Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Charlene Luke

Hubert C. Hurst Eminent Scholar Chair in Law
Professor of Law
Associate Dean for Institutional Affairs

CV

SSRN

bepress (SelectedWorks)

Phone:
(352) 273-0658

Expertise

Corporate Tax Law  • Income Tax Law  • Partnership Tax  • 

About

Professor Charlene D. Luke is the Hubert C. Hurst Eminent Scholar Chair in Law. Professor Luke served as the Associate Dean for Tax Programs from 2018-2023. She teaches about individual, corporate, and partnership taxation at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Professor Luke joined the University of Florida in 2008 and teaches in both its J.D. and LL.M. programs. Her research primarily focuses on the problem of tax avoidance and evasion. Her work on the economic substance doctrine is highly regarded and has been selected for inclusion by the Practicing Law Institute in its influential series on the taxation of corporations and partnerships. Professor Luke also writes about tax issues relating to various forms of insurance. Professor Luke’s published work has appeared in multiple publications, including the Virginia Tax Review, Tax Lawyer, Seattle University Law Review, Buffalo Law Review and Connecticut Insurance Law Journal.

Professor Luke earned her B.A. and J.D. degree from Brigham Young University. She graduated first in her J.D. class and clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Ninth Circuit. Following her judicial clerkship, Professor Luke was a tax associate at Dechert LLP in its Philadelphia office. She began her academic career at Florida State University.

Education

J.D., Brigham Young University (first in class)
B.A., Brigham Young University

Teaching & Scholarship

Individual Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, Partnership Taxation, Tax Shelters

Courses

  • Corporate Taxation
  • Taxation of Property Transactions

Publications

Books

  • FEDERAL INCOME TAXATION OF BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS (6th ed., West Academic 2021) (with Martin J. McMahon, Jr., Daniel L. Simmons & Bret Wells) [Link]
  • FEDERAL INCOME TAXATION OF PARTNERSHIPS AND S CORPORATIONS, (6th ed. West Academic 2020) (with Martin J. McMahon, Jr., Daniel L. Simmons & Bret Wells) [Link]
  • FEDERAL INCOME TAXATION OF CORPORATIONS, (5th ed. 2019) (with Martin J. McMahon, Jr., Daniel L. Simmons & Bret Wells) [Link]
  • PARTNERSHIP INCOME TAXATION (CONCEPTS AND INSIGHTS), 6th ed. (with William H. Lyons & James R. Repetti) (2018) [Link]

Articles

  • Response: “Continuity as the Key to to ‘Reform of Section 355,'” 69 Am. U. L. Rev. F. 39 (2019) [Link]
  • “Captivating Deductions,” 46 Hofstra L. Rev. 855 (2018) [SSRN]
  • “Of More Than Usual Interest: The Taxing Problem of Debt Principal,” 39 Seattle U. L. Rev 33 (2015) [SSRN]
  • “The Relevance Games: Congress’s Choices for Economic Substance Gamemakers,” 66 Tax Lawyer 551 (2013), updated as Chapter 432,PLI Corporate Tax Practice Series: Strategies for Corporate Acquisitions, Dispositions, Spin-Offs, Joint Ventures, Reorganizations & Restructurings(2014) & as Chapter 265E, PLI Partnership Tax Practice Series: Planning for Domestic & Foreign Partnerships, LLCs, Joint Ventures & Other Strategic Alliances (2014) [SSRN]
  • “Managing the Next Deluge: A Tax System Approach to Flood Insurance,” 18 Conn. Ins. L.J. (2011) (with Aviva Abramovsky) [SSRN]
  • “What Would Henry Simons Do?: Using an Ideal to Shape and Explain the Economic Substance Doctrine,” 11 Hous. Bus. & Tax L.J. 108 (2011) [SSRN]
  • “Risk, Return, and Objective Economic Substance,” 27 Va. Tax Rev. 783 (2008) [SSRN]
  • “Taxing Risk: An Approach to Variable Insurance Reform,” 55 Buff. L. Rev. 251 (2007) [SSRN]
  • “Beating the “Wrap”: The Agency Effort to Control Wraparound Insurance Tax Shelters,” 25 Va. Tax Rev. 129 (2005) [SSRN]

Other Publications

  • Tribute to Professor Martin J. McMahon, Jr., 70 FLA. L. REV. vii (2018)
  • Natural Disasters: Tax Help for Individuals, 58 BLOOMBERG BNA TAX MGMT. MEMORANDUM 463 (2017)
  • Crowdfunding: Federal Income Tax Considerations, 58 BLOOMBERG BNA TAX MGMT. MEMORANDUM 331 (2017)
  • Tax Reform Perspectives: The Case for a Consumption Tax, Law360 (2017) [Link]
  • Repeal or Retain Section 1031?: A Tempest in a $6 Billion Teapot, 34 ABA Tax Section News Quarterly 1 (SPRING 2015) (with Bradley T. Borden, Joseph B. Darby III, & Roberta F. Mann) [SSRN]
  • Illuminating the Dark Matter of Intellectual Capital 66 Fla. L. Rev. F. 61 (2015) (article review)
  • The Role of Developed World Tax Incentives in Microfinance, TAX, LAW AND DEVELOPMENT 241 (Yariv Brauner & Miranda Stewart, eds., 2013) (book chapter).
  • Three Once & Future Issues, 20 ABA Tax Section News Quarterly 1 (Fall 2010)
  • Summary of Tax Shelter Disclosure Regulations, SH036 ALI-ABA 991 (2002) (with Michael Hirschfeld)
  • The Developmental Progress of Free Exercise, 1999 BYU L. Rev. 943 (book review)

University of Florida Levin College of Law
309 Village Drive
PO Box 117620
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 273-0804
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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.