THE JAMES HAUSMAN TAX LAW & POLICY WORKSHOP
presents
Bridget Crawford
Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law
Tax Talk and Reproductive Technology
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
12:30 - 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
What do the busiest fertility clinics in the United States communicate to their clients about the tax consequences of so-called human egg “donation”? As in Canada, the purchase of human ova is illegal in the United States. Nevertheless, it is an open and common practice for an egg providers, aided by a fertility clinic, to contract with intended parents for substantial remuneration. How do egg providers understand their remuneration vis-a-vis the tax system? How does that understanding square with existing tax laws in the U.S. and Canada? Through a content analysis of publicly-available websites and internet message boards, this paper examines the tax information that U.S. fertility clinics and doctors make available to patients, as well as the information that compensated egg providers share with each other. The paper demonstrates that correct and reliable tax information is in short supply, and there is a need for clear administrative or judicial guidance. Perez v. Commissioner, a case recently decided by the United States Tax Court, represented an opportunity for the court to clarify important questions about the nature, extent and character of income received from compensation associated with human egg transfers. Including tax considerations in discussions of reproductive technology brings focus to underlying economic issues and invites a more complex consideration of the interests of doctors, clinics, intended parents and donors in this robust market.
Bridget J. Crawford is the James D. Hopkins Professor of Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in White Plains, New York. She graduated from Yale University (B.A.), the University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D.), and Griffith University (Ph.D.) in Australia. At Pace Law School, Professor Crawford teaches courses related to taxation, inheritance, corporate law and feminist legal theory. She is the co-editor, with Kathryn M. Stanchi and Linda L. Berger, of the U.S. Feminist Judgments Project, a collective effort to rewrite from a feminist perspective major decisions of a variety of United States courts. This new form of socio-legal scholarship was first advanced by a group of Canadian lawyers and scholars who call themselves the Women’s Court of Canada. The Canadian project has been or will be replicated in England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, India, the United States, and a pan-European project. Professor Crawford is a member of the American Law Institute and the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. She is the Editor of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel Law Journal. Professor Crawford is the former chair of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Women in Legal Education and the American Association of Law Schools Section on Trusts & Estates. She is the editor of the Feminist Law Professors blog, a regular contributor to the Faculty Lounge blog, and one of 26 law professors profiled in the book by Michael Hunter Schwartz et al., What the Best Law Teachers Do, published by Harvard University Press. Her publications include Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge 2009); Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge 2016); Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions (Cambridge 2017); and “Tampon Taxes, Discrimination and Human Rights,” 2017 Wisc. L. Rev. 491 (with Carla Spivack).
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
