WashU Experts

The U.S. Treasury Department has issued several rules recently aimed at cracking down on tax evasion and money laundering in the wake of the “Panama Papers.” Will continuing to add new, and increasingly aggressive, rules make any lasting or concrete changes to the American tax code? Maybe, but perhaps at a cost to the tax law as a whole, says Washington University tax expert Adam Rosenzweig.

On May 6, President Barack Obama introduced executive reforms designed to eliminate loopholes that allow foreigners to conceal tax fraud and evasion in the United States. Olin Business School’s Lamar Pierce said the move is an effort to show U.S. global partners that it is ready to practice what it preaches when it comes to curbing shadowy financial transactions.

Microsoft’s challenge to the gag order provisions of the federal Stored Communications Act should be applauded by everyone who cares about civil liberties, whether in the physical or digital worlds, said Neil Richards, a privacy law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Thinking about blowing that tax refund on a vacation or some home improvements? You might be better off pocketing your cash and saving it, said Michal Grinstein-Weiss, associate director of the Brown School’s Center for Social Development and principal investigator of the Refund To Savings initiative.

On April 5, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed into law House Bill 1523, a controversial “religious freedom” bill, which says that the state government cannot punish public employees, social service providers and businesses that refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition. The law is unconstitutional, said Elizabeth Sepper, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Journalists continue to sort through and process the so-called “Panama Papers,” millions of financial documents offering a look at how politicians and public figures hide massive amounts of money in offshore accounts. A faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis says the case offers proof of the difficulty of government economic intervention.

As the world marvels at the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, it is important to put recent changes in historical perspective, says Washington University’s Elzbieta Sklodowska.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week said that the United States has determined ISIS’ actions against Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide. The allegations of genocide by the United States government reinforce similar findings made last year by United Nations bodies and provide a clear path for ISIS leaders to be tried in international and domestic courts for their crimes, said Leila Sadat, an expert on crimes against humanity in the School of Law.

President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, could make Senate Republicans think twice about stonewalling the nomination process, especially as the presidential election nears, said Greg Magarian, constitutional law expert at the School of Law.

While cynics may scoff at the United Nations’ March 20 observance of International Happiness Day, a positive psychology researcher at Washington University in St. Louis says it’s high time for happiness to be taken seriously.