Professor Steven A. Dean

Steven A. Dean is a professor of law and the Paul Siskind Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He is an expert in tax law, has published books about taxation, philanthropy, and social enterprise. He has also published articles in a variety of traditional and popular venues, including the NYU Law Review and The Nation. Dean testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the impact of racism on tax policy, served as a consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and been a General Rapporteur for the International Academy of Comparative Law.

His current book project, Global Jim Crow: Taxation and Racial Capitalism (forthcoming with Oxford), explores the impact of Africa’s decolonization on the trajectory of global tax regime. Both his most recently published book, For-Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power and the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, and Strategic Corporate Giving (Oxford), and his first book, Social Enterprise Law: Trust, Public Benefit, and Capital Markets (Oxford), were written with Dana Brakman Reiser. He also wrote Federal Taxation of Corporations and Corporate Transactions (Aspen) with Brad Borden.

While on the faculty at Brooklyn Law School he served as its Vice Dean. He also led NYU Law School’s Graduate Tax Program, serving as its Faculty Director as a visiting professor. Dean has been a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section since 2011. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Tax Association and the American Tax Policy Institute.

Dean created and hosted two seasons of The Tax Maven, a podcast featuring influential tax law experts discussing their scholarship and answering questions about tax.

He practiced tax law at Debevoise & Plimpton and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Before attending law school, he worked at KPMG. He graduated from Yale Law School and Williams College and studied at the University of Trier in Germany. Dean spent his childhood in Nassau, Bahamas.