Taxes touch every aspect of society, including who rules, where factories are built, what people drink, what car they buy, when they have children, and when they die. Scott Dyreng (Duke) and Jeff Hoopes (UNC), two accounting professors, chat about taxes, including current events, with the energy of an over-caffeinated chihuahua. Listening is guaranteed to be far more entertaining than actually paying your taxes.
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Gary Hecimovich about the transferability of tax credits in the post-IRA world, including the markets for tax credits, and how non-profits can now take advantage of the new green energy incentives provided in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Send us a text Jeff and Scott Chat with Kelly Necessary , a Partner at FORVIS , a large public accounting firm. We chat with Kelly about the role of automating routine tax tasks that historically have been very time consuming. We also talk about whether opening envelopes can be mechanized.
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Joel Slemrod , Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan about tax research over the past 30 years.
Send us a text In this episode, Scott and Jeff chat with Berkeley Professor of Marketing Sarah Moshary about the Pink Tax. Sarah and co-authors have written a paper that systematically examines the issue....
Send us a text In this episode, Marna Ricker , Global Vice Chair -- Tax at EY joins us from the Milken Institute Global Conference 2003 to discuss the global tax landscape. We get Marna's perspective on the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, the TCJA, and how AI might affect the world of tax practice....
Send us a text We chat with Morris Pearl, Chairman of the Board of Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of millionaires who, among other policy objectives, are advocating to alter the tax system so that the rich pay more in tax.
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Send us a text We chat with Silencer Central CEO Brandon Maddox about the excise tax stamp on firearm suppressors, which is a $200 federal tax introduced as part of the 1934 National Firearms Act. , which is part of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC § 5801 – 5872). We discuss the origins of the tax, its purpose, and how it is implemented today. We discuss the formation of so-called " gun trusts " as legal entities to purchase suppressors....
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Jay Zagorsky from the Questrom School of Business at Boston University about his experience trying to pay his tax bill with cash. We discuss the complexities of paying with cash, and the costs that might be incurred if one does not have access to the traditional banking system. Jay wrote about his article here: Can you pay your taxes with cash? One economist did | Fortune...
Send us a text Starbucks is piloting a reward program called Odyssey in which members get rewarded with NFTs. We discuss the possible tax consequences to Starbucks and its customers. We also discuss the issues surrounding taxation of NFTs in general.
Send us a text In "The Wealth of Nations", Book V, Chapter ii, Adam Smith lays out some fundamental principles of taxation. We discuss some of those principles, and describe how they are still being applied today.
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Sir Andrew Dilnot , currently serving of Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, about his experience evaluating bias in the BBC's coverage of tax-related topics. We discuss the complications reporters face when covering complex economic issues. We review the findings of his recent report entitled "Review of the impartiality of BBC coverage of taxation, public spending, government borrowing and debt."...
Send us a text Jeff asks ChatGPT a series of tax-related questions, and Scott evaluates the answers.
Send us a text We chat with James Wetzler about the time a legislative mistake accidentally abolished the corporate tax in 1975. This leads to other discussions, including when the New York State Tax Authorities tried to impose sales tax on a kids lemonade stand, the dilemma that arose when the tax authorities seized pornographic videos from a delinquent taxpayer, and the strange situation where an IRS auditor uncovered evidence of a murder. Near the end, we also briefly discuss the deterrent ef...
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Evelyn Smith and Hadi Elzayn, two of the seven coauthors on a recent working paper entitled " Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits ." We ask them details about the paper. We find that the unconditional audit disparity between (estimated) black tax payers and (estimated) non-black taxpayers is about 5%. We ask about the conditional disparity. The authors explain that conditional on some factors the disparity remains. We discuss what con...
Send us a text President Biden gave the State of the Union address last night. Scott and Jeff talk about the tax components of the address. They discuss large corporations which pay little in tax, billionaires who pay little in tax, and taxing share repurchases., and "apples and elephants comparisons." Also, Jeff explains why it is impossible for pretty much any taxpayer, let alone those making under $400K a year, to pay a penny more in taxes under any of President Biden's current or former tax ...
