Staff Reports
(FT. WORTH) NOV. 6 — Every Monday and Friday, SMU Dedman Law School Professor Christopher H. Hanna stands before law students to discuss the basic theories, applications and history of tax law in the U.S. and around the world.
While few would consider tax law inspiring, the law students at SMU have named him their favorite teacher and lecturer eight times during his 21 years at the school. But it is Professor Hanna’s new job during the middle of the week that has his students buzzing this year.
For the past five months, the professor has been camped out in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., studying ways to reform the federal tax system at the request of the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee – an effort that would affect every person in the U.S.
So, each Tuesday at 6:10 a.m., the 49-year-old boards American Airlines flight 1360 from DFW to DCA, also known as Reagan National Airport, only to return by Friday to teach his class at SMU.
“As academics, we research and write about tax reform,” said Hanna, whose new official title is senior policy advisor. “This is an amazing opportunity to help shape it. I feel it is a great honor to work for the U.S. government.”
Finance Committee staffers working for Sen. Orin Hatch, the Committee’s ranking member, contacted Hanna last Christmas about joining the team.
“There’s been a lot of talk about tax reform, but the last time it was done was 1986,” the professor said. “Senator Hatch made it clear that the goals are simplicity, fairness, and economic growth. We have to wait to see what happens, but most people believe that tax reform is in the air.”
Hanna, who is a former tax lawyer at Steptoe & Johnson, officially started his work with the Senate Finance Committee on May 16. He spent five days a week during the summer in Washington, D.C., but cut it back to three days when classes started back in late August.
So far, he said he’s done “a lot of listening and a lot of research.”
But Hanna is no stranger to assisting the U.S. government with tax reform. From June 2000 to April of 2001, he helped the U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation with its complexity study of the U.S. tax system. Then, from May 2002 to February 2003 he assisted the committee with its study of Enron, and continued to serve as a consultant to the committee upon the study’s completion.
Now, much of the law professor’s focus has been on issues surrounding the corporate tax structure as it deals with multi-national businesses, and especially the territorial tax system, which the business community as widely supported a move to.
“Many countries, including most recently the United Kingdom and Japan, have moved to a territorial tax system,” he said. “Under a territorial tax system, income earned outside the residence country is not taxed by that resident country. The U.S. taxes multinational corporations for profits worldwide, but the U.S. credits them for taxes they’ve paid to other governments on that profit.”
The reforms suggested by Hanna will be largely contingent on the tax changes brought forth by the 12-member bipartisan debt super committee, whose Nov. 23 deadline is just around the corner.
Jessica Huseman is a staff writer for The Texas Lawbook. Her email is jessica.huseman@texaslawbook.net.