Howard Dawson

{{short description|American judge (1922–2016)}}

Howard Athalone Dawson Jr.{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/gazette-news-current/139294602/|title=What's in a name: Dawson traced to two sources|work=Gazette News-Current|date=May 16, 1972}} (October 23, 1922 – July 15, 2016) was an American jurist who served as a judge of the United States Tax Court.{{cite book|last=Finn|first=Marie T.|title=The American Bench|year=2009|publisher=Forster-Long|isbn=978-0931398582|page=33}}{{cite web|title=Judge Howard A. Dawson Jr.|url=http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Howard-Dawson&lc=2216&pid=180696199&mid=7011809|publisher=Dignity Memorial|access-date=17 July 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821062355/http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Howard-Dawson&lc=2216&pid=180696199&mid=7011809|archive-date=21 August 2016}}

Born in Okolona, Arkansas,Official Congressional Directory (1979), p. 744. Dawson graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., in 1940. Following the outbreak of World War II, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army Finance Corps from 1943–45, spending two years in European Theater. He went on to earn a B.S. in commerce from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1946. Following college, he earned his J.D. with honors from The George Washington University Law School in 1949. At George Washington he was the president of the case club and secretary-treasurer of the student bar association.

He was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as judge on Tax Court of the United States, on August 21, 1962, for a term ending June 1, 1970, and was reappointed by President Richard Nixon on June 2, 1970, for a term ending June 1, 1985. This was one of several appointments which went against a previously observed senate resolution prohibiting the appointment to that body of persons recently employed by the Treasury Department.Harold Dubroff and Brant J. Hellwig, The United States Tax Court: An Historical Analysis (2014), p. 159. He served as chief judge of the Tax Court from July 1, 1973, to June 30, 1977, and again from July 1, 1983, to June 1, 1985. He retired on June 2, 1985. He was recalled as senior judge to perform judicial duties in 1990 and served in that role until his death in 2016.{{cite web |title=The Honorable Howard A. Dawson, Jr., 1922-2016 |url=https://www.ustaxcourt.gov/press/071816.pdf |publisher=United States Tax Court |date=July 18, 2016 |access-date=February 13, 2020 |archive-date=October 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019025822/https://www.ustaxcourt.gov/press/071816.pdf |url-status=dead }}