Steven A. Bank

Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law

  • B.A. University of Pennsylvania, 1991
  • J.D. University of Chicago, 1994
  • UCLA Faculty Since 2002

Steven Bank is the Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law at UCLA School of Law. He has taught Federal Income Taxation, Business Associations, and a variety of other related courses. He was the Faculty Director of the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy from 2013 through 2015, Vice Dean of UCLA School of Law from 2007 to 2013 and 2019 to 2021, and faculty director of UCLA School of Law's Program in Business Law and Policy from 2005 to 2007.

Professor Bank's primary area of research generally explores the taxation of business entities through the lens of legal and business history. He has published numerous articles and chapters in the fields of business taxation, tax policy, and tax history and has authored or co-authored several books, including Anglo-American Corporate Taxation (Cambridge University Press, 2011), From Sword to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present (Oxford University Press, 2010), War and Taxes (Urban Institute Press, 2008), Taxation of Business Enterprises (Thomson/West, 2012) and Business Tax Stories (Foundation Press, 2005). His articles have been selected for the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum and the John Minor Wisdom Award for Academic Excellence in Legal Scholarship. He has also been a Herbert Smith Visitor at the University of Cambridge and lectured at the United Kingdom's Inland Revenue on the development of the U.S. and British corporate income taxes. His work on the double taxation of dividends was featured on a national financial news program in connection with President Bush's proposal to reform the corporate income tax.

Professor Bank also is a frequent commentator on soccer law issues, applying his business and tax experience as a legal affairs contributor in a number of forums and publications. He explores these issues in more depth in his course on International and Comparative Sports Law as well as his Perspectives seminar on Law, Lawyering, and the Beautiful Game.

During law school, Professor Bank served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, a journal of interdisciplinary legal studies, and he was a Bradley Fellow in Constitutional History. He also received the D. Francis Bustin Outstanding Comment Award and was a prize winner in the American Journal of Tax Policy student writing competition. After law school, Professor Bank clerked for the Honorable Jesse Eschbach of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and practiced with the Dallas law firm of Hughes & Luce, focusing primarily on mergers and acquisitions and corporate and partnership tax. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, Professor Bank was an associate professor at Florida State University College of Law.

