Biography

Michael J. Graetz is the Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law at Yale University. Before becoming a professor at Yale in 1983, he was a professor of law at the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California law schools and Professor of Law and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. His publications on the subject of Federal taxation include a leading law school text and more than 50 articles on a wide range of tax, international taxation, health policy, and social insurance issues in books and scholarly journals. His most recent book is 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States published by Yale University Press. His previous books include Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press, 2005); True Security: Rethinking Social Insurance (Yale University Press, 1999); The U.S. Income Tax: What It Is, How It Got That Way and Where We Go From Here, (W. W. Norton & Co, 1999) (a paperback edition of the book originally published as The Decline (and Fall?) of the Income Tax) and Foundations of International Income Taxation (Foundation Press, 2003). He is also the author of the leading law school coursebook, Federal Income Taxation: Principles and Policies and of “100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Fresh Start for the U.S. Tax System” (112 YALE L.J. 261, 2002), which details his widely publicized plan to reform the tax system of the U.S. His most recent article is “Income Tax Discrimination and the Political and Economic Integration of Europe” (115 Yale Law Journal 1186, 2006). During January-June 1992, Michael Graetz served as Assistant to the Secretary and Special Counsel at the Treasury Department. In 1990 and 1991, he served as Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. Professor Graetz has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow and he received an award from Esquire Magazine for courses and work in connection with provision of shelter for the homeless. He served on the Commissioner's Advisory Group of the Internal Revenue Service. He served previously in the Treasury Department in the Office of Tax Legislative Counsel during 1969-1972. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Graetz is a graduate of Emory University (B.B.A. 1966) and the University of Virginia Law School (J.D. 1969). A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Michael Graetz is married to Brett Dignam and has five children.