• Program Description
• Schedule
• Speakers
• Contact
• Past Symposia
  • March 1, 2024 – Louisiana’s Constitution at 50: The Past, Present, and Future of Louisiana’s Fundamental Law
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • February 10, 2023 – Let’s Get Fiscal: Contemporary Considerations in Taxation and the Law
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • February 11, 2022 – On the Basis of Sex: 50 Years of Title IX
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • March 5, 2021 – The Impact of the 15th and the 19th Amendments on the 2020 Presidential Election
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • January 31, 2020 – We The Jury
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • February 1, 2019 – Criminal Justice Reform
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • January 26, 2018 – The Fourteenth Amendment: 150 Years Later
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • January 27, 2017 – Blurring Lines: Emerging Trends and Issues in Sports and Gaming Law
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • March 18, 2016 – More than a Tradition: The Future of the Civil Law in Louisiana and Abroad
    • Schedule
    • Speakers
  • January 22, 2016 – Throw Away the Key: Criminal Sentencing Reform in the 21st Century
    • Schedule
    • Speakers

Speakers

Corey J. Smith | Senior Litigation Counsel Tax Division Department of Justice

Corey J. Smith has been with the Department of Justice since 1991 and has served as a Senior Litigation Counsel with the Tax Division since 2008. Since 2006 he has taught Criminal Tax Litigation, Corporate Taxation, and Federal Income Tax at George Washington University Law School. At the Tax Division Mr. Smith is primarily responsible for advising the Assistant Attorney General on terrorism financing and national security matters and prosecuting complex foreign tax shelter cases. Previously, Mr. Smith served as Assistant Chief for the Southern Criminal Enforcement Section (2002-2005), and from 2005 through 2008 he was with the National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section as the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) for the Northeast. He also served on the Department’s Guantanamo Bay Litigation Team from 2009 to 2011. Publications include: Terrorism Tax Evasion: Using Criminal Tax Charges to Combat the Use of Charities in Terrorism Financing, United States Attorney Bulletin, (May 2014); Obtaining Foreign Evidence Outside of the MLAT Process, United States Attorney Bulletin, (Mar. 2007); Prosecution of Immunized Informants, 35 Criminal Law Bulletin 6, (Nov./Dec. 1999); and Financial Records: Their Procurement and Use in Federal Prosecutions, 34 Criminal Law Bulletin 1, (1998). Mr. Smith graduated from Suffolk University Law School in 1988, Cum Laude, and the University Chicago in 1984. He also received his LL.M. in Taxation from Boston University Law School in 1991.

Diane L. Yetter, CPA, MST | President and Founder of YETTER

Diane L. Yetter is the “Sales Tax Nerd®” a strategist, advisor, speaker, and author in the field of sales and use tax. She is president and founder of YETTER, a sales tax consulting and tax technology firm. She is also the founder of The Sales Tax Institute.  Diane works with clients to deliver a variety of sales tax services.

Diane works with clients of all sizes in a myriad of industries to deliver sales tax services ranging from tax technology to tax policy and planning and training.  She also regularly partners with other advisors to help them serve their clients.

She is a Certified Implementation Partner and Trainer with Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Indirect Tax, a Certified Training and TDM Specialist for Vertex, Inc., a Certified Implementation Partner of Avalara, an Accounting partner for Vertex and VertexCloud, and a Tax Advisor Partner with TaxJar.

As a speaker, Diane is frequently asked to present to industry groups concerning sales and use tax issues including the Council on State Taxation (COST), Chicago Tax Club, Diversified Communications (IOFM), the Institute of Professionals in Taxation (IPT), National Association of Credit Managers (NACM), National Association for Retail Marketing Services (NARMS), Vertex User Conference, Thomson Reuters User Conference, Taxpayer’s Federation of Illinois and Avalara.  Diane was invited to testify before the Senate Finance Committee regarding the impact of the Wayfair decision on small businesses and remote sellers.

