Emily Satterthwaite is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law. Professor Satterthwaite’s specialty is the law of taxation, and her research sheds light on areas of the tax law in which tax choices and taxpayer compliance obligations may have unanticipated equity implications. She uses experimental, qualitative, and quantitative empirical methods to study how the design of elective provisions in tax statutes and tax agency enforcement policies plays out “on the ground,” with a particular focus on entry-level entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals. In 2020, she was awarded an SSHRC Insight Development Grant to fund her research on the gig economy and tax compliance challenges of paid domestic workers.
Professor Satterthwaite’s recent articles explore the impact of value-added tax registration thresholds on micro-entrepreneurs, the relationship of new firms’ legal and tax status choices to their chances for survival, and how audit policies can be presented to taxpayers to support their post-audit compliance choices. Her research findings have been profiled in Forbes and were included in the literature review of the U.S. Taxpayer Advocate Service’s 2016 Report to Congress. Professor Satterthwaite’s research has been published or is accepted for publication in leading U.S. and Canadian law journals, including Canadian Tax Journal, Columbia Journal of Tax Law, Florida Tax Review, International Review of Law and Economics, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, McGill Law Journal, Queen’s Law Journal, Pittsburgh Tax Review, and Tax Law Review, among others. In addition to support from SSHRC, she has been awarded research funding from the Foundation for Legal Research, the Connaught Fund, and other grantors.
Professor Satterthwaite received a B.A. from Yale College, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an LL.M. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and an M.A. (economics) from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the Faculty of Law, she served as the Assistant Director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, where she supervised students in their legal representation of early-stage businesses launched by lower-income entrepreneurs. Professor Satterthwaite also worked for three years as a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York and Chicago. She is admitted to the bar in New York and Illinois.
Download Professor Satterthwaite’s research from SSRN
