The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Will it Stimulate Global and Domestic Markets?

9:00 AM-9:30 AM: Registration (coffee and pastries will be served)

9:30 AM-9:40 AM: Welcome from Hilary Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief, and Joshua Arons, Symposium Editor, American University Business Law Review

9:40 AM-10:00 AM: Opening remarks from Benjamin Leff, Professor at the American University Washington College of Law

10:00 AM-11:15 AM: Panel I: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s Domestic Business Implications
This panel will discuss how the decrease in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% will affect American corporations and other business entities, and how the decreased tax rate will also impact American workers. Further, this panel will discuss how the establishment of new income brackets, the decrease in available deductions for the payment of state and local taxes, and the imposition of lower tax rates on pass-through businesses may affect corporations and other business entities in the United States.

Moderator: Benjamin Leff, Professor at the American University Washington College of Law.
Panelists: Gregory Jenner, Partner at Stoel Rives LLP; Caroline Bruckner, the Managing Director of the American University Kogod Tax Policy Center, and Executive in Residence of the Department of Accounting and Taxation; Joshua Miller, Partner at Proskauer Rose LLP; Lisa Zarlenga, Partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP; and Robb Longman, Managing Member at Longman & Van Grack LLC.

11:15 AM-11:30 AM: Break

11:30 AM-12:45 PM: Panel II: The Act’s International Tax Policy Considerations & Concerns

This panel, in addition to providing an overview of the TCJA’s international tax provisions, will compare such provisions to recent global tax reform trends and prior U.S. proposals, survey how other countries are reacting to the new tax legislation including challenges through the WTO and the OECD, and how both U.S. and foreign taxpayers are currently coping with the sea change in U.S. international tax law, planning in its wake, and navigating its technical minefields.

Moderator: Scott Levine, Partner at Jones Day
Panelists: Layla Asali, Member Vice Chair, Tax Department, at Miller & Chevalier LLP; Manal Corwin, Principal and National Leader, International Tax, KPMG; and Lilian Faulhaber, Associate Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

12:45 P M -1:30 PM: Lunch

1:30 PM-2:45 PM: Panel III: The Act’s Effect on the Domestic Housing Market
This will be a policy- centric panel, which focuses on how this Act will affect the housing market. Some of the issues that will be discussed by this panel will include how this Act lowering the mortgage interest deduction cap, increasing the standard deduction, and setting a limit on deductions for the payment of local real estate taxes and state taxes, will affect the Metropolitan D.C. area and many high cost Northeastern states.

Moderator: Andrew Pike, Professor at the American University Washington College of Law
Panelists: Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research at the National Association of Realtors; Kathy Orton, Real Estate Reporter at The Washington Post; and Alex Brill, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

2:45 PM-3:00 PM: Closing Remarks by Hilary Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief