[14] Cohen began his career at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he served as an associate from 1936 to 1949 and primarily worked on tax matters.
[16] During his time at Sullivan & Cromwell, Cohen also worked on matters pertaining to investment companies, and drafted portions of statutory language later enacted in the Revenue Act of 1942.
[17] During his tenure at Sullivan & Cromwell, Cohen and several other associates inquired about purchasing a controlling stake in the New York Giants baseball team, but the group ultimately failed.
[22] Cohen declined consideration for a judgeship on the U.S. Tax Court early in his teaching career,[23] but he did serve on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Task Force to Improve the World-Wide Competitive Effectiveness of American Business[24] and the Advisory Group to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, then serving Commissioner Sheldon Cohen.
[27] In February 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Cohen as the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy in the U.S. Department of Treasury.
[29] Figures provided in part by Cohen influenced Congressional enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
[30] In his Treasury role, Cohen also represented the United States on the Fiscal Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
[34] In 1973, Cohen joined Covington & Burling LLP as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C. office while continuing to teach part-time at the University of Virginia School of Law.
[39] Professor emeritus George Yin, a former Chief of Staff to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, was the first holder of the Cohen Chair.
[40] The title is currently held by Ruth Mason, who is member to the American Law Institute, the U.S. national reporter to the International Fiscal Association, and on the editorial board of the World Tax Journal.
[42] In one such piece of poetry, Cohen wrote of the “marriage penalty,” a tax-code technicality favoring married partners with dissimilar amounts of earned income, that: "When a boy meets a girl and they determine to wed, They are not likely to think of the taxes ahead.