As an author, Diane has written articles concerning sales and use tax issues. She co-authored No Excuses: Automation Advances Make Sales Tax Collection Easier for Everyone for State TaxNotes and The Best Practices of a Best-in-Class Corporate Tax Department and Best Practices in Transaction Tax Systems Implementation for the Journal of MultiState Taxation and Incentives. Diane authored Drop Shipments: Taxation, Compliance and Planning and Multistate Guide to Sales and Use Tax: Manufacturing, both published by Wolters Kluwer (CCH). She was editor for the 1995-1996 edition of the Information Technology Association of America Software & Services State Tax Report and is the author of the US Sales Tax Chapter for the IBFD VAT Worldwide Research Database. She has also appeared as an expert witness.

Diane is a member of the AICPA, Illinois CPA Society, Chicago Tax Club, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Taxation Committee, Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois and the Institute of Professionals in Taxation. She is a member of the Practitioner Connection with the Council on State Taxation, and represents client concerns on a number of task forces. She is a member of the Business Advisory Council of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board. Diane was named in Accounting Today’s 100 Most Influential People in Accounting seven times between 2011 and 2021. As an entrepreneur, she was honored as Woman Business Owner of the Year 2020 by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Chicago Chapter. Her twitter handle, @SalesTaxInst has been one of Forbes Top 100 Tax Twitter Handles and @YetterTax is in the Accounting social media leaders.  She also sits on the Avalara Accounting Meta Influencers Roundtable.

Diane earned a BS in accounting and business administration from the University of Kansas in 1985 and an MS in taxation from DePaul University in 1994. Prior to founding the company, Diane was a state and local tax manager in the Chicago office of Arthur Andersen LLP, the sales and use tax director for the Quaker Oats Company, and a sales and use tax auditor for the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Professor Elizabeth R. Carter | LSU Law

Professor Elizabeth R. Carter is the A.N. Yiannopoulos Professor of Law and the Judge Anthony J. Graphia & Jo Ann Graphia Professor of Law at Louisiana State University Law Center. She is also the Director of the school’s Graduate Certificate in Estate Planning and Taxation.

Professor Carter is an Academic Fellow in the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel (ACTEC). Professor Carter regularly teaches and writes in the areas of estate planning and administration, taxation and Louisiana Civil Law. In addition to her teaching responsibilities at the Law Center, Professor Carter teaches two courses in the University of Alabama’s LL.M. program in taxation.

Professor Carter earned a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Memphis, magna cum laude. She earned her J.D. from Tulane University Law School, magna cum laude. She was elected Order of the Coif and awarded a Civil Law Certificate. While at Tulane, Professor Carter served as an articles editor of the Tulane Law Review, Volume 81, worked as a research assistant to Professor A.N. Yiannopoulos, and was a founding member of the Tulane Civil Law Society. Professor Carter was awarded the 2006 Dean Rufus C. Harris Award for the Best Writing on a Civil Law Subject by the Tulane Law Review. Upon graduation, Professor Carter was awarded the 2007 Louisiana Bar Association Civil Law Award for attaining the highest grade in civil law studies. Professor Carter earned her LL.M. in Tax from the University of Alabama in 2010.

Before joining the LSU faculty, Professor Carter worked at the New Orleans law firm of Lugenbuhl, Wheaton, Peck, Rankin & Hubbard where she practiced in the areas of estate planning and administration, business and commercial law, secured transactions, bankruptcy, and marine finance. Professor Carter is active in law reform. In Louisiana she serves on the Louisiana Tax Institute and on several committees for the Louisiana State Law Institute. She also serves on several ACTEC committees.

Jason M. DeCuir, JD, MBA, LLM | Co-owner and Partner with Advantous Consulting, LLC

Jason M. DeCuir, MBA, JD, LLM, is Co-owner and Partner with Advantous Consulting, LLC, a leading multi-state tax services firm, that delivers customizable, end-to-end tax solutions that range from compliance services to high-level planning and advisory consulting. At Advantous, Jason oversees the Sales and Use Tax, Appeals and Disputes, Governmental Relations, and Business Development teams.

Prior to joining Advantous, he was partner at a global state and local tax services firm headquartered Dallas, TX. He also served as Chief of Staff, Assistant Secretary and Executive Counsel at the Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) from 2011 – 2014. In these roles, he was an advisor to three LDR Secretaries and to the Governor on legal and policy issues affecting state taxation.

