Tax Chats
Dyreng and Hoopes
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 17, 2021 • 31min
Ask the Option Tax-Ologist
Send us a textWe discuss tax issues related to stock options. The discussion is related to Elon Musk's recent infamous twitter poll, in which he asked his followers if he should sell some of his shares in Tesla. Scott buys an option in real time. Related articles are found here: 1. CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/07/elon-musk-faces-a-15-billion-tax-bill-which-is-likely-the-real-reason-hes-selling-stock.html2. Fortune: https://fortune.com/2021/11/10/tesla-elon-musk-stock-options-tax-mistake/ 3. Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-musk-says-stock-sale-impact-closer-tax-maximization-2021-11-14/
Nov 15, 2021 • 3min
Tax Short - Why Don't Billionaires Pay Tax?
Send us a textJeff describes why many billionaires don't pay any tax (or at least pay rates of tax that are far lower than millionaires). He discusses the idea of unrealized gains.
Nov 15, 2021 • 7min
Tax Short - The Pros and Cons of Taxing GAAP (the Amazon Tax)
Send us a textScott explains why companies have two separate accounting systems, one for reporting income to shareholders (GAAP), and one for reporting income to the IRS. He describes some pros and cons to taxing GAAP, as has been proposed by Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and others.
Nov 10, 2021 • 35min
The BBB (Build Back Better) Potpouri
Send us a textWe discuss some of the not-so-talked-about provisions in the Build Back Better tax plan, including (but not limited to) tax credits for journalists and ebikes, credits for electric vehicles, and some of the complications that arise when trying to provide tax incentives only under specific circumstances. We discuss tax credits, refundable credits, phase outs, tax incidence, and more.
Nov 8, 2021 • 5min
Tax Short - How Salesforce.com Paid No Tax on $2.6 Billion in Profits
Send us a textScott describes how Salesforce.com used tax deductions from share-based compensation to reduce its U.S. tax bill to $0 despite reporting billions in profits to shareholders.
Nov 8, 2021 • 3min
Tax Short - How Much Tax Should a Socially Responsible Firm Pay?
Send us a textJeff briefly discusses how much tax a socially responsible firm should pay. He explains that a dollar of tax paid might translate to one fewer dollar used for other socially responsible objectives.
Nov 5, 2021 • 33min
A Billionaires Tax? Is it a wealth tax? Could it happen?
Send us a textWe discuss the recent proposal for a billionaire's tax. We describe the tax, discuss how it could force the very rich to pay more in tax, and the possible complications of such a tax.
Nov 5, 2021 • 34min
The Tax on GAAP is Back (or at least proposed)
Send us a textWe discuss the recently proposed 15% corporate minimum tax to be applied to financial accounting earnings. The idea was proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2019. At that time, we wrote several articles that were published in by various media outlets:WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-let-warren-politicize-accounting-11557089967The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/439693-warrens-corporate-tax-solution-is-fundamentally-flawedA few months later, 11 Senators wrote a letter to the FASB in favor of an accounting change that would improve tax enforcement. We wrote a letter to the FASB urging them to disregard any arguments for financial accounting changes that serve the objective of tax enforcement (the tax code can do this instead). The letters can be found on the last two links here: https://www.fasb.org/jsp/FASB/CommentLetter_C/CommentLetterPage&cid=1218220137090&project_id=2019-500
Nov 4, 2021 • 32min
Building Back Better with SALT-y Tax Cuts for the Rich?
Send us a textWe discuss the recently proposed removal of the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. The restriction would largely benefit wealthy or high-income taxpayers in states with relatively high tax rates (California, New York, etc.) More information can be found at www.taxchats.org