Send us a text In this episode, Scott and Jeff speak with Ryan Gurule of the FACT Coalition about the types of things companies disclose about taxes in their public filings. We talk about what is good and not so good, and we discuss some of the possible changes that might be made. We recorded this episode on November 1, 2022. Later in the year, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) announce an update to its " Improvements to Tax Disclosures " project. The proposals are well aligned wit...
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Bryen Alperin about tax credit markets. It is often the case that a company that might earn a tax credit can't use it because it has insufficient income. This creates an opportunity for multilateral tax planning, wherein institutions with large tax bills partner with entities that generate tax credits to take take advantage of tax savings.
Send us a text This episode originally aired on January 15, 2022. Martin Luther King Jr. is the only person to have ever been tried for perjury with regards to state income taxes in Alabama. Jeff and Scott interview Edgar Dyer about the tax perjury trial of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960. Eddie wrote an article entitled " A Triumph of Justice in Alabama: The 1960 Perjury Trial of Martin Luther King, Jr. " Fred Grey, Martin Luther King's attorney, said of the trial, "No one would have predicted t...
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with David Kemmerer , Co-Founder and CEO of CoinLedger . Our conversation focuses, in part, on the NFT Loss Harvestooor , which is a tool designed to allow investors to dispose of NFTs such that they can claim the tax deduction. The NFT Graveyard is the final resting place of NFTs that were once worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but are now worth essentially nothing....
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Leopoldo Parada , professor of law at University of Leeds about the inequities that Pillar II of the OECD's Inclusive Framework impose on developing countries.
Send us a text Away to Pay Taxes (to the tune of Away in the Manger) Re-release (originally released Christmas, 2021) Lyrics by Jeff Hoopes, Sung by Stacey Hoopes Oh Joseph and Mary They were there for a task They came to the city To pay their tax But as they remitted The tax on their worth Oh Mary, a virgin She had to give birth They went to the city By Caesar’s decree As taxes touched Joseph They affect you and me When we give birth and when we die How much we work And what car we buy For eve...
Send us a text In honor of the fifth anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act... I Heard the Bells (of tax reform!) Sung to the tune of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day Singing by two of Dyreng's Deductions Lyrics of Jeff Hoopes I heard the tale about the day They passed the law TCJA The rate was high our firms payed much So they were blessed by Donald’s touch The rate brought low that fated day When Congress put out on display That we are strong and we will beat On taxes we will now compete F...
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Daniel Hemel about the House Ways and Means Committee " Report on the Internal Revenue Service's Mandatory Audit Program " that reveals substantial information about former President Trump's tax returns. Additional information was revealed in a report by the Joint Committee on Taxation ....
Send us a text The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law on December 22, 2017. In honor of its birth five whole years ago, we talk with the American Enterprise Institute's Kyle Pomerleau, who had a front row seat to the passage of the TCJA.
Send us a text Scott and Jeff chat with Daniel Hemel, Law Professor at New York University about the recently enacted excise tax on share repurchases or buybacks . Daniel has thought and written about buybacks, for example, here . We discuss buybacks, dividends, and why both progressives and conservatives might be in favor of a tax on buybacks....
Send us a text Scott and Jeff discuss the effect of capital gains taxes on stock prices with Douglas A. Shackelford , former Dean of UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School. If the capital gains tax rate increases, should stock prices go up, down, or stay the same? Its much more complicated than you might think!
Send us a text Scott and Jeff discuss what constitutes candy, for sales tax purposes, in North Carolina. The discussion ends with the verdict on craisins--are they candy? Scott is quizzed on other types of food and whether they are candy, and, scores a perfect 0/5.
Send us a text Todd Castagno, an equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley, responds to a list of possible ways corporations might react to the tax on book income recently passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Send us a text Scott and Jeff talk about Tax Foundation with CEO and President Daniel Bunn . We talk about its missions, where it gets funding, and other tax-related issues. We discuss the pro-growth agenda of the Tax Foundation and note that there could be other legitimate objective functions for a think tank....
