Smith, Dan Throop

Biography

Dan Throop Smith (1907-1982) was one of the nation’s leading tax experts and the principal architect of the present Internal Revenue Code, as well as a leading exponent of the value-added tax. He earned an A.B. from Stanford University in 1928 and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1934. He joined the Harvard economics faculty in 1930 and moved to the faculty of Harvard Business School (HBS) in 1935. From 1943-1945, he served as the Director of the U.S. Army Air Forces Statistical School at HBS and after the war became Professor of Finance at HBS, a position he remained in until his retirement in 1969. During his tenure at HBS, Smith moved back and forth from academic positions to policy-making positions in the government, including taking time in the 1950s to serve in various capacities in President Eisenhower's Department of the Treasury, where he supervised revisions that resulted in the new Internal Revenue Code of 1954, and becoming a visiting professor at HBS in 1963. Following his retirement from HBS, Smith was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was a frequent expert witness before Congress on tax matters and a consultant to the White House Office of Policy Development.

In addition to his academic appointments, Smith was also president of the Tax Institute of America (1963); president of the National Tax Association (1967); a member of President Nixon's Commission on International Trade and Investment Policy (1970-1971); and a consultant for the chairmen of General Motors Corporation (1959-1970).

Smith died in 1982.

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