Professor joins IRS advisory council

<h1 class="storyhead"> </h1> <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="storyContent" --> <p><img src="http://asu.edu/news/stories/200704/200704_images/20070410_Christian.jpg…; alt hspace="5" vspace="5" width="180" height="240" align="right">Charles Christian, director of the School of Accountancy at ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business, has been appointed to a three-year term on the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council. He will chair the “Tax Gap Analysis” working group.</p><separator></separator><p>The 27-member advisory council was established in 1953 as the Commissioner's Advisory Group to advise the IRS on tax policy and tax administration issues. The council also holds an annual forum to solicit input from the public.</p><separator></separator><p>The Tax Gap Analysis working group will provide input on methods used to estimate the federal “tax gap” – the difference between taxes owed and taxes voluntarily paid on a timely basis – and will assist in IRS research on noncompliance.</p><separator></separator><p>Christian has taught and conducted research in tax policy at ASU for more than 20 years. While on sabbatical in 1991-1992, he worked full time for the taxpayer compliance measurement group of the IRS research division in Washington, D.C. In 2006, he served as the Erskine Fellow at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he continued his research on “income shifting” by multinational corporations.</p><separator></separator><p>Christian holds a doctorate from the University of Georgia and a law degree from the University of Virginia.</p>