Donald Cyril Lubick

Mr. Donald Cyril Lubick, long-time Washington area resident, died on February 8, 2022, after suffering a stroke. Mr. Lubick was a prominent tax attorney originally from Buffalo, NY, who also spent many years as a public servant in the Department of the Treasury. Beloved husband for 62 years of Susan Lubick; adored father of Jonathan (Viola), Caroline (Mark) and Lisa (David); cherished grandfather of Arielle, Merav, Sarah, Micaela, Ellie, David (z"l), Bevy, Noah, and Teddy.

Donald Lubick was born April 29, 1926, in Buffalo, NY and received a BA summa cum laude from the University of Buffalo in 1945, a JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1949, and subsequently spent a year as one of Harvard Law School’s first teaching fellows.  He also served from 1945-1946 with the US Army Air Force.

He joined the prominent Buffalo law firm Hodgson, Russ, Andrews, Woods, and Goodyear in 1950 while simultaneously serving for many years as an adjunct professor at the School of Law of the University at Buffalo, and remained a partner, and for many years the managing partner, of that firm until his retirement in 1994.  Throughout that time, he intermittently left the practice of law to work as a Treasury official and tax policy expert in the administrations of every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton and served on the Barack Obama transition team.

In 1961, Mr. Lubick was appointed to the Kennedy administration as Tax Legislative Counsel to the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy and served in that capacity until 1963. During that time, he worked on the development and passage of President Kennedy's tax reform legislation, the Revenue Act of 1962 (P.L. 87-834) and the Revenue Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-272).

In 1977, he was appointed by Jimmy Carter as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Legislation and subsequently became the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of the Treasury, until 1981. Lubick was a longtime advocate for comprehensive tax reform and played a key role in drafting the Carter Administration's tax legislation and was instrumental in crafting one of the most important reform proposals of the Carter Administration to allocate significant aspects of the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) between the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service. In addition to tax reform, Lubick was involved in developing President Carter's energy legislation.

He served as Assistant Secretary again in the Clinton administration from 1996 to 1998, leading the development of a package of 59 proposals to protect taxpayer rights and provide for tax simplification. Most of these proposals were adopted by Congress in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. He was also heavily involved in the preparation and release of the Treasury Department's influential policy study on the deferral of income earned through U.S. controlled foreign corporations.

From 1994 until 1996, he directed the Treasury Department’s Office of International Tax Assistance to Developing Countries, advising countries of the former Soviet Union in the development of tax code and law. Based on this experience, and together with his partner, Ward M. Hussey, former Legislative Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, he published Basic World Tax Code and Commentary, a book that includes a sample tax code with draft tax laws and commentary aimed at serving as a tax reform template for developing countries around the world. The book has been translated into at least a dozen languages for various countries needing assistance, including Poland, the Dominican Republic, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Russia.

In addition to his international tax policy work at the Treasury Department, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lubick served on the International Monetary Fund's expert panel on fiscal affairs and was a Senior Fellow with the Harvard Institute of International Tax (HIIT). Lubick advised the Dominican Republic on developing a tax law, recognized as significantly improving the Dominican Republic's economy. Lubick received the Dominican Republic’s Chamber of Commerce Award in 2018.

After leaving the Treasury in 1999, Lubick taught a seminar on comparative corporate taxation at the American University of Washington College of Law.

Mr. Lubick received numerous accolades for his contributions to public service, including the Treasury Exceptional Service Award; the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department of the Treasury's highest honor; and the Federal Bar Association Section of Taxation's Kenneth H. Liles Distinguished Service Award.  In 2016, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center established the Donald C. Lubick Symposium to honor his government service with an annual public event where policymakers, government officials, scholars, and members of the press discuss tax policy and tax administration issues.

Throughout his life, Mr. Lubick volunteered in a number of capacities, serving as a member and officer of his Jewish synagogues in Buffalo and Washington, DC, and providing extensive pro bono tax work for the Jewish Federations of North America. He chaired the Tax Reform Committee for the City of Buffalo in 1958 and 1959 and served on the Advisory Committee on Reform of the Election Laws of the New York State Legislature in 1974; chaired the American Bar Association's Committee on Domestic Relations Tax Problems; served on the Advisory Group to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue; and was a member of the American Law Institute. 

Funeral services will be held Sunday, February 13, 2022, 1 PM at Adas Israel Congregation, 2850 Quebec St NW, Washington, DC 20008, with private interment to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the David Gordon Louis Daniel Foundation, dgldfoundation.org 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Cyril_Lubick#Early_life_and_education