New Perspectives on Tax Administration: An IRS-TPC Research Conference
Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, N.W., Washington, DC • June 22, 2011
Bios
James Alm is Professor and Chair of Economics at Tulane University and former Chair of the Department of Economics in
the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and Dean of the School. Dr. Alm has made
extensive and substantive contributions to the tax compliance literature, including publications on theoretical, econometric,
and experimental topics in a wide range of leading academic journals. His most recent research areas include tax compliance
and tax evasion, the marriage tax, tax and expenditure limitations, tax amnesties, taxpayer responses to tax reforms,
enterprise zones, the determinants of state economic growth, and corruption. He is Editor of Public Finance Review and
Associate Editor of Review of Economics of the Household.
Katherine Baer is a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury, where she works on tax
compliance issues, revenue estimates, and tax reform. Prior to joining the Treasury last fall, she was director of research of
the Mexican Tax and Customs Administration (SAT) for two years. She is delighted to be working at the country level after
having spent thirteen years at the IMF, where she was Deputy Division Chief of the Tax and Customs Administration
Division of the Fiscal Affairs Department, until 2008.
Marsha Blumenthal is Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her
research has centered on the compliance behavior of individuals, corporations and nonprofits, exploring their responses to
alternative administrative strategies and estimating the associated costs they bear. She has published in the National Tax
Journal, the Journal of Public Economics, Public Finance Quarterly, International Tax and Public Finance, and the Review of
Economics and Statistics. She earned A.B. and M.S.W. degrees from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the
University of Minnesota.
Rachel Brash, a research associate, specializes in community and economic development, as well as community safety. She
is currently working on an evaluation for the Treasury Department of its New Markets Tax Credit Program. Recent research
has included a study of tax-time credit options and a report for the Postal Regulatory Commission into metrics for assessing
the social value of mail service and post offices. Ms. Brash also helped conduct a performance analysis of the U.S. Small
Business Administration’s loan and investment programs. Other past research includes a national evaluation of Reclaiming
Futures, a ten-city program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve the delivery of substance abuse and
other services to youth involved in the juvenile justice system. Before joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Brash was Director of
Community Programming for the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice in Baltimore and an investigator with New York City’s
Civilian Complaint Review Board. She received a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University and was
the recipient of the 2004 Abell Foundation Award in Urban Policy for “Youth Violence Prevention and Reduction: Strategies
for a Safer Baltimore.”
Evelyn Brody is a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, having visited at University of
Pennsylvania, Duke, and New York University law schools. She teaches courses on tax and nonprofit law. She previously
worked in private practice and with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy. Professor Brody is the Reporter of
the American Law Institute’s ongoing Project on Principles of the Law of Nonprofit Organizations. She is also an Associated
Scholar with The Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, for which she edited the multi-disciplinary
volume Property-Tax Exemption for Charities: Mapping the Battlefield (Urban Institute Press, 2002). A prolific author of
law review articles and book chapters, Professor Brody serves as an advisory board member of Columbia Law School’s
Attorneys General Charities Law Project and is on the board of directors of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
Tiffanie N. Bruch holds a M.A. in Sociology from the University of South Alabama, Mobile. She joined the IRS in 2008 as
a Tax Examiner in Submission Processing Code and Edit. Currently, Tiffanie works as a Social Scientist for IRS Wage &
Investment Research and Analysis in Atlanta, GA. Since joining W&I Research, Tiffanie has contributed largely to the
portfolio of research on the international taxpayers’ segment, as well as working on high-level projects for Accounts
Management (AM) and the W&I Commissioner’s Office.
Charles Christian is Professor Emeritus in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University where he taught
in the School of Accountancy for over twenty-five years. He taught federal taxation at the undergraduate level, Taxes &
Business Strategy at the masters level, and a tax policy research seminar in the doctoral program. During 1991-92, Dr.
Christian worked fulltime with the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Group of the IRS Research Division in Washington
under an Intergovernmental Personnel Act appointment. Since 1992 he has worked under multiple contracts with IRS (W&I,
June 22, 2011 Page 1
LB&I, and the Office of Research). Dr. Christian holds a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and a J.D. from the
University of Virginia. He is a CPA and a member of the Georgia Bar.
David C. Cico has a B.S. in Economics from Wright State University, Dayton, OH. He attended graduate school at Clemson
University, Clemson, SC, where he earned an M.A. in Economics and was the first student to graduate with a Ph.D. in Policy
Studies. His dissertation was entitled “The Elderly and Education: The Effect of Elderly Migrant Households on Public
Education Spending at the County-Level.” Before joining the IRS in 2006, David held positions as a policy research
assistant at the Strom Thurmond Institute of Government & Public Affairs and as a customer service representative for
Regions Financial Bank. Currently, David is a technical lead social scientist for IRS Wage & Investment Research and
Analysis headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Jessica Compton joined the Urban Institute as a research assistant in the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population in
2009. Compton has extensive field experience collecting data related to employment and skills training and federal and state
public benefit delivery systems. Her quantitative analyses broadly focus on asset related topics primarily wealth
accumulation, financial product use and financial literacy. Compton holds a B.S. in Economics and a B.A. in Political
Science & Women’s Studies from the University of New Hampshire-Durham.
George Contos is a senior economist with the Office of Research /IRS. He has been the lead technical analyst for the
Taxpayer Analysis and Modeling group for four years. Before joining the Office of Research he was a senior economist with
the Statistics of Income Division of the IRS for ten years. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from American University.
Joe Cordes is Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Public Administration, and International Affairs at George
Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also Associate Director of the Trachtenberg School of
Public Policy and Public Administration. Professor Cordes received his Ph.D.in Economics from the University of
Wisconsin, Madison in 1977. He has been on the faculty of The George Washington University since 1975. He was a
Brookings Economic Policy Fellow in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, US Treasury Department in 1980-
81. From 1989-1991 he was Deputy Assistant Director for Tax Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office. Professor
Cordes currently directs the University's Ph.D. Program in Public Policy, and is an Associate Scholar at the Urban Institute.
Dr. Cordes is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy (Urban Institute Press), and he has published articles
on tax policy, government regulation, and government spending in numerous scholarly journals.
Brian Erard operates an economics consulting practice—B. Erard & Associates—in the Washington, DC metro area. He
specializes in the areas of compliance, enforcement, and administration. He has published extensively in academic journals
and scholarly conference proceedings, including as the co-author of a widely cited survey of the economics of tax compliance
in the prestigious Journal of Economic Literature. Brian has consulted on a broad range of tax policy issues with federal and
sub-national governments in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Prior to becoming a full-time consultant, Brian spent a decade in
academia. He served as an economics professor at the University of Toronto, as a professor and director of the economics
Ph.D. program at Carleton University, and as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Office of Tax Policy
Research.
John Guyton is a senior manager in the IRS National Headquarters Office of Research. He has a Ph.D. from the University
of Maryland and 15 years of experience conducting tax analysis research for both the public and private sector. John’s
research has focused on econometric analysis and microsimulation modeling of individual and corporate taxation.
Jean LaVelle is a CPA and earned an MBA from Loyola University of Chicago. She has been with the Internal Revenue
Service for 27 years. Following eight years as a Revenue Agent, Jean joined the Office of Research and Analysis in 1995 as a
researcher and statistician. This research office was realigned in 2000 into the Large Business & International Division
(LB&I) and in 2011 became part of the LB&I: Planning, Analysis, Inventory and Research section.
Joshua Lawrence is a Senior at Ernst and Young. In his four years with the firm he has worked on tax policy issues, utilized
statistical sampling to determine tax deductible expenditures, and developed econometric models to assess regulatory
compliance for some of the nation’s largest financial institutions. Josh graduated with honors from Washington University in
St. Louis with a B.A. in Mathematics.
Emily Y. Lin is a financial economist at the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis. She specializes in tax
compliance, distribution of tax burden, and health and retirement issues. Prior to joining the Treasury Department in 2001,
Lin was an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut and a visiting research scientist at the Health
June 22, 2011 Page 2
and Retirement Study of the University of Michigan. Lin received her PhD in economics from the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor.
Karen Masken is a Mathematical Statistician in the Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Research. She joined the IRS in
1998 and has been in the Office of Research since 2001. She has a M.A. in Mathematics from DePaul University and a B.S.
in Business Administration from Colorado State University.
