Tax Chats

Send us a textScott and Jeff discuss the reasons a corporate tax makes sense. The answers might surprise you. Among the least compelling arguments: corporations have a lot of income, corporations use infrastructure, corporations have special legal status. Among the most compelling arguments: corporations make efficient collection agents, corporations have cash, and taxing corporations allows the government to see what they are up to. 

Send us a textScott and Jeff discuss Crypto taxes with Tyler Menzer, PhD student at the University of Iowa studying the tax implications of Crypto currency in the marketplace. We briefly discuss some of the basics, but, also discuss slightly more complicated crypto issues like airdrops and staking.

Send us a textScott and Jeff talk with Rich Prisinzano of the Penn Wharton Budget Model about revenue scoring. Scott, Jeff and Rich discuss topics such as how precise revenue scores are, how private revenue scores are different from those provided by the government, how politicians might use private revenue scorers to get the best "price" for a piece of tax legislation, etc. They end with how Rich would think through scoring a hypothetical (and fictional!) tax proposal, the "Dividend Cut Tax". 

Send us a textScott and Jeff discuss tax justice with Amy Hanauer, Executive Director of Citizens for Tax Justice and its sister organization, ITEP (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). We ask Amy what a fair tax system would look like. We discuss problems with the current tax system. We touch on methods the government uses to redistribute income, like the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. We briefly discuss corporate taxes, and Amy shares her view that corporations do not pay enough taxes. 

Send us a textJeff explains how some non-profits owe income taxes on the unrelated business income, but, how because of the mission of the Girls Scouts, they don't pay taxes on the proceeds from the cookies sales.

Send us a textIn this episode, Scott and Jeff discuss why financial accounting rules and tax accounting rules are different. They give some examples. They talk about some firms that have reported very high income while also paying very low taxes. They also talk about how the opposite happens, but doesn't get much media attention.

Send us a textScott and Jeff discuss Cannabis taxation with economist Caroline Weber. We chat about the history of cannabis taxation, the advantage of legalizing cannabis to make it easier to tax, the use of taxes to set a price floor, and other issues related to cannabis taxation. We also discuss whether the taxes collected from Cannabis production and sales are used to remedy some of the social ills that might arise from widespread cannabis use. 

Send us a textScott and Jeff interview Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). We discuss the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which has been signed by many national and state-level politicians, including past presidents, many senators, sitting governors, and others. The signing is mostly partisan, with Republicans mostly signing, and Democrats rarely signing.Grover Norquist discusses his views on taxes and government, and argues that there is never a good reason to increase income tax collections.Grover Norquist describes how he believes raising taxes can lead to political trouble for Republican politicians.

Send us a textScott and Jeff discuss tax boycotts. Some corporate mangers say they are careful with their tax planning because they don't want to make their customers mad--customers might not buy things from a company they perceive as overly aggressive with their taxes. In this episode, Scott and Jeff discuss a recent study by Jeff and co-authors Scott Asay (U Iowa), Jake Thornock (Brigham Young University), and Jaron Wilde (U Iowa) called "Tax Boycotts". We describe how the scorn of consumers might harm corporations that avoid taxes. Jeff and co-authors searched high and low for evidence of consumer boycotts related to tax avoidance and were unable to find any evidence. The conclusion is that, although managers might perceive one cost of tax planning is the potential for consumer boycotts, in fact the costs rarely materialize.

Send us a textScott and Jeff talk with Ken Kies about TRA86, the last major tax reform since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Ken was the Chief Republican Tax Counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee during the process of passing TRA86. How bipartisan was the TRA86? Was Ronald Reagan involved in the details? How much did the lobbyists matter? This episode gets into the details of TRA86 from someone who was on the front lines of tax reform when it happened.