The following faculty are available to comment to the media as tax deadlines approach in April. Check this list on the UC Davis news website for updates as they occur.

Financial reporting 

Michelle Yetman, professor of management in the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, researches financial reporting quality, governance and taxation with a special interest in the nonprofit setting. Her research has been published in the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, National Tax Journal, Management Science, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. She teaches the core MBA course in financial accounting, as well as an accounting for nonfinancial managers course in the UC Davis Wine Executive Program. She is a certified public accountant in Texas. Contact: Michelle Yetman, (530) 754-7808, mhyetman@ucdavis.edu.

Tax law and policy

Dennis J. Ventry Jr. is a professor at the UC Davis School of Law. He is an expert in tax policy, tax expenditure analysis, tax administration and compliance, legal and professional ethics, federal and state whistleblower programs, and U.S. economic and legal history. He was recently appointed by the U.S. Treasury Department to a three-year term on the IRS Advisory Council. Moreover, he is regularly cited in both the tax press and popular media for his expertise on the effects of taxation on the U.S. economy and society. His articles include: “Misinformed and Misled About the Benefits of the Mortgage Interest Deduction,” in Cityscape (2014); “The Fake Third Rail of Tax Reform,” in Tax Notes (2012); and “Americans Don’t Hate Taxes, They Hate Paying Taxes,” in U.B.C. L. Rev. (2011). Contact: Dennis J. Ventry, (530) 752-4566, djventry@ucdavis.edu.

Darien Shanske is a professor at the UC Davis School of Law. He is an expert in tax policy, and in particular, state and local tax policy. He has written numerous articles in the field, including pieces on the state corporate income tax and the property tax. Shanske is also a co-author of a commentary on the California Constitution and was responsible for the sections relating to taxation and public finance, including those sections added by Proposition 13 and related initiatives. Shanske has expertise in connection with the law governing interstate taxation, and can speak to recent and upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding interstate taxation. In California, Shanske is also knowledgeable about Sen. Robert Hertzberg’s recent tax proposal (SB 8). Contact: Darien Shanske, (530) 752-5860, dshanske@ucdavis.edu (e-mail preferred).

Response of nonprofit organizations to economic incentives

Robert Yetman, professor of management at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, is an expert on corporate tax, financial accounting, income tax, U.S. and international financial accounting, and nonprofit accounting and tax issues. His research concentrates on the effect of taxes on business decisions and the response of nonprofit organizations to economic incentives. Yetman recently examined why some tax-exempt charities choose to be taxed on their unrelated business income, and how such behavior is not always driven by the desire to maximize profits. He has lectured on cost accounting at executive education programs for wine industry professionals. Contact: Robert Yetman, (530) 752-3571, rjyetman@ucdavis.edu.

The earned income tax credit, or EITC

Ann Huff Stevens is the director of the Center for Poverty Research and interim dean of the Graduate School of Management. Her recent research includes how low wages impact the use of U.S. government cash transfers such as the earned income tax credit and other safety net programs. Stevens is a labor economist with areas of specialization that include transitions into and out of poverty, the relationship between job loss and health, the relationship between aggregate unemployment rates and mortality, the minimum wage, and financial returns from technical and vocational education. Contact: Ann Huff Stevens, annstevens@ucdavis.edu.

The tax system and low-income population

Marianne P. Bitler is a professor of economics at UC Davis and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is an expert in the study of tax credits and the low-income population as well as the safety net in general. Her work on the effects of the tax and transfer system on the income and poverty status of families with children and how this has changed across time has been widely cited. Her work includes Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, “The State of the Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era”; Journal of Labor Economics, “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The safety net and poverty in the Great Recession” (2015); and other articles. Contact: Marianne Bitler, bitler@ucdavis.edu.