Associated Press
Friday, August 8, 2008

William M. Goldstein, 72, a prominent tax lawyer who argued an appeal of the definition of income in 1990 that is still cited in textbooks, died of cancer Aug. 6 at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

Mr. Goldstein, a Treasury Department official during the Ford administration, had spent the past 26 years as a partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

In the 1990 case Zarin v. Commissioner, Mr. Goldstein represented a gambler who had been extended credit by an Atlantic City casino.

The gambler contested his debt and reached a settlement with the casino, but the Internal Revenue Service contended that the casino chips were taxable income. Mr. Goldstein successfully argued before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the chips were not income.

Mr. Goldstein was the deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy under President Gerald Ford and worked to determine the Treasury's position on tax and economic issues.

He helped form the Tax Reform Act of 1976 and served as head of a U.S. delegation that worked out tax treaties with the Philippines and Brazil.