
Tax Chats
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.
Latest episodes

Jan 15, 2025 • 34min
Low Property taxes in California: Chatting about Prop 13 with Dan Walters
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Dan Walter's, an Opinion Columnist for CalMatters. They chat about Prop 13, a law that dramatically limits property tax increases in California, and was passed in 1978. Dan has been writing about California since 1975, and shares his perspectives on Prop 13 from having lived through and covered the debate surrounding its passage, as well as what effects Prop 13 has had since its passage.

Jan 13, 2025 • 31min
Democrats Lowering the Income Tax in Hawaii! A Chat with Seth Colby
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Seth Colby, a Tax Research and Planning Officer for the State of Hawaii. They discussed a recent policy change in Hawaii, where Hawaii dramatically reduced income tax rates, while increasing sales taxes, in an effort to both collect less revenue for lower-income Hawaiians, while generating additional revenue from those visiting Hawaii temporarily.

Dec 10, 2024 • 37min
The Regulation of Paid Tax Preparers: A Conversation with John Treu
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with West Virginia University accounting professor, and lawyer, John Treu, about the regulation of paid tax preparers, including John's empirical evidence that they improve return quality and the Loving case.

Nov 26, 2024 • 24min
Re-release: Are Craisins Candy? Must have tax information before Thanksgiving
Send us a textScott 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.

Nov 25, 2024 • 27min
Tax Notes: A Chat with Tax Analysts CEO Cara Griffith
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Cara Griffith, CEO of Tax Analysts about Tax Notes, the main product of Tax Analysts. Tax Notes is a tax practitioner publication catering to tax professionals, and Jeff and Scott talk about who reads Tax Notes, how content is produced, and who the competitors to Tax Notes are.Finally, we discuss Tax Analysts' ownership of the URL https://taxmuseum.org/, which is a direct competitor to the much better http://thetaxmuseum.org.

Nov 18, 2024 • 34min
Electric Car Subsidies in the IRA: A Chat with Felix Tintelnot
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Felix Tintelnot about electric cars, and the subsidies they were given before the IRA, and in the IRA. We learn that because electric cars are heavier and therefore more likely to crush you to death if they crash into you, they create negative externalities, in addition to the positive benefit of reducing pollution.

Oct 24, 2024 • 40min
Certifying Fairness? A Chat with Fair Tax Foundation's CEO Paul Monaghan
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Paul Monaghan, the CEO of the Fair Tax Foundation. The Fair Tax Foundation certifies companies for paying a "good" amount of tax, focusing on the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, certifying companies from small to publicly traded large corporations. How can you tell if a company is paying a fair amount in tax? Listen to the episode to find out!Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https://earmarkcpe.com/ to download the free app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

Oct 9, 2024 • 43min
Cement and Carbon Taxes: A Chat with Marcel Olbert and Daniel Klein
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Marcel Olbert, assistant professor of accounting at London Business School, and Daniel Klein, assistant to the CFO at Heidelberg Materials. They discuss carbon taxes, and a new paper Marcel has on carbon leakage. They also discuss how carbon taxes and leakage affect Heidelberg Materials, one of the largest producers of cement in the world. Cement production contributes an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere, and so it is very sensitive to carbon taxation. Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https://earmarkcpe.com/ to download the free app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

Sep 28, 2024 • 28min
Deadly Tax Protests in Kenya: A chat with Nana Ama Sarfo
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Nana Ama Sarfo, a contributing editor with Tax Notes, with a special interest in covering taxes in the developing world. They chat about the recent deadly tax protests in Kenya, where a tax increase on basic life staples lead to violence in the street, parliament being lit on fire, and death.Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https://earmarkcpe.com/ to download the free app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

Sep 4, 2024 • 40min
Taxing Traffic? A Chat About Congestion Pricing with Matthew Tarduno
Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with economist and professor Matthew Tarduno about the problems that automobile traffic causes, and different ways that have been devised to solve the problem (including tax-adjacent ways!). Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https://earmarkcpe.com/ to download the free app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.