picked up again by the Wall Street Journal. The specific post featured is titled "The House GOP Budget."
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was picked up by the Wall Street Journal. The specific post featured is titled "Health Care and the Anti-Abortion Right."
- Linda Beale wrote a column for The New York Times' feature Room for Debate. In Room for Debate, The Times invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues. Professor Beale's column, "Better Ways to Use $700 Billion," addresses the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. According to Professor Beale, "Permitting the Bush cuts for the wealthy to expire as slated is the right thing to do."
Read Article - Linda Beale was highlighted in a Detroit Legal News article titled "Wayne State Professor both a 'Bear' and a blogger."
Read Article - Linda Beale's blog, A Taxing Matter, was named by the Wall Street Journal among the top five tax accounting blogs.
Read Article - Linda Beale was mentioned on hedgefund.net in an article titled "Financial Bloggers Give ‘F's' to Congress, Wall Street." Beale was one of the "top economics bloggers" surveyed by the Kaufman Foundation on economic and tax policy issues. Kauffman Foundation's survey
Read Article - Linda Beale commented in a Cincinnati Enquirer story about President Barack Obama's proposal to extend a temporary business tax incentive for 2010. "There is little to show that it or other tax cuts work to stimulate job creation," she said. "This expensing provision most likely serves to provide bigger dividend payouts to shareholders and even higher compensation to corporate executives."
Read Article - Linda Beale provided her legal expertise in a Tax Notes article addressing the recent grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of a patent case and how it has the tax bar hopeful that an eventual decision could limit the prospect of future tax strategy patents.
Read Article - Linda Beale provided her expertise in an opinion piece about President Barack Obama's tax plan in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on March 10, 2009. Beale prefers Reagan's base-broadening approach. "It eliminated loopholes, lowered rates and removed the preferential rate on capital gains. That was the right solution."
Read Article - Linda Beale offered her expertise in a story in the Houston Chronicle on March 5, 2009, titled "The right is unduly exercised about Obama's tax plan."
Read Article - Linda Beale commented on Bloomberg.com on Feb. 26, 2009, in an article addressing Obama's 2010 budget proposal, which would reinstate the top two Clinton-era tax rates of 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011, up from the 33 percent and 35 percent the richest Americans now pay.
Read Article - Linda Beale and her lecture on tax policy and the financial crisis during Wayne Law's "Legal Perspectives on the Obama Administration" Symposium were highlighted in the Detroit Legal News on Jan. 22, 2009.
Read Article - Linda Beale was quoted by George L. Yaksick, Jr., in the Nov. 6, 2008 edition of Commerce Clearing House's newsletter, Federal Tax Weekly. The article was titled "Future of Tax Patents Uncertain After Federal Circuit Decision."
Read Article - Linda Beale was featured by Crain's Detroit Business in an article titled "People" on July 28, 2008.
Read Article - Linda Beale was featured by Jocelyn Faniel-Heard in the Detroit Free Press in an article titled "People Making News" on July 6, 2008.
Read Article - Linda Beale was featured by Cecil Angel in the Detroit Free Press in an article titled "Detroit News Briefs" on June 24, 2008.
Read Article - Linda Beale was featured by Cecil Angel in the Detroit Free Press in an article titled "Tax expert to lead WSU law studies" on June 24, 2008.
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