2024 May Tax Meeting Section Luncheon & Plenary Session

We award the 2024 Janet Spragens Pro Bono Award and the 2024 Distinguished Service Award, followed by a panel discussion. Recorded at the 2024 May Tax Meeting on May 4, 2024.
Taxation's Role in Saving the Climate. This plenary session discussesd the current and future impact that recent tax legislation has made on addressing the climate crisis. The United States has long used tax incentives to promote energy, beginning with the deduction for intangible drilling costs in 1916. Tax incentives for zero emission energy sources started with the Energy Tax Act of 1978. Other significant renewable energy tax legislation was enacted in 2005 and 2009, but the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) has been called the largest climate bill in U.S. history. The Joint Committee on Taxation originally estimated the revenue loss from the climate-related tax provisions in the IRA at $271 billion over ten years while independent researchers have estimated the cost to be much higher. Researchers have also found the IRA’s provisions to be an efficient means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, estimating an $83 cost per tonne of carbon dioxide abatement.
Moderator: Roberta Mann, Professor Emerita, University of Oregon School of Law
Panelists: Seth Hanlon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax and Climate Policy, Department of the Treasury; Alice Lin, Senior Tax Policy Advisor, United States Senate Finance Committee; Amish Shah, Partner, Holland & Knight LLP