Michael McKee is Professor of Economics at Appalachian State University. His research interests are broadly in applied
microeconomics with an emphasis on the use of laboratory experiments to investigate economic behavior. The past few
years he has been conducting research on individual tax reporting behavior, R&D tournaments, licensing complementary
patents, compliance with environmental regulations, and optimal staffing decisions of managers. Since 2000 his research
work has been funded by the US IRS, the US EPA, the Office of Naval Research, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. His
current research interests are in the areas of individual tax compliance and the tax reporting responses to taxpayer assistance
and information service programs. He has served on the editorial council of the Journal of Environmental Economics and
Management and Energy and Resource Economics. He was co-editor of Economic Inquiry from 2002 – 2007 and is on the
editorial board of Public Finance Review. Mike has taught at universities in Canada, New Zealand, and the USA. His most
recent positions before joining Appalachian State University were at the University of Tennessee, where he held the J. Fred
Holly Chair of Excellence in Economics, and the University of Calgary (Canada) where he held the Arthur Child Chair in
Defence Economics.
Saima S. Mehmood is a social scientist at Wage & Investment Research & Analysis in Atlanta, GA. She obtained a B.S. in
Psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology. During her undergraduate career, she conducted research on adult
cognition, spatial and working memory, and social theories. One of two theses she completed was titled “The Wiley
Chronicles: Application of the Principles of Operant Conditioning with Nigerian Dwarf Goats.” Saima joined the Service in
2010 as a Federal Career Intern, and has since provided data support for a number of organizations within and outside of
W&I, including Customer Account Services (CAS), Stakeholder Partnerships, Education, and Communication (SPEC), the
W&I Commissioner’s Office, and the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel.
Deborah Myers is currently a Senior Program Analyst and Economist with the IRS Large Business & International Division,
Natural Resources & Construction industry. Dr. Myers has been with the IRS 16 years, serving in both research and program
coordination capacities. She has worked on a variety of tax compliance projects and advises executives on large and mid-size
corporate and partnership filing and industry trends. Dr. Myers’s IRS career began with the Dallas District Office of
Research & Analysis (DORA) where she conducted individual tax compliance research. Prior to joining the IRS, she was
Chief Economist, FirstCity Bancorporation, Economist, HARC Center for Global Studies and Manager, Price Waterhouse.
Dr. Myers received her doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Mark D. Phillips completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago in June 2011. Portions of his dissertation
on individual income tax compliance were written while interning with the Office of Research at the Internal Revenue
Service. In August 2011 he will join the faculty of the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of
Southern California as an assistant professor.
Nancy Pindus, MBA, CPA, is a Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban
Institute. She is an experienced policy researcher and project manager, specializing in program evaluation, organizational
behavior, cost analysis, and service delivery. She has studied economic development, welfare reform, employment and
training, food assistance, and public health programs. Ms. Pindus has been with the Urban Institute for 20 years. From April
2009 through June 2010, she served as Acting Center Director of the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center.
Ms. Pindus co-directs a four-year evaluation of the New Markets Tax Credit Program. She directed a recently completed
project for the Postal Regulatory Commission that provided a framework for considering the social benefits of postal services
and she led the design team for a recently completed study of modernization activities in the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program. Ms. Pindus holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and BA (biology)
from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a CPA, licensed in Maryland.
Alan Plumley is the Technical Advisor to the Director of the IRS headquarters Office of Research. His expertise is in the
areas of compliance measurement and modeling for efficient workload selection and resource allocation. A 26-year veteran
of IRS research, Alan earned his Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. Alan’s study, “The Determinants of
Individual Income Tax Compliance: Estimating the Impacts of Tax Policy, Enforcement, and IRS Responsiveness” broke
much new ground in the effort to estimate the impact of various IRS activities on the voluntary compliance of the general
population. He is also the co-author of a chapter entitled “Ultimate Objectives for the IRS: Balancing Revenue and Service”
June 22, 2011 Page 3
in the Brookings Institution book, The Crisis in Tax Administration, and a co-author of a chapter on tax noncompliance in the
United States in the book Size, Causes and Consequences of the Underground Economy.
Marcus Rubin, Ph. D., has for the past six years been an Economic Adviser, Knowledge Analysis, and Intelligence, HMRC,
United Kingdom. He has worked on both direct and indirect taxes. Before joining HMRC, he was a consultant, carrying out
contract research for clients including the European Commission and the International Postal Commission. Previously, he
worked for the Independent Television Commission, the University of North London, the London School of Economics and
as a researcher for trade unions. His first degree was from Oxford University and he has post-graduate degrees from the
London School of Economics.
