The UConn Office of the Provost has honored UConn Law Professor Richard Pomp with the 2024 Distinguished Faculty Research Scholar Award.
The recognition is among the Provost Awards for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship, which celebrate every year the significant efforts of faculty, staff, students, teams, and community partners who work to address critical community issues through collaborative, mutually beneficial, and creative exchange of knowledge and resources.
The award is the latest of several recent high-level honors for Pomp, the Alva P. Loiselle Professor of Law and a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor. In 2023, he was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel and received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Connecticut Law School Alumni Association.
“Professor Pomp’s contributions to tax policy and scholarship have had a profound impact in communities around the nation and the world,” UConn Law Dean Eboni S. Nelson said. “We are proud and grateful to have him as a member of our illustrious faculty.”
Pomp is among the most sought-after UConn professors as a visiting scholar, consultant, and expert witness. He has provided services to the governors and legislatures of nearly half the states and has served as an expert witness on tax disputes in more than 100 instances. His testimony is often cited by judges in their opinions.
He has written or co-authored numerous briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court, with his argument prevailing in most cases. Among them was the landmark decision in Wayfair v. South Dakota, which established the right of states to tax their residents’ online purchases from out-of-state vendors, reaching up to $13 billion in otherwise missing tax receipts and contributing to the public coffers of the states.
Pomp has also been a leading force in global taxation. In 1979, he was part of the first group of four tax academics invited to the People’s Republic of China since the Cultural Revolution. Professor Pomp was key in establishing the School of Law’s exchange program with a Chinese institution, and many Chinese students came to UConn Law to study with him.
Pomp further designed an independent tax court for New York and reformed that state’s personal and corporate income tax. He also helped draft the Zambian value-added tax, the Navajo tax code, the Connecticut income tax, the Alaskan personal income tax (currently pending adoption), the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, and parts of the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act as proposed by the Multistate Tax Commission.
Pomp has served as an advisor to cities, states, the Multistate Tax Commission, the Navajo Nation, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Justice, the IRS, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and numerous foreign countries, including Indonesia, Gambia, Zambia, Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam. His services bring skill, energy, and focus to this field in a way that has improved government operation and the fairness of our tax regimes in scores of jurisdictions in the United States and worldwide.
