Faculty
Stephanie McMahon

Contact Information

Education

  • BA, Oglethorpe University
  • JD, Harvard Law School
  • MA, University of Virginia
  • PhD, University of Virginia

Links

Areas of Interest

  • American History
  • Business Tax
  • Tax Law

Stephanie McMahon
Assistant Professor of Law

A summa cum laude graduate of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA (BA), a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, and a graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, Professor McMahon has a strong interest in the development of fiscal issues in American history. A former Samuel I. Golieb fellow, her current research explores the forces that led to changes in tax policy.

Prior to joining the academic world, Professor McMahon spent several years in the tax field. She worked as a tax attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York and at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, also in New York. During graduate school, she worked at Nixon, Peabody LLP in Washington, D.C.

Professor McMahon is currently working on a project exploring tax avoidance and its historical impact on the development of the Internal Revenue Code.

Publications

Presentations

  • What Does It All Mean? The Rhetorical Power of the Income Tax in the United States, 1861-1918, 2008 Policy History Conference (May 29-June 1, 2008)
  • To Save State Residents: States' Use of the Federal System of Government for Tax Reduction, UCLA Tax History Conference (July 15-16, 2007)
  • To Save State Residents: States' Use of the Federal System of Government for Tax Reduction, Legal History Colloquium, New York University School of Law (January 24, 2007)
  • You Pay For What You Get: Fitting the U.S. Virgin Islands Within the American Territorial Structure During the Period 1917 through 1936, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Graduate Student Conference, Our Research Matters: New Dialogues on Latin America, the Caribbean and Latino Studies (April 30, 2005)

Courses

  • American Legal History
  • Business Tax
  • Federal Income Tax
  • Tax Policy

November 2009

Stephanie presented:

October 2009

Stephanie published To Save State Residents: States' Use of Community Property for Federal Tax Reduction, 1939-1947, 27 Law & Hist. Rev. 585 (2009).

Summer 2009

Stephanie presented To Have and to Hold and to Shift Between Us: Rethinking Marital Property for Federal Income Tax Return Filings as part of the 13th Annual UC Faculty Summer Scholarship Series.

June 2009

Stephanie presented two papers at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in Denver:

May 2009

Stephanie’s article, A Life of its Own: The Rhetorical Power of the Income Tax in the United States through World War I, was accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Pittsburgh Tax Review.

April 2009

Stephanie presented To Have and to Hold and to Shift between Us: Rethinking Marital Property for Federal Income Tax Return Filings at the Critical Tax Conference at Indiana. She served as discussant at Joy Mullane’s (Villanova) presentation, Round and Round: The Cyclical Process of Tax Legislation Regulating Executive Compensation, at the College as part of our Scholar Exchange Program.

March 2009

Stephanie presented To Have and to Hold and to Shift Between Us: Rethinking Marital Property for Federal Income Tax Return Filings at Villanova as part of the UC-Villanova Scholar Exchange Program. (She will host a workshop at the College next month by Joy Mullane (Villanova) on Round and Round: The Cyclical Process of Tax Legislation Regulating Executive Compensation.)

December 2008

Stephanie presented A Life of its Own: The Rhetorical Power of the Income Tax in the United States through World War I at the National Tax Association's 101st Annual Conference in Philadelphia. She posted To Save State Residents: States' Use of Community Property for Federal Tax Reduction, 1939-1947 on SSRN.

October 2008

Stephanie successfully defended her dissertation at the University of Virginia and will receive her Ph.D. in American History in January. Her paper, To Save State Residents: States' Use of Community Property for Federal Tax Reduction, 1939-1947, was featured on Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog.

Stephanie was featured in the August 2008 issue of Updates@UCLaw.

Summer 2008

Stephanie McMahon joined the faculty over the summer. Her article, To Save State Residents: States' Use of Community Property and the Federal System of Government for Tax Reduction, 1939-1948, was accepted for publication in the Law and History Review.

Stephanie presented What Does It All Mean? The Rhetorical Power of the Income Tax in the United States, 1861-1918 at the 2008 Policy History Conference in St. Louis. She attended the AALS New Law School Faculty Conference in Washington, D.C.

Please see Faculty News Archives for earlier issues.