Bibliography

  • Books
    • Selected Sections Federal Income Tax Code and Regulations, 2023-2024 (with Kirk J. Stark). Foundation Press (2023).
    • Selected Sections Corporate and Partnership Income Tax Code and Regulations, 2023-2024 (with Kirk J. Stark). Foundation Press (2023).
    • Taxation of Business Enterprises: Cases and Materials (with Robert J. Peroni). 5th ed. West Group (2022).
    • Anglo-American Corporate Taxation: Tracing the Common Roots of Divergent Approaches. Cambridge University Press (2011). Introduction
    • From Sword to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present. Oxford University Press (2010). Introduction
    • War and Taxes (with Kirk J. Stark and Joseph J. Thorndike). Urban Institute Press (2008). Introduction
    • Business Tax Stories (edited by Steven A. Bank and Kirk J. Stark). Foundation Press (2005).
  • Articles And Chapters
    • The History of the Corporate Income Tax, in Research Handbook on Corporate Taxation, (edited by Reuven Avi-Yonah; Edward Elgar 2023).
    • Populist Ambivalence to Tax Evasion: The 1962 Campaign against Dividend and Interest Withholding in the U.S., in Histories of Tax Evasion, Avoidance, and Resistance , (edited by Korinna Schönhärl, et al., Routledge, 2023). Full Text
    • The Emerging Battle for Control of Global Football, 52 California Western International Law Journal 473 (2022). Full Text
    • Corporate Law’s Critical Junctures (with Brian R. Cheffins), 77 The Business Lawyer (Winter 2021-2022). Full Text
    • The Olympic-Sized Loophole in California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, 120 Columbia Law Review Forum 109 (2020). Full Text
    • FIFA, Forced Arbitration, and the U.S. Soccer Lawsuits, 30 Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 1 (2020).
    • Securities Disclosure as Soundbite: The Case of CEO Pay Ratios (with George Georgiev), 60 Boston College Law Review 1123 (2019). Full Text
    • Reforming FIFA From the Inside Out, 52 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 265 (2019). Full Text
    • Will U.S. Soccer Be Forced to Adopt Promotion and Relegation?, 28 Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 3 (2018). Full Text
    • Major League Soccer as a Case Study in Complexity Theory, 44 Florida State University Law Review 385-436 (2017). Full Text
    • When Did Tax Avoidance Become Respectable?, 71 Tax Law Review 123-177 (2017). Full Text
    • Corporate Taxation and the Regulation of Early Twentieth-Century American Business (with Ajay K. Mehrotra), in Corporations and American Democracy , (edited by Naomi Lamoreaux and William Novak, Harvard University Press, 2017). Full Text
    • Executive Pay: What Worked? (with Brian R. Cheffins and Harwell Wells), 42 Journal of Corporation Law 59 (2016). Full Text
    • Shareholder Protection Across Time (with Brian R. Cheffins and Harwell Wells), 68 Florida Law Review 691 (2016).
    • Book Review, Journal of Legal Education (2016). Review of Making the American Fiscal State: Law, Politics, and the Rise of Progressive Taxation, 1877-1929, by Ajay K. Mehrotra. Full Text
    • Paying High for Low Performance (with George S. Georgiev), 100 Minnesota Law Review Headnotes 14 (2016). Full Text
    • Law and History by Numbers: Use, But With Care (with Brian R. Cheffins and Harwell Wells), 2014 University of Illinois Law Review 1739 (2014). Full Text
    • Historical Perspective on the Corporate Interest Deduction, 18 Chapman Law Review 29 (2014). (Symposium) Full Text
    • When We Taxed the Pyramids, 41 Florida State University Law Review 39 (2013). (Symposium) Full Text
    • Taxing Bigness, 66 Tax Law Review 379 (2013). (Symposium) Full Text
    • The Globalization of Corporate Tax Reform, 40 Pepperdine Law Review 1307 (2013). (Symposium) Full Text
    • Questioning “Law and Finance”: US Stock Market Development, 1930-70 (with Brian R. Cheffins and Harwell Wells), Business History 1 (2013). Full Text
    • The Corporate Pyramid Fable (with Bryan Cheffins), 84 Business History Review 435-58 (2010). Full Text
    • The Rise and Fall of Post-World War II Corporate Tax Reform, 73 Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems 207-32 (2010). Full Text
    • Is Berle and Means Really a Myth? (with Brian Cheffins), 83 Business History Review 443-474 (2009). Full Text
    • Dividends and Politics (with Brian Cheffins and Marc Goergen), 25 European Journal of Political Economy 208-224 (2009). Full Text
    • Tax and the Separation of Ownership and Control (with Brian Cheffins), in Tax and Corporate Governance, (edited by Wolfgang Schon, Springer, 2008). Full Text
    • Corporate Ownership and Control in the UK: The Tax Dimension (with Brian Cheffins), 70 Modern Law Review 778-811 (2007). Abstract
    • Does Dividend Policy Have a Political Dimension? The British Case (with Brian Cheffins and Marc Goergen), 5 CESifo DICE Report: Journal of Institutional Comparisons 33 (2007).
    • Entity Theory as Myth in the U.S. Corporate Excise Tax of 1909, in Studies in the History of Tax Law, Vol. II, (edited by John Tiley, Hart Publishing, 2007). Full Text
