University of Pittsburgh wins Tax Section’s National Tax Moot Court Competition

University of Pittsburgh wins Tax Section’s National Tax Moot Court Competition

Students from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law won the Best Oral Argument and the Best Individual Oralist Final Round awards in the National Tax Moot Court Competition hosted by The Florida Bar’s Tax Section at Stetson University College of Law.

Pittsburgh Law’s Luke Kastenhuber, Dustin Foley, and Nina Wiramidjaja won Best Oral Argument and Kastenhuber won the Best Oralist Final Round award as well as the Best Oralist Preliminary Rounds award. Florida State University College of Law’s team won Best Brief. Stetson Law’s team was named first runner-up.

For over 30 years, Tax Section has hosted an annual National Tax Moot Court Competition to invite law students from across the country to demonstrate their written brief and oral argument techniques.

The national competition attracted 10 teams from nine law schools this year. Tax Section members Eric Kauk and Cristina Whittemore co-chaired this year’s event and Professor Brooke Bowman and Stetson Law facilitated the competition. Tax Section fellows Mai Tran, Brittany Cobb, and Ryan Chusid, under the guidance of Mitchell Horowitz, wrote the competition’s problem and bench brief, and volunteer attorney-judges judged the briefs and the oral arguments. United States Tax Court Chief Special Trial Judge Lewis R. Carluzzo and Judges Tamara W. Ashford and Peter J. Panuthos judged the consolation finals and final rounds.

Final results from the 2024 National Tax Moot Court Competition:

• Best Oral Argument – University of Pittsburgh School of Law (Luke Kastenhuber, Dustin Foley, and Nina Wiramidjaja)

• Best Individual Oralist, Final Round – Luke Kastenhuber (University of Pittsburgh School of Law)

• First Runner-Up Best Oral Argument – Stetson University College of Law (Emily Kennard, Mia Bartolomei-Negron, and Lily Shelton)

• Best Individual Oralist, Preliminary Rounds – Luke Kastenhuber (University of Pittsburgh School of Law)

• Best Brief – Florida State University College of Law (Alyssa Hawthor and Zachary Zepeda)

• Winner of the Consolation Round, Liberty University School of Law (Joshua Davis and Stephen Nast)

• Best Individual Oralist, Consolation Round, Joshua Davis (Liberty University School of Law)

The competition took place from March 7–9. Kauk said the teams debated an actual petition pending before the United States Tax Court that was decided two days later.

“The teams’ oral arguments addressed an untimely petition filed with the Tax Court asking for review of an IRS denial of the respondent’s claim for innocent spouse relief,” said Kauk, a Tampa tax attorney. “The IRS asked the court to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. The court issued an opinion in the case on March 11 confirming that the 90-day filing deadline is jurisdictional and since the petitioner failed to file within the 90-day deadline, the court does not have jurisdiction to hear his case.”

Plans are underway for the Spring 2025 National Tax Moot Court Competition, which Kauk says will offer new features designed to make the competition more attractive to teams.

“In addition to having the teams argue a real case pending before the U.S. Tax Court, we hope to include elements like job-recruitment and more opportunities for networking,” Kauk said.