Batchelder, Lily

Lily L. Batchelder is the Robert C. Kopple Family Professor of Taxation at New York University. She was the former chief tax counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee under the Obama administration and appointed to head Joe Biden’s IRS transition team.

Early life and education.
Batchelder was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts.

In September 2019, Batchelder accepted her appointment to the Robert C. Kopple Family Professor of Taxation. During the presidential transition of Joe Biden, Batchelder was also appointed to head Joe Biden’s IRS transition team. The following month, she was also appointed to a five-year Affiliated and Associated term as the Willner Family Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Lily Batchelder is the Robert C. Kopple Family Professor of Taxation at NYU School of Law and an affiliated professor at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.

From 2014 to 2015, she served as Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council and Deputy Assistant to the President under President Obama. There, she was responsible for tax and budget issues, including tax reform, retirement policy, and low-income benefits. From 2010 to 2014, she served as Majority Chief Tax Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where she led Chairman Baucus’s work on tax issues, including tax reform and the fiscal cliffs.

Batchelder’s principal areas of research and teaching are federal income taxes, wealth transfer taxes, and social insurance. Her scholarship centers on tax expenditures, business tax reform, retirement savings policy, wealth transfer taxes, optimal tax theory, and the effects of fiscal policy on economic insecurity, income disparities, and intergenerational mobility. Apart from her academic work, she regularly appears in the media and advises policymakers on fiscal policy matters. She is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and on the board of Tax Analysts.

Before joining NYU in 2005, Batchelder was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, director of community affairs for a New York state senator, and a client advocate for a small social services organization in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn. Batchelder received an AB in Political Science with honors and distinction from Stanford University, an MPP in Microeconomics and Human Services from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a JD from Yale Law School.