Tax Chats

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Wojciech Kopczuk, professor of Economics at Columbia University, an editor at the Journal of Public Economics, and IgNobel Prize Winner, about the trends in income inequality. The long-standing received wisdom is that income inequality is high, and growing higher. A recent paper published in the Journal of Political Economy by Gerry Auten and David Splinter call into question that finding. Jeff, Scott and Wojciech talk about the difficulties in measuring income inequality, its consequences, etc.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.

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Laura Snyder, an advocate for an improved tax system for Americans living abroad.  Laura is currently the  President of Stop Extraterritorial American Taxation, (SEAT) and is also an American living abroad. They talk about the different types of Americans living abroad, and how their lives are complicated by the American tax system.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.

Send us a textThis 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 that an all-white jury in Montgomery, Alabama, the Cradle of the Confederacy, in May 1960, in the middle of all the sit-ins and all of the racial tension that was going on, would exonerate Martin Luther King, Jr. But it really happened." Coretta Scott King said of the trial, "A southern jury of twelve white men had acquitted Martin. It was a triumph of justice, a miracle that restored your faith in human good."  Dr. King said it was a "turning point" in his life. Tune in to hear about this triumphal tax trial, which was a turning point for Martin Luther King.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.

Law professor and BlueJ CEO Benjamin Alarie discusses the use of artificial intelligence to predict tax court case outcomes. They explore the complexities of worker classification, integrating language models into predictive models, the interactive nature of AI models, and applying tax litigation principles to financial accounting.

Send us a textA Way to Pay Taxes (to the tune of Away in the Manger)Re-release (originally released Christmas, 2021)Lyrics by Jeff Hoopes, Sung by Stacey HoopesOh Joseph and MaryThey were there for a taskThey came to the cityTo pay their taxBut as they remitted The tax on their worthOh Mary, a virginShe had to give birth They went to the cityBy Caesa­r’s decreeAs taxes touched JosephThey affect you and meWhen we give birthand when we dieHow much we workAnd what car we buy  For every decisionWe weigh how we actBy counting the costAnd we do it post-tax The pros and the consIn dollars and centsWe consider the taxesBefore we commence

Send us a textJeff and Scott talk about two taxes levied at the Hoopes household, the "floor tax", and the "toilet tax."  These two taxes demonstrate how the tax system can be used as either a carrot or a stick, and the benefit of each approach, and the importance of administrative costs (which made the toilet tax impractical). We also discus how, and whether, taxes can be used to solve social problems.  Scott vows to do better in taxing the subjects of his kingdom. 

Send us a textJeff and  Scott talk with UNC Marketing professor Kristopher Keller about his work on the effect of marketing on soda taxes (joint work with  Jonne Guyt and Rajdeep Grewal). After passing a soda tax, a tax on sugared beverages meant to discourage their consumption, stores can change their marketing of soda. Kristopher, with coauthors, show that stores actually decrease the amount of marketing they do, which contributes to some of the  decline in soda consumption which has been documented to accompany soda taxes. In sum, Kristopher shows that  marketing can affect the measured elasticity of soda consumption with respect to the soda tax rate.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.

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with  Benjamin Angel, the Director for Direct Taxation, Tax Coordination, Economic Analysis and Evaluation at the European Commission. The EC has recently proposed rules that would enable smaller business that have operations across EU countries to have a simplified tax filing process,  reducing compliance costs and making the tax filing process easier.  These rules will allow companies to calculate their tax base according to a common set of rules (not a different base for every country), and, provides an allocation mechanism to allocate profits to the countries in which the  small EU multinational operates. 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.

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with two state and local tax experts, Stacey Roberts and Meredith Smith,  about the state and local tax deduction cap put in by Congress  in 2017, and ways states are allowing their residents to get around it.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.

Send us a textIn this episode, Jeff and Scott chat with Nick Guest, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Cornell University's SC Johnson  College of Business about a recent study he conducted related to stock repurchases, available published here or in working paper version here.