Edward McCaffery is the Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in Law and Professor of Law, Economics and Political Science at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. An internationally recognized expert in tax law, Professor McCaffery studies and teaches tax policy, tax structures, public finance theory, behavioral public finance, property law and theory, intellectual property, and law and economics.

A summa cum laude graduate of Yale University, Professor McCaffery received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and a master's degree in economics from USC. He served as a clerk to Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court and was an attorney with Titchell, Maltman, Mark, Bass, Ohleyer & Mishell before joining the USC Law faculty in 1989. He held the Maurice Jones, Jr., Professorship in Law from 1998 to 2004 and has served as a visiting professor of law and economics at the California Institute of Technology since 1994.

Professor McCaffery has chaired the USC Institute on Federal Taxation since 1997. He founded the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics and served as its director from 2000 to 2003. He is an elected fellow of the American Law Institute (ALI) and the American College of Tax Counsel. Professor McCaffery also is counsel to the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

"This is a really excellent guide to U.S. income tax that combines a powerful theoretical scaffolding with attention to important practical details. Ed McCaffery has the flair to explain clearly and entertainingly both the forest and the trees of our ill-functioning system. I will definitely recommend it to my students." - Daniel N. Shaviro, Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation, New York University School of Law

"A concise but intellectual presentation of the U.S. income tax system - a surprisingly principled description of today's rules, lots of history of how we got here, and an elegant and timely analytic framework for evaluating proposals for change. I can't imagine a better review for a law student's basic tax course. This book has plenty of depth and breadth for LL.M. students and incipient tax lawyers as well, particularly the ruffs on tax planning. Highly Recommended." - William C. Gifford, Senior Counsel, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP