Victor Fleischer is a professor of law at

University of California, Irvine School of Law The University of California, Irvine School of Law is the law school at the University of California, Irvine. It is the fifth law school in the UC system. In September 2007, Erwin Chemerinsky was named as the law school's first dean. Chemerinsky ...

known for raising awareness of the carried interest tax loophole.

Biography

Fleischer grew up in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, the son of now retired academics, and earned a B.A. from Columbia College in 1993 and a J.D. from

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

in 1996. He worked at

Davis Polk & Wardwell Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, better known as Davis Polk is a white-shoe, international law firm headquartered in New York City with 980 attorneys worldwide and offices in Washington, D.C., Northern California, London, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kon ...

and clerked for the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

and

Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

before entering academia in 2001. He taught at the

UCLA School of Law The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...

University of Illinois College of Law The University of Illinois College of Law (Illinois Law or UIUC Law) is the law school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a public university in Champaign, Illinois. It was established in 1897 and offers the J.D., LL.M., and J. ...

University of Colorado Law School The University of Colorado Law School is one of the professional graduate schools within the University of Colorado System. It is a public law school, with more than 500 students attending and working toward a Juris Doctor or Master of Studies in ...

, the

University of San Diego School of Law The University of San Diego School of Law (USD Law) is the law school of the University of San Diego, a private Roman Catholic research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1954, the law school has held ABA approval since 196 ...

, chairing the law school's tax programs, before joining the

in 2018. His research has focused on the fields of tax policy and corporate tax. Fleischer was known for his 2006 article, which highlighted the inequity of the tax treatment whereby private equity firms would classify the money it makes from on the future profits of their deals, also known as "carried interest," as capital gains, rather than as ordinary income, thereby paying a long-term capital gains tax rate that s 17 percentage points lower than the federal income tax rate. He argued that the loophole could cost the government as much as $130 billion over the next decade and said that the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

industry should pay higher taxes, urging the U.S. government to fix the tax loophole. He was credited for popularizing the concept and turning into a political cause. In 2016, Fleischer joined the

United States Senate Committee on Finance The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures general ...

staff as the co-chief tax counsel to the Democratic Party and served in that position until 2017.

Personal life

Fleischer is married to Miranda Perry Fleischer, a professor of tax law at the

University of San Diego The University of San Diego (USD) is a private Roman Catholic research university in San Diego, California. Chartered in July 1949 as the independent San Diego College for Women and San Diego University (comprising the College for Men and Sch ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleischer, Victor Living people Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia Law School alumni University of San Diego faculty University of Illinois faculty University of California, Irvine faculty Davis Polk & Wardwell lawyers American legal scholars University of Colorado Law School faculty UCLA School of Law faculty Year of birth missing (living people)