Chye-Ching Huang

The Federal Tax System Explained Tax administrators and the courts play a critical and often overlooked role in the tax system. This project focuses on these institutions and the impact of their work.

Our new project features a series of explainers breaking down tax administration, regulation, and litigation. It focuses on the critical and often overlooked role of tax administrators and courts—and the real-world impacts of their decisions. taxlawcenter.org/the-federal-...

Includes useful advice on avoiding the types of tax scams that we warned about previously: taxlawcenter.org/blog/here-co....

Great resource:

Congress agreed over the weekend to cut the IRS's base budget by a reported $1 billion. This would be a serious policy mistake at a time when the IRS remains severely depleted. Honest taxpayers deserve better.

The Tealbook - Policy Options With a major year for tax policy looming in 2025, the Tax Law Center aims to deepen the conversation by providing detailed options for potential changes that go beyond simply ending, extending, or mod...

Also, watch this space, we'll be updating our TealBook for post-OBBBA options and more in the New Year. taxlawcenter.org/tealbook/pol...

Taxing Inheritances Under the Income Tax is a Great Idea

Alicia Munnell picked up on Ray Madoff and Lily's work recently, too: crr.bc.edu/taxing-inher...

Opinion | Tax the Rich and Their Heirs (Published 2020)

Faculty Director @lilybatch.bsky.social also wrote for the @nytimes.com in 2020 about the issue of income going untaxed across generations www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/o...

The Tealbook With several tax cuts in the 2017 tax law set to expire, 2025 is a good opportunity to consider policies to broaden the tax base. Learn about current holes in the tax system, filter policy options by ...

We welcome anyone serious about raising revenue to explore our Tealbook compendium of options taxlawcenter.org/tealbook.

It includes options to ensure that capital gains that currently go untaxed across generations are subject to some tax. taxlawcenter.org/tealbook/pol...

And some fifty more.

Opinion | Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me

Has Mitt Romney been reading the @taxlawcenter.org Tealbook of options to broaden the tax base? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

“Decreasing criminal enforcement across all types of taxpayers would signal an indifference to cheating and insults the millions of honest filers who pay the taxes they owe,” said David Hubbert, a senior fellow at the Tax Law Center.

Senate Appropriations Bill Would Set the IRS Up to Fail When IRA Funds Run Out The draft Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill released by Senate Republicans would cut discretionary funding for IRS operations support by 22 percent,...

The draft Senate appropriations bill would cut nearly $1 billion in discretionary funding for IRS operations. This cut would undermine necessary information technology upgrades at the IRS not just this year, but potentially for years to come. taxlawcenter.org/blog/senate-...

EXCLUSIVE: Federal tax prosecutions fell to their lowest level in decades this year, declining more than 27% from the year before as the Trump administration cut the ranks of attorneys and agents who pursue those cases, a Reuters examination has found.

www.reuters.com/world/tax-pr...

Excellent analysis from @taxlawcenter.org team outlining legal and revenue loss risks associated with the Treasury's gradual erosion of the corporate alternative minimum tax.

I'll add: this also puts the US further out of line with globally agreed minimum tax standards.

Five Questions for IRS CEO Frank Bisignano The IRS has a new leader – maybe he can tell us whats happening

NEW from me & Ellis Chen on IRS oversight. What do we know and what we need to know about:

> IRS criminal investigations partnering with ICE
> what the 25% staffing cut means for tax refunds
> what has happened to IRS high-wealth audits
> Palantir's new contracts & your data privacy

Tuning in for SCOTUS oral argument on tariffs today? @justsecurity.org @taxlawcenter.org's Kelsey Merrick with a primer on how using tariffs to raise revenue is a choice for Congress, not the President.

Tuning in for SCOTUS oral argument on tariffs today? @justsecurity.org @taxlawcenter.org's Kelsey Merrick with a primer on how using tariffs to raise revenue is a choice for Congress, not the President.

The Use of Tariffs to Raise Revenue is a Choice for Congress Congress did not write IEEPA to allow a President to replace the income tax system with a patchwork of tariffs that they can impose, adjust, or suspend at will.