Derek Snaidauf is a Service Area Manager and Certified Senior Managing Consultant within IBM’s Business Analytics and
Optimization practice. He has more than twelve years of professional experience helping clients realize their strategies
through smarter information management, advanced analytics, process management, and technology. Mr. Snaidauf is a
recognized expert on predictive analytics including data collection, statistics, modelling, and visualization. He delivers a
wide range of analytic solutions including: (1) fraud, waste, and abuse detection, (2) risk management, (3) performance
assessment, (4) process and service improvement, and (5) customer and employee experience management. He has consulted
for the IRS since 1999 supporting a broad range of initiatives, including research into taxpayer burden and taxpayer
compliance behavior. Currently, he is leading two engagements for the IRS—one focused on preventing refund fraud for
individual tax returns and one exploring the role of IRS interventions on filing and reporting compliance.
Eugene Steuerle is Richard B. Fisher chair and Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute, and a columnist under the title The
Government We Deserve. Among past positions, he has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax
Analysis (1987-1989), President of the National Tax Association (2001-2002), chair of the 1999 Technical Panel advising
Social Security on its methods and assumptions, Economic Coordinator and original organizer of the 1984 Treasury study
that led to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, President of the National Economists Club Educational Foundation, Resident Fellow
at the American Enterprise Institute, Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a columnist for the Financial
Times. Dr. Steuerle is the author, co-author or co-editor of fifteen books and close to one thousand articles, briefs, and
Congressional testimonies. Books include Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy, Retooling Social Security for the 21st Century,
and Nonprofits and Government. He serves on advisory panels or boards for the Congressional Budget Office, the
Government Accountability Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the
Independent Sector, the Aspen Institute Initiative on Financial Security, the National Committee on Vital and Health
Statistics, and the Partnership for America’s Economic Success.
Brett Theodos is a Research Associate with the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
His expertise is in affordable housing, economic and community development, access to capital for low- individuals and
businesses, and geographic mobility. Mr. Theodos is co-directing an evaluation of seven models of "shared equity"
homeownership opportunities. He is researching financial outcomes for businesses and communities under the New Markets
Tax Credit program. He recently completed a three year outcome and performance evaluation of four Small Business
Administration programs. Additionally, Mr. Theodos has conducted several research studies of household mobility, including
examining the relationship between mobility and neighborhood change. He received his MPP from Georgetown University
and BA in Economics and Political Science from Northwestern University.
Michael Udell is a Senior Manager with Ernst & Young’s Quantitative Economics & Statistics (QUEST) practice in
Washington, D.C., where he works on federal tax policy issues. Mike assists Ernst & Young LLP’s clients with economic
analysis of federal tax policy issues including the development and revenue analysis of legislative proposals. Before joining
Ernst & Young, Mike was an economist on the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation for 17 years from 1991 through
2008 and prior to that worked for the Research Division of the Internal Revenue Service. Mike graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Regional Science and received his Ph.D. from the Caltech.
David M. Walker is the Founder, President and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (CAI). In this capacity he leads
CAI’s efforts to promote fiscal responsibility and sustainability by engaging the public and assisting key policymakers on a
non-partisan basis to help achieve solutions to America’s federal, state and local fiscal imbalances. Prior to assuming his
current position, he served as the first President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Previously, Dave served as the
seventh Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) for almost
ten years (1998-2008). This was one of Dave’s three presidential appointments each by different Presidents during his 15
years of total federal service. Dave also has over 20 years of private sector experience, including approximately 10 years as a
Partner and Global Managing Director of Human Capital Services for Arthur Andersen LLP. In addition to his leadership
responsibilities at CAI, Dave serves on various boards and advisory groups, including as Chairman of the United Nations
June 22, 2011 Page 4
Independent Audit Advisory Committee, as a member of the Boards for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,
and the Partnership for Public Service, as well as a member of Advisory Committees for The Public Company Accounting
Oversight Board, and the Peterson Foundation. He is also a member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, the National Academy
of Public Administration, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the Trilateral Commission. He has authored three
books, with the latest one entitled Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility
(2010), which is National Bestseller. He is a frequent writer and media commentator, and is a subject of the critically
acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A.
Tiffany Young is a Senior Analyst with Ernst & Young’s Quantitative Economics & Statistics practice in Washington, D.C.
During her tenure at E&Y, Tiffany has focused on economic and fiscal impact analysis of private sector investments and state
and local tax policy. Other experiences include studies on federal budgeting, federal tax policy, and comparative
international tax systems. Tiffany graduated Summa Cum Laude from Emory University with a B.A. in Economics.
June 22, 2011 Page 5