(3/18/20 update: Due to COVID-19, the May Tax Meeting has been cancelled.)
The 2020 May Tax Meeting’s plenary session and section luncheon will feature a tribute to former Tax Section member Martin Ginsburg and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The tribute was inspired by the 2018 movie On the Basis of Sex, which depicts the couple’s successful representation of the petitioner in a tax case involving an unmarried man’s expenses to care for his dependent mother. See Charles E. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 469 F.2d 466 (10th Cir. 1972) (overturning the Tax Court’s decision upholding the statute to find in favor of the petitioner-appellant based on invidious discrimination).
Moritz v. Commissioner was the first time any provision in the Internal Revenue Code was overturned as unconstitutional, and it spurred Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s career advocating for gender equality. Justice Ginsburg has accepted an invitation to attend and speak at the tribute.
Martin Ginsburg was a tax lawyer who was a member of the bar in New York and in the District of Columbia. He worked in multiple law firms and taught law at New York University, Columbia University, and Georgetown University. He was a long-time member of the Tax Section and received its Distinguished Service Award (DSA) in 2006. He was also a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel and of the American Bar Foundation. Ginsburg died in 2010.
The May tribute will include selections from Ginsburg’s DSA acceptance remarks and clips from On the Basis of Sex. The Ginsburgs’ son James Ginsburg will also participate in the tribute.
The plenary session and section luncheon will be held Saturday, May 2, at 12:00 noon, as part of the 2020 May Tax Meeting in Washington, DC. Registration for the meeting is open, at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/taxation/events_cle/20may_resources/. ■