    • Dividends and Tax Policy in the Long Run, 2007 University of Illinois Law Review 533 (2007). Full Text
    • A Capital Lock-In Theory of the Corporate Income Tax, 94 Georgetown Law Journal 889-947 (2006). Reprinted in 48 Corporate Practice Commentator 649 (2006) and Monthly Digest of Tax Articles (Jan. 2007). Full Text
    • The Story of Double Taxation: A Clash over the Control of Corporate Earnings, in Business Tax Stories, (edited by Steven A. Bank and Kirk J. Stark, Foundation Press, 2005). Abstract
    • The Dividend Divide in Anglo-American Corporate Taxation, 30 Journal of Corporation Law 1-50 (2004). Full Text
    • Tax, Corporate Governance, and Norms, 61 Washington & Lee Law Review 1159 (2004). Reprinted in 47 Corporate Practice Commentator 195 (2005). Full Text
    • Federal Income Tax of 1913, in Vol. 2 Major Acts of Congress, 49 (edited by Brian K. Landsberg, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004).
    • Internal Revenue Act of 1954, in Vol. 2 Major Acts of Congress, 207 (edited by Brian K. Landsberg, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004).
    • Review Essay: The Progressive Consumption Tax Revisited, 101 Michigan Law Review 2238-60 (2003). Reviewing Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler, by Edward J. McCaffery. Full Text
    • Is Double Taxation a Scapegoat for Declining Dividends? Evidence from History, 56 Tax Law Review 463 (2003). Full Text
    • Corporate Managers, Agency Costs, and the Rise of Double Taxation, 44 William & Mary Law Review 167-261 (2002). Full Text
    • Entity Theory as Myth in the Origins of the Corporate Income Tax, 43 William & Mary Law Review 447-537 (2001).
    • The Transcontinental “A” Train? Foreign Mergers Under Section 368(a)(1)(A), 54 Tax Lawyer 555-76 (2001). Full Text
    • Codifying Judicial Doctrines: No Cure for Rules But More Rules?, 54 SMU Law Review 37-45 (2001).
    • Mergers, Taxes, and Historical Realism, 75 Tulane Law Review 1-86 (2000). Full Text
    • Taxing Divisive and Disregarded Mergers, 34 Georgia Law Review 1523-89 (2000). Full Text
    • The Runaway “A” Train: Does the IRS Need New Brakes?, 87 Tax Notes 553-65 (2000).
    • Federalizing the Tax Free Merger: Toward an End to the Anachronistic Reliance on State Corporation Laws, 77 North Carolina Law Review 1307-1404 (1999). Full Text
    • Origins of a Flat Tax, 73 Denver University Law Review 329-402 (1996). Full Text
    • Devaluing Reform: Executive Compensation and the Derivatives Market, 7 DePaul Business Law Journal 301-32 (1995).
    • Comment, Anti Miscegenation Laws and the Dilemma of Symmetry: The Understanding of Equality in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, 2 University Of Chicago Law School Roundtable 303-44 (1995).
  • Other Publications
    • Was USWNT’s Equal Pay Settlement Celebrated Too Soon? Here’s Why it May Have Been Announced Before New CBA, ESPN (March 16, 2022). Full Text
    • NWSL’s Landmark CBA Has Big Wins for Players, But Lingering Questions for the Future, ESPN (June 21, 2022). Full Text
    • Taxation’s Summer Blockbuster, UCLA School of Law, Law & Economics Paper No. 21-05. Review of Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages, by Michael Keen & Joel Slemrod (2021). TaxProf Blog | Full Text
    • The False Dichotomy in Name, Image, and Likeness Legislation, Harvard Journal of Sports Law and Entertainment (2020). (online symposium) Ful Text
    • Here’s the Deal: Major League Soccer’s New CBA, American Soccer Now (Feb. 17, 2016). Article Link
    • Divided Loyalties: Lawsuits, U.S. Soccer, and the NWSL, American Soccer Now (Feb. 10, 2016). Article Link
    • Shifty Moves: Sepp Blatter, Neymar, Google Flout Rules, American Soccer Now (Sept. 29, 2015). Article Link
    • Senate Hearing on Soccer Corruption; Three Thoughts, American Soccer Now (July 16, 2015). Article Link
    • Will SEC Compensation Rules Drive Canadian Companies to Delist? (with George Georgiev), Globe and Mail (Toronto) (July 22, 2015). Article link
    • CONCACAF’s Reform Plan: Is This the Right Framework?, American Soccer Now (July 9, 2015). Article link
    • Why Did FIFA President Sepp Blatter Resign Now?, American Soccer Now (June 2, 2015). Article link
    • Who Won the MLS Labor Negotiations? Single Entity, American Soccer Now (March 5, 2015). Article link
    • Should MLS Players Skip the Strike and Sue Instead?, American Soccer Now (March 2, 2015). Article link
    • MLS Could Retain Single Entity & Offer Free Agency, American Soccer Now (Feb 11, 2015). Article link
    • MLS’ Single-Entity Status Driving Free Agency Battle, American Soccer Now (Feb. 3, 2015). Article link
    • What's Old Is New Again: Historical Perspectives on Tax Law & Policy (with Kirk J. Stark and Joseph Thorndike), 109 Tax Notes 529-30 (2005).

Courses Available

LAW 249

Tax Aspects of Mergers & Acquisitions
LAW 220

Introduction to Federal Income Taxation
LAW 230

Business Associations
LAW 291

Taxation of Business Enterprises
LAW 432

International and Comparative Sports Law
LAW 561A/B

Perspectives on Law and Lawyering
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