On Wednesday, SCOTUS will weigh whether the President can use IEEPA to unilaterally impose tariffs.

Kelsey Merrick argues Congress intentionally ended tariffs as a major revenue source decades ago and never delegated that choice to the President.

www.justsecurity.org/123833/tarif...

Flyer for an event titled "OBBBA & The Missed Opportunity for Tax Reform," taking place on Tuesday, October 28th from 10:30 - 11:30 am ET. The flyer lists the panelists: Wendy Edelberg (The Brookings Institution), Jason Furman (Harvard University), Chye-Ching Huang (The Tax Law Center), Jessica Riedl (The Manhattan Institute), Kyle Pomerleau (American Enterprise Institute), and Adam Tarleton (Brooks Pierce). The flyer includes logos for Tax Law Center at NYU Law and NYU Law. It has a green and blue background.

On 10/28, join us for a panel discussion highlighting how OBBBA missed substantial opportunities to improve the tax system and falls far short of the "tax reform" that many across the political spectrum have long called for. nyu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Fun fact: You can write clarinet lessons off on your taxes! (with a note from your dentist) It’s one of thousands of exemptions

I look at why U.S. taxes are so complicated for @marketplace.org with @dashching.bsky.social & Larry Zelenak @dukelaw.bsky.social

www.marketplace.org/story/2025/1...

Could be a big deal for many filers, including those who are elderly, disabled, rural, and unbanked:

Organizational chart of the IRS noting turnover, vacancies, staff placed on leave and positions eliminated.

New from me at @brookings.edu:

Unprecedented, dangerous turnover at IRS: Of 31 top positions, 15 have turned over since January, 2 have been placed on leave, 2 are vacant and 3 are slated for elimination.

www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

Our analysis of the full Joint Committee on Taxation tables of the flawed GOP megabill: a $1T tax cut for the top 1% and a staggering $2.4T tax cut for the top 10%.

Tax cuts of around $500B for households in the bottom 60%--the very folks who also face the brunt of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Eliminating multi-language services would make it harder for taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, set honest taxpayers up to fail and needlessly put tax revenue at risk. The IRS should not move forward with this harmful idea that has no sound tax administration purpose.

We are excited to launch a project to remake federal tax administration. Effective tax administration is critical to the federal government, but has recently faced drastic challenges over the last six months.

DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.

SCOOP: DOGE moved to kill Direct File, the IRS's popular free tax filing tool, days after meeting with private tax filing software lobbyists.
www.wired.com/story/doge-d...

This piece confirms grave risk to all taxpayers from DHS efforts to get its hands on legally protected IRS data, risking targeting of US citizens, mistaken arrests, and rampant violations of privacy rights and civil liberties

Correcting the Social Security Administration About The Big Budget Bill The misleading communication from SSA may add to the confusion many older adults already feel about the complex retirement insurance program.

TPC corrects the record on taxes on Social Security benefits.

Trump Admin claimed "nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay fed income taxes on their bens"

50.9% of filers w/SS bens paid the tax before
47.3% now

Only 3.6% no longer pay

taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/corre...

Conventional wisdom had been that no-one can litigate to block these unlawful regulatory giveaways, despite harm to the rule of law, deficits, & the tax system.

But Hemel & Kamin set out above, if you look hard enough, there are potential litigants.

At @taxlawcenter.org, we're looking hard.

In both icebergs, many of the asks will be for things that are either clearly unlawful, or at the very least aren't the best interpretation of the law.

E.g. see @danielhemel.bsky.social @davidkamin.bsky.social on cap gains indexation papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Beware of “deregulatory” efforts that add to deficits and tilt the tax system to the wealthy As the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) seeks drastic changes to the federal government in the name of saving money, reporters and commentators have noted that many claimed savings are dub...

Some examples from implementation of the 2017 TCJA here:

taxlawcenter.org/blog/beware-...

(Much linking to Samantha Jacoby @centeronbudget.bsky.social who had her work cut out for her documenting giveaways that made a bad law worse.)