SMNR: Tax Law, Politics, and State Power in American History

• Semester: Fall 2026
• Course ID: 397S
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 32013

Registration Status: Open

Description

Taught by Lauren Libby. 

This seminar examines the history of American tax law as a central engine of constitutional development, state building, and democratic conflict. It explores how tax law emerged, evolved, and acquired its current structure, from the fiscal failures of the Articles of Confederation and the constitutional design of the taxing power, to the rise of tariffs and excises, the transformation to a mass income tax, and the development of modern tax administration. Along the way, we will consider how taxation has been intertwined with economic factionalism and representation, war and public credit, property and inequality, and the growth of the administrative state. The animating goal of the course is to use history to give students the conceptual tools and contextual background needed to understand the persistent messiness and political salience of contemporary tax law. Many of today’s most pressing fiscal disputes—over inequality, corporate taxation, tax exemptions, and administrative discretion—are recurring features of the American tax state rather than entirely new problems. By situating modern debates within their historical trajectories, students will develop a deeper capacity to analyze and navigate tax law in practice, whether as tax specialists, policy advisors, litigators, or lawyers in any field. Evaluation will be based primarily on a substantial research paper in which students use the historical materials and themes from the course to intervene in a contemporary issue in tax law or policy of their choosing. No prior background in tax law or legal history is required.