Call for Nominations

Ray M. Sommerfeld Outstanding Tax Educator
Generously sponsored by the Ernst & Young Foundation

The American Taxation Association, in cooperation with the Ernst & Young Foundation, presents the Outstanding Tax Educator Award. The Award's purpose is to recognize, honor and reward outstanding contributions by a faculty member teaching taxation at a recognized academic institution. The award is named after Professor Ray M. Sommerfeld, the first recipient of the award, who earned a reputation as a pioneer of tax education and provided a lifetime of service to students, colleagues, and the profession of taxation.

Criteria for Selecting Recipient 
The selection criteria are intentionally broad to allow the Awards Committee to consider the relevant contributions by the nominees in determining a worthy recipient. The types of contributions considered as worthy of the award include, but are not limited to:

• Curriculum or program development (including related research and/or superior teaching)
• Participation in student activities
• Service to an academic institution
• Participation in professional activities, and
• Activities furthering taxation as an academic field of study and research.

Eligible individuals should be currently active in their profession. However, in rare instances an individual who has retired from active service as an academician may be considered for the award. In the absence of qualified nominees for the award, the Awards Committee may choose not to present the award during a particular year.

Nomination procedure 
There is no standard nomination package. Nominators should state why their candidate should receive the award and submit appropriate documentation supporting their nomination, such as complete resumes and letters of recommendations from students, colleagues, and/or practitioners. Questions about the content of the package should be addressed to the Committee Chair at the address below.

Nomination Deadline Extended to October 11th. Award recipients will be announced at the next ATA Midyear Meeting luncheon. Nominations should be emailed to the Award Committee Chair, Jane Livingston at jrlivingstone@wcu.edu.

Award Archive

ATA Teaching Innovation Award

The American Taxation Association presents an annual Teaching Innovation Award. The primary objective of the award is to encourage creativity and experimentation with new and unusual ideas. The award recipient receives a plaque and $5,000. Submissions will be accepted for innovations in tax courses.  An "innovation" can be defined as any unique methodology or practice utilized to teach a tax course, or specific topic within a tax course. The course may be an elective or required course and should be offered in an undergraduate or graduate business curriculum.

Submissions should comply with the following:

• At least one author must be a member of the ATA.
• Award winners must agree to make a presentation about their project at an ATA meeting.
• Teaching notes should be included with cases and problem-type projects submitted.
• A project, but not one that was previously selected as a winner, may be submitted in more than one year.
• The award winner(s) must agree to the dissemination of their award-winning project to the ATA membership, and the material must be made available to faculty and students at no charge for one year subsequent to the receipt of the award.
• The project should be submitted with the goal of facilitating a blind review if possible. Ideally, the chairperson will be the only person who knows the identity of the author and/or authors.

Submissions deadline extended to October 11th, annually. Award recipients will be announced at the following ATA midyear meeting luncheon. If you have questions or for submissions, please contact the ATA Teaching Innovation Award Committee Chair, Mitchell Franklin at franklma@lemoyne.edu.

Award Archive

ATA Outstanding Service Award

The purpose of the American Taxation Association's Outstanding Service Award is to recognize an ATA member who has provided outstanding service to the ATA for an extended period of time. To be eligible, one must have been an ATA member for at least 10 years when nominated. The person must have a record of distinguished service as an ATA committee member and served as a chair of at least one ATA committee. The nominee typically will have served as an officer or trustee, but such service is not required to be a recipient of this award.

The following information will be helpful to the Awards Committee when evaluating a nominee:

• Evaluations of the nominee's committee service by chairpersons of committees on which the nominee has served. The evaluations may be solicited if necessary.

• Evaluations provided by ATA members who have served on at least one ATA committee chaired by the nominee. The evaluations may be solicited if necessary.
• Other information that the nominator feels will help in evaluating the nominee's ATA service such as a resume or vita.

The Committee will secure the nominee's ATA service record.

Nomination procedure
The nomination must be made by an ATA member. There is no standard nomination form. 

The written nomination should include a statement of support and any relevant documentation as to why the nominee deserves the award.

Nomination Deadline: extended to October 11th. Award recipients will be announced at the following ATA midyear meeting luncheon. Nominations should be emailed to the Award Committee Chair, Jane Livingston at jrlivingstone@wcu.edu

Award Archive

ATA/PricewaterhouseCoopers Outstanding Dissertation Award
Generously sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers

The American Taxation Association in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers presents an annual award for the Outstanding Tax Dissertation. The award recipient receives a plaque and a $5,000 award at the ATA Midyear Meeting luncheon.
To be eligible, candidates must meet the following requirements:

• Qualified candidates must submit a “working paper” from their dissertation that does not exceed 50 pages (including ALL tables, graphs, charts, appendices, and bibliography).
• Qualified candidates must have completed their dissertation between September 1, 2023 and August 31, 2024.
• Qualified candidates must be ATA members.
• The chairperson of the candidate's dissertation committee must write a letter to accompany the submission that certifies that the candidate has met all of the requirements for submission.

Submissions for the award, to be presented at the ATA Mid-Year Meeting in February 2025. Nominations will be accepted through October 11, 2024. Submissions should be emailed to Richard Sansing at richard.c.sansing@tuck.dartmouth.edu

Award Archive

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ATA Tax Manuscript Award

The American Taxation Association (ATA) presents an annual award for a significant contribution to the tax literature. The award is given for research published during the three full calendar years (2021 to 2023) prior to the award deadline year (2024). All areas of tax research and all topics and methodologies are eligible for consideration. In addition, the published article, chapter, or book must meet the selection criteria.
Selection criteria

• Tax issues should be of major, rather than incidental, importance to the manuscript. The tax issues can be based on policy or planning factors or can be analytical or descriptive in nature, but tax issues should constitute the major focus of the research.
• The article, chapter, or book as a whole should make a significant contribution to the discipline in topic or methodology (or both). The overall validity and usefulness of the results will be considered.
• At least one author must be a current ATA member.
• All manuscripts published during the three calendar years (2021 to 2023) prior to the award deadline year (2024) are eligible for the award, with these exceptions:
  • The manuscript cannot be research that formed the basis for a dissertation receiving the ATA Dissertation Award.
  • A manuscript that is an extension of the original dissertation research and, as such, is an independent manuscript is eligible for the award.
  • The manuscript cannot have previously won the ATA Tax Manuscript Award.
  • The manuscript cannot be authored or co-authored by a current member of the Manuscript Award Committee. While a manuscript authored or co-authored by a current committee member is eligible for nomination, such member must resign from the committee to have the paper considered for the award.

Nominations will be accepted through October 1st, annually. Award recipients will be announced at the following ATA midyear meeting luncheon. Nominations should be emailed to Jeri Seidman at jseidman@virginia.edu

Award Archive