Edward D Kleinbard

Edward Kleinbard, a prominent tax lawyer who helped global corporations find creative ways to cut their taxes before he moved to academia and shined a light on the practices of the types of companies he had once advised, died on June 28 2020 in Los Angeles. He was 68. He had been treated for cancer for several years, a brother-in-law, Kris Heinzelman, said in confirming the death, at Keck Hospital of USC. Edward D. Kleinbard’s expertise focuses on tax matters, including the taxation of capital income, international tax issues, and the political economy of taxation. He joined USC Law in 2009 as professor of law. Professor Kleinbard previously served as chief of staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. The staff of the Joint Committee functions as a nonpartisan office to assist Congress in every aspect of the tax legislative process, from the development and analysis of tax proposals for Members of Congress to the drafting of tax bills, estimations of all revenue legislation considered by the Congress, and investigations of various aspects of the Federal tax system. Prior to his appointment to the Joint Committee, Kleinbard worked as a partner based in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. He was a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School in 2007, where he taught Taxation of Financial Products and Markets. Professor Kleinbard has lectured on tax topics in a wide variety of academic and professional settings. In 2009 Professor Kleinbard delivered the annual Laurence Neal Woodworth Memorial Lecture in Federal Tax Law and Policy (published in Tax Notes, May 18, 2009 under the title “How Tax Expenditures Distort Our Budget and Our Political Processes”). Edward David Kleinbard was born on Nov. 6, 1951, in Manhattan and grew up in Rye, N.Y. His father, Martin, was a litigator with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. His mother, Joan Gould Kleinbard, is an author who writes under the name Joan Gould. Mr. Kleinbard graduated from Rye Country Day School in 1969 and earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Brown University in 1973. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. In addition to his mother, Mr. Kleinbard is survived by his wife, Norma Cirincione, with whom he no longer lived; his son, Martin; his sister, Kathy Heinzelman; his brother, David; his partner, Suzanne Greenberg; and a granddaughter.