While at LDR, Mr. DeCuir was responsible for the Litigation, Policy Services, Criminal Investigation, and Public Affairs Division. He also oversaw all legislative matters with respect to tax policy and was actively involved with national organizations such as FTA, MTC, COST and SEATA. In 2013, DeCuir was tasked by the Governor to help spearhead his tax reform efforts, where he was instrumental in reforming the structure for tax appeals in the State of Louisiana, increasing the state’s COST scorecard from a “D-” to “B.”

Mr. DeCuir, a national expert in the field of state and local tax policy, has been practicing in the tax arena for over 20 years, representing businesses across all industry sectors related to complex tax matters. He is also one of the nation’s foremost policy experts.

Mr. DeCuir is a frequent lecturer on state and local tax policy at national tax conferences around the U.S., including: Council on State Taxation (COST), Institute for Professionals in Taxation (IPT), Multi-State Tax Commission (MTC), Southeastern Association of Tax Administrators (SEATA), and the American Bar Association (ABA). It is also common for Mr. DeCuir to appear on state and local television and radio shows as an expert on tax matters.

Mr. DeCuir’s previous experience in the private sector includes being a tax attorney and partner in several law firms and the founder of a consulting firm that specialized in tax advocacy and governmental affairs for companies across multiple industry sectors. Mr. DeCuir has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Howard University where he was an Academic All-American and a 4-year letterman as a place-kicker. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Louisiana Tech University, a Juris Doctor degree and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from the Louisiana State University, and a Master of Laws degree in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center.

Judge Christian N. Weiler | United States Tax Court

Christian N. Weiler is a Judge of the United States Tax Court.  Judge Weiler was born in Louisiana. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Louisiana State University, a Juris Doctor from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, and a Master of Laws in Taxation from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. Prior to appointment to the Court, Judge Weiler practiced law as a partner at Weiler & Rees in New Orleans, Louisiana and was a board-certified tax law specialist, as recognized by the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization. He was appointed by President Trump and sworn in on September 9, 2020, for a term ending September 8, 2035.

Professor Keith T. Fogg | Harvard Law School

Professor Fogg retired from the Office of Chief Counsel, IRS in 2007 after 30 years and began teaching at Villanova Law School where he directed its tax clinic. Prior to joining the Villanova faculty, he taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School in its LLM program for 15 years teaching a course he developed on the intersection of tax and bankruptcy.

In 2015 he founded the tax clinic at Harvard Law School. The tax clinic at Harvard seeks, through impact litigation and public comment on proposed rules and regulations, to represent low income taxpayers on issues of broad impact to the community as well as to represent individuals in the Greater Boston area in disputes with the IRS. He retired from Harvard in July, 2022 and moved to Emeritus status.

Currently, he is the president of the board of directors of the Center for Taxpayer Rights, an organization that seeks to promote taxpayer rights and to support the work of low income taxpayer clinics. Together with Professors Les Book and Steve Olsen, he is the founder of the blog ProcedurallyTaxing which seeks to bring its readers insights on cases, rulings and other matters regarding federal tax procedure. He also works with Professor Book to keep updated the treatise “IRS Practice and Procedure” which is the leading treatise on the subject.

Ardney “James” Boland, III | Associated Area Counsel, IRS Office of Chief Counsel

Ardney “James” Boland, III has worked for I.R.S. Office of Chief Counsel since 2008.  In 2021, Mr. Boland began serving as the SB/SE Associate Area Counsel in New Orleans, Louisiana.  During his time as a trial attorney, Mr. Boland engaged in extensive motions practice and trial work before the United States Tax Court.  Mr. Boland’s practice has included basic and advanced deficiency cases, fraud cases, extensive collection due process litigation, employment tax cases; estate & gift cases (including valuing community property interests); hobby/passive activity loss cases; innocent spouse relief/relief from community property cases; jeopardy assessment and levy issues, and assisting the Department of Justice in handling discovery issues (including preserving the identity of a confidential informant) and resolving refund litigation.  Mr. Boland graduated summa cum laude from Louisiana State University with a B.A. in Accounting in 2005 and graduated cum laude from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center with a J.D./B.C.L. in 2008.