Friday lecture to examine tax policy, fiscal crisis

September 29, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Prominent Washington, D.C., attorneys and tax experts will discuss one of the most important issues facing the United States right now – the potential fiscal crisis – at the second Ellen Bellet Gelberg Tax Policy Lecture at the University of Florida Levin College of Law on Friday.

“Between a Rock and a Hard Place: U.S. Tax Policy Responses to the Looming Fiscal Crisis,” will be held in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, Holland Hall 180 at 10:30 a.m.

The speakers will be UF Law alumna Lindy Paull of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Eric Solomon of Ernst & Young LLP and Hap Shashy of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

The topics they will discuss will include the presentation of possible tax policy solutions to the fiscal crisis and how business and taxpayers might be impacted by the changes.

“We have a looming fiscal crisis. We have to do something,” UF Law Professor Dennis Calfee, of Friday’s event, said. “This is probably the most critical issue we have today.”

The Ellen Bellet Gelberg Tax Policy Lecture Series is an endowed lecture series that examines tax policy and how its implementation affects the economy and people’s lives. Gelberg, who holds a J.D. and LL.M. in taxation from UF Law, established the lecture series to bring distinguished lecturers to the college each year to speak on tax policy topics to students and faculty, and provide a special opportunity for reflection on the policies supporting the U.S. tax structure.

The event is free and open to the public. It will also be available as a webcast at http://video.ufl.edu/main/liveStreams/mediasite.php?id=5678&time_id=31706.

About the speakers:
Paull, who graduated from UF Law with a JD in 1979 and LL.M. in 1980, serves as PricewaterhouseCoopers’ legislative and regulatory client service. In this capacity, Paull represents major corporations, trade associations and business coalitions before Congress, the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. Paull has more than two decades of experience in the federal government, including serving as the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation’s chief of staff from 1998 to 2003 and as Republican staff director and chief counsel with the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance from 1986 to 1998.

Solomon is Ernst & Young LLP’s National Tax Department’s director and has more than 30 years of experience in tax law. Solomon served as the U.S. Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for tax policy from December 2006 to January 2009. There he led the Office of Tax Policy, which serves as the primary adviser to the treasury secretary on legal and economic matters relating to domestic and international taxation. In recognition of his accomplishments at the Treasury Department, Solomon received the Alexander Hamilton Award, which is the highest award for Treasury service.

President George H. W. Bush appointed Shashy (JD 73), an Ocala native, to serve as the IRS’ chief counsel, and he was unanimously appointed by the Senate. Shashy remained in that position from 1990 to 1993. In addition to his career with the IRS, Shashy has also practiced tax law for more than 25 years in private law practice and is currently managing partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, where he is partner-on-charge of the tax practice and chairman of the Tax Opninion Committee. Shashy has been included multiple times in Chambers U.S.A., The Best Lawyers in America and The Washington Post’s Best Lawyers in Washington, D.C. Shashy is a Board of Trustees member at UF Law.