Edward D. Kleinbard is the Johnson Professor of Law and Business at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law. Professor Kleinbard’s work focuses on the taxation of capital income, international tax issues, and the political economy of taxation.
Before joining USC Law, Professor Kleinbard served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Congress’s nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Prior to his appointment to the Joint Committee, Kleinbard was a partner in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Professor Kleinbard received his J.D. from Yale Law School, and his M.A. in History and B.A. in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from Brown University.
In 2009 Professor Kleinbard delivered the annual Laurence Neal Woodworth Memorial Lecture in Federal Tax Law and Policy (published in Tax Notes, May 18, 2009 under the title “How Tax Expenditures Distort Our Budget and Our Political Processes”).His recent papers include Stateless Income (Florida Tax Review), The Lessons of Stateless Income (Tax Law Review), The Better Base Case (Tax Notes), Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan (Tax Notes), and Tax Expenditure Framework Legislation (National Tax Journal). Professor Kleinbard has testified before the Congress on tax policy matters, and has written opinion pieces for the New York Times, the Huffington Post, CNN.com, and other media outlets.
His latest book, published in 2014, We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money (Oxford University Press), provides expert commentary, analysis, and policy solutions for our flawed fiscal system that has produced a serious gap in wealth distribution.