Professor Delmotte Published, Ranked Top 100 Tax Law Professors

MSU College of Law Professor Charles Delmotte was a featured author in the August issue of the prestigious Cambridge University Press journal, “Social Philosophy and Policy.” Titled, “Predistribution Against Rent-Seeking; The Benefit Principle’s Alternative to Redistributive Taxation,” his article makes the point that wealth generated through mutual beneficial exchange is preferable to wealth that results from mere personal gain.

He commented, “Most tax professors take a quantitative approach to inequality, where the amount of wealth someone possesses determines its justifiability (for instance, above $50M is bad, but $5M is just fine). This article proposes a qualitative distinction, namely between wealth generated through mutual beneficial exchange versus wealth generated without creating social value for others. Based on social contract theory, I argue this distinction should inform a normative analysis of economic inequality, and redistributive taxation.”

Professor Delmotte, in his second year at the College of Law, teaches Basic Income Taxation, Trusts, and Estates and Tax Policy and has been published in more than a dozen tax law and innovation policy-focused publications. Those include the Florida State University Law Review; Virginia Tax Review; European Journal of Law and Economics; Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence; Constitutional Political Economy, Social Philosophy, and Policy; and more.

Recognized for his scholarly influence, Professor Delmotte was honored by Google Scholar H-Index All as one of the Top 100 Tax Professors in the Nation. The TaxProf Blog featured the rankings, which are based on Google analytics which track yearly published material.