Francine Lipman

My journey in tax and law spans over 45 years, and I often joke that I've been doing this longer than most people have been alive. I started as a certified public accountant working in the tax field, but I've always been addicted to education - I continued learning even after I started working, earning an MBA, then deciding between a PhD and law degree. I chose law, got my JD, and then earned a master of laws in taxation from NYU. I practiced as a tax attorney for about a decade during the dot-com boom, which feels somewhat analogous to the AI boom we're seeing now. About 20 years ago, I joined the Academy and became a tax law professor. For the past 13 years, I've held the position of William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While teaching, I also served as a Nevada Tax Commissioner, appointed by two different governors - first by a Republican who is now the president of University of Nevada, Reno, and then reappointed by his Democratic successor. I'm particularly proud of that bipartisan recognition. Early in my academic career, about 25 years ago, I stumbled upon something while working on the front lines of tax justice with students in a volunteer income tax assistance program - I discovered that unauthorized workers pay billions in federal taxes. I wrote a seminal piece on this that has become what I'm known for internationally, and it's now relatively common knowledge that unauthorized immigrants pay about $100 billion a year into Social Security, Medicare, and federal, state, and local coffers. They're not takers, they're givers to our economy, and I haven't stopped talking about it for 25 years. Currently, I'm doing extensive work with ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice to meet this moment in time, using my experience in accounting, tax, and law to make issues of economic justice more accessible to people. I'm focused on empowering others to resist and persist, helping people understand how the mismatch between income and expenses relates to an economy that rewards wealth and disproportionately taxes work. I'm privileged to have tenure and financial security, which allows me to put myself out there when others don't have that privilege. I work quite a bit with people on the Hill, lobbying for different things, and I'm ready, willing, and able to support candidates with knowledge and power rather than running for office myself.