The Tax Canon (Legal Edition)

My first order of business in familiarizing myself with the basics of tax theory and policy will be to read the materials listed in Vic Fleischer's 2003 blog posting entitled A Rookie's View of the Tax Canon (which I came across by way of a link on Paul Caron's TaxProf Blog). I will be reading the articles in both professor Fleischer's take on the modern tax canon as well as what he lists as the "established" tax canon. Hopefully this will give me some understanding of where things currently stand (at least as of 2003) and where things have been in the past. But maybe this is a bad idea -- why don't you let me know if it is.

It is my hope to read one article per week, but only time will tell how successful this will be. For shorter articles I may get away with a single post whereas for longer ones I may post periodically throughout the week as I work my way through.

I will be going through the tax canon chronologically because, hey, why not. This means that I will begin with Walter J. Blum & Harry Kalven Jr., The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation, 19 U. Chi. L. Rev. 417 (1952). It looks like it'll be a hoot.

Also, it is my intention to familiarize myself with taxation in the economics and finance literature. I have yet to find a "canon" or "Top Ten Tax" list or anything along those lines in either field and have instead been haphazardly noting articles and other sources that look important. If anyone knows of a more systematic approach, please do let me know.

Introductions

To those among you who will feel compelled to question how a four-month-old miniature Australian Shepherd is qualified to author a blog about the study of taxation, I have a confession to make: I am not actually a tax student. I am in fact only a part-time JD student with a background in economics and an interest in taxation. This blog is not intended to provide any insight beyond that which can be provided by any reasonably intelligent herding dog. I hope that the blog will serve as a useful tool in guiding my own study, and perhaps also provide some utility to other tax students or to tax professors who might enjoy reveling in the ignorance of their pupils.

I hope that my efforts to gain some expertise in taxation will be helped along by ongoing documentation on this blog and that you and I will be somewhat entertained by whatever may come of this. If nothing else, this will be a fine use of time that would be otherwise wasted on the chewing of socks.