Richard Winchester
Richard Winchester
Professor of Law
J.D., Yale Law School;
A.B., Princeton University
Phone: (619) 961-4332

Richard Winchester has anchored the tax program at Thomas Jefferson School of Law since 2003. Now a leading authority on federal employment tax policy, he was elected into the National Academy of Social Insurance in 2010. He spent most of 2012 in Tunisia as a Fulbright Scholar teaching Financing International Trade at the University of Carthage.

 

He entered law teaching after working for a decade as a corporate tax planner, helping privately owned and publicly-traded companies structure their business operations and financial transactions. Although his career initially focused on multi-state taxation, he spent his final years in practice as an international tax attorney in the national tax office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, advising both U.S. firms investing abroad and foreign firms investing in the U.S.

 

Professor Winchester is a graduate of Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review. He later clerked for Chief Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, majoring in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

 

Consistently active in civic matters, he has led grassroots political organizations in Pennsylvania and also helped rewrite the charter for the city of Bowie, Maryland. He now serves on the Executive Board of the San Diego Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society. He also co-chairs the San Diego Committee of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations.

 

Courses Include: Federal Income Taxation, Federal Estate and Gift Taxation, International Taxation, Taxation of Business Organizations, Business Associations, Lawyering Skills.

Scholarships

ARTICLES, BOOK CHAPTERS, AND ARTICLE-LENGTH WORKS

Obama's Gift to the Rich: A Permanent Payroll Tax Holiday, 48 Val. U. L. Rev. 83 (2013)

Corporations that Weren't: The Taxation of Firm Profits in Historical Perspective, 19 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J. 501 (2010)

The Gap in the Employment Tax Gap, 20 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. 127 (2009)

Parity Lost: The Price of a Corporate Tax in a Progressive Tax World, 9 Nev. L.J. 130 (2008)

Equity Undermined: The 1918 Check-the-Box Entity Classification Election, Proceedings of the 101st Annual Conf. of the Nat'l Tax Ass'n 65 (2008)

Changing Tradeoffs Confront Employee-Shareholders Who Want to Access Corporate Profits, ABA Section of Taxation Newsquarterly, Vol. 27, No. 4
(Summer 2008) p. 17

Working For Free: It Ought to be Against the (Tax) Law, 76 Miss. L.J. 227 (2006)

Interest Prepayments on Cross-Border Financings, J. Taxation Global Transactions 11 (Winter 2002) (with L.G. Chip Harter)

Download a list of Shorter Work for Professor Winchester

Presentations

A Tax Theory of the Firm, Critical Tax Conference, Tulane University Law School, New Orleans, LA (April 2, 2016)

Carried Interest for the Common Man, Tax Policy Colloquium, Pepperdine University School of Law, Malibu, CA (February 3, 2014)

Carried Interest for the Common Man, Pepperdine University School of Law Tax Symposium, Pepperdine University School of Law, Malibu, CA (January 17, 2014)

Notes from Tunisia: Life in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring, Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, Washington, DC (September 28, 2012)

Notes from Tunisia: Life in the Aftermath of the Arab Spring, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, CA (September 18, 2012)

The U.S. Tax Aspects of Corporate Finance, The Arab Maghreb Development Financing Institute, Tunis, Tunisia (April 10, 2012)

U.S. Tax Issues in Choosing a Business Form, San Diego French-American Chamber of Commerce. Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Dec. 7, 2011

Obama’s Incomplete Opus: A Progressive Tax Plan That Will Defeat Its Purpose, Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law, State College, Pennsylvania, October 10, 2011

Structural Racism and Federal Tax Policy: A View From the Trenches, Joint Conference of the Western Law Teachers of Color and the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty, University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law, Honolulu Hawaii,  December 13, 2010

Obama’s Omission: How a Progressive Tax Plan Will Defeat Its Purpose, National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark, NJ, September 11, 2010

All Work, No Pay: The Looming Tax Dodge for the Rich, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, May 2010

All Work, No Pay: The Looming Tax Dodge for the Rich, Southwest/West Junior Faculty Scholarship Conference, Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Phoenix, AZ, Mar. 2010

Personal Perspectives on a Career as a Tax Lawyer, University of San Diego Tax Law Society, University of San Diego School of Law, San Diego, California, Mar 4, 2010

Employment Tax Issues for the Employee-Owner of the Closely Held Firm, San Diego Chapter of the Young Tax Lawyers of the California State Bar Taxation Section, University of San Diego School of Law, Nov 17, 2009

The Pursuit of Equity through the Taxation of Firm Profits, National Tax Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, Nov 20, 2008

Proposals for the Next Administration: Employment Tax Reform, Closing the Tax Gap Conference, Stanford Law School, Nov 8, 2008

Corporations That Aren't: The Early Years of the Income Tax, Law and Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, May 2008

Parity Lost: The Price of a Corporate Tax in a Progressive Tax World, Southern California Junior Faculty Workshop, Chapman University School of Law, Orange, CA, Mar. 14, 2008

The Original Personal Holding Company Tax: An Overlooked Model for Classifying Business Entities, Mid-Atlantic People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD, Jan 26, 2008

Working for Free, Western Law Professors of Color Conference, California Western School of Law, San Diego, CA, Apr. 2006

Moderator, Taking Reparations Seriously, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, CA, Mar. 2006

Indefensible Distinctions: Employment Taxes and the Employee-Owned Business, The Mid-Atlantic People of Color Conference, American University, Washington, DC, Jan. 2006

News

  • VITA Tax Clinic
    March 11, 2013
    From now until April 11, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program operated by Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s Tax Law Society, a...
  • BLSA Diversity
    February 26, 2013
    By Noél Heard, 3L   Thomas Jefferson School of Law has made a commitment to diversity not only in its student body, but also in its...
  • Notes from Tunisia
    September 18, 2012
    Recounts Experiences As a Fulbright Scholar   “Do they like us?” Professor Richard Winchester said of the Tunisian people. “I...
  • Prof. Winchester in Tunisia
    September 10, 2012
    San Diego Law Professor to Recount Work in Birthplace of Arab Spring   Richard Winchester, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law...
  • VITA
    August 29, 2012
    Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s student-run Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Clinic (VITA) had a very successful year, helping more than 300...

Expertise

Business Law

  • Business Taxation

Tax Law