Jerome Kurtz

Jerome Kurtz (May 19, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American tax lawyer who served as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue from 1977 to 1980 during the Carter administration. He left the IRS in 1980 to return to private practice. Kurtz sought to reverse tax policies that were seen as excessively beneficial to wealthier tax payers. For example, he targeted so-called "silver butterfly" commodities transactions, in which investors in silver staggered their losses and profits to lower their taxes on the sales. Under Kurtz, the IRS launched a crackdown on the abuse on tax shelters by both corporations and individuals. Kurtz also moved to tax "fringe benefits," such as the use of company cars by employees, but those plans were quashed by the United States House Committee on Ways and Means.

Kurtz stepped down as Commissioner of the IRS in 1980. He returned to private practice at the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison firm in Washington D.C. He also lectured on tax law and taxation at both the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova University and served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

Jerome Kurtz died from complications of surgery in New York City on February 27, 2015, at the age of 83. He was survived by his two daughters, Maddie Kurtz and Nettie Kurtz Greenstein. His late wife, Elaine Kahn Kurtz, whom he had been married to for 47 years, died in 2003.