W&L Law’s Hellwig Delivers Annual E.L. Wiegand Lecture at USF Law School

By Peter Jetton
February 12, 2020

Brant Hellwig, Dean and Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, delivered the fourth Annual E. L. Wiegand Visiting Fellows Lecture on Feb. 12 at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Dean Hellwig spoke on “The Tax Plight of the High-Salary Employee After the 2017 Tax Legislation.”
Prior to the enactment of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, employees stood at a modest tax disadvantage in comparison to independent contractors and individuals who successfully converted labor into a return on equity. The 2017 legislation, however, made matters significantly worse in relative terms for the high-salary employee.

Dean Hellwig discussed an analysis of the limitations on the deductibility of business-related expenses, the effective marginal rates that apply to labor income in the employment and self-employment sectors (focusing on the effect of IRC § 199A), and the effective marginal rates that apply to earnings generated through business entities.

Dean Hellwig is an expert in the field of federal taxation. He teaches a variety of tax courses, including Federal Income Taxation of Individuals, Partnership Taxation, Corporate Taxation, and Estate and Gift Taxation. His scholarship in the tax field is similarly varied, ranging from the income tax treatment of deferred compensation arrangements of corporate executives to the estate tax treatment of closely held business entities employed as trust substitutes. In addition to his law review articles, Dean Hellwig recently published a coursebook in Federal Estate and Gift Taxation with his W&L Law colleague Prof. Robert Danforth. In addition to his interest in federal taxation, Dean Hellwig frequently teaches the state law Trusts and Estates course.

If you know any W&L faculty who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.