This is the first of a series of essays wherein we analyze the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair. In this essay, we tackle some of the more immediate interpretive questions raised by the Wayfair opinion, such as how a state should approach substantial nexus. As part of our...

Throughout most of 2020, state and local governments faced severe budget crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand for state welfare services and rising state expenses related to controlling the spread of COVID-19 stretched state and local budgets to their breaking points. At...

This essay argues that state governments' current focus on getting vendors to collect their sales and use taxes is insufficient, especially in regard to e-commerce transactions. If state governments want their use taxes to serve as effective and lawful backstops to their sales taxes—as state...

This essay analyzes ways that U.S. state governments can raise revenue by rethinking whether and how they conform to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This essay is the first in a two-part series, with this essay focusing on strategic nonconformity with the TCJA for state-level personal income taxes,...

This essay explains how current state government approaches to use-tax enforcement undermine tax morale and taxpayer compliance. This essay further argues that these threats to tax morale and taxpayer compliance will become even more severe as many states are moving toward adopting notice and...

In this symposium essay, we explore the theoretical implications of one particular type of fiscal limitation on state legislatures — namely, special Tax Increase Limitation rules (TILs). We argue that there is no meaningful content to the term “tax increase” as used in TILs. This...

In most markets, it is considered desirable for consumers to have more choices. But health insurance regulation is different. When it comes to health insurance, giving consumers more choices can result in the market collapsing — leaving the sickest and most needy consumers without any good...

This essay develops three new doctrinal arguments in support of the conclusion that a state-level carbon tax with border adjustments should be permissible under the dormant commerce clause. This essay builds on our prior work to argue against the view that a single state cannot (practically)...