Profile

In 1992, Ann F. Thomas began a second career in academic law with a fellowship year at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, after 17 years working in the corporate tax department at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions. Professor Thomas spent two years as an adjunct professor at Yale Law School and joined New York Law School’s faculty in 1995.

Professor Thomas, who teaches a range of tax courses and is Director of the Graduate Tax Program, was drawn to academia because of the chance to explore and develop a subject she views as fundamental to how societies function. She says her first love in taxation research is in the corporate and business context, but she also concentrates her scholarship on income tax and urges a re-examination of the assumptions about marriage and family that underlie current policy.

In 1999, Professor Thomas organized a symposium for the New York Law School Journal of Human Rights on the subject of Women, Equity, and Federal Tax Policy: Open Questions. More than 20 experts from across the country legal scholars, economists, and activists spent a full day examining tax policy problems that diminish the financial security of women, including the possible marriage penalty within the income tax code. With the help of the Marjorie Cook Foundation, the Journal of Human Rights distributed the symposium volume to every member of Congress, key Treasury and White House staff, law professors, and economists. The timing coincided with fierce debates in both houses of Congress over marriage and income tax.

Although teaching tax law to future lawyers and practitioners is her primary mission, Professor Thomas uses her work in tax history to bring tax policy back to the citizens. As she sees it, tax literacy is the only way to ensure tax policies that reflect the needs of all citizens.

Professor Thomas studies and teaches about comparative systems of corporate taxation around the world and sees a need in the increasingly global marketplace for an expansion of international cooperation on business and tax issues. She is also in the process of finishing a book examining the history of the U.S. tax system during the Progressive Era and the emergence of the modern income tax system in 1913.

Professor Thomas serves as the Chair on the Board of Directors of the African American Policy Forum.