Talking Tax

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair decision upended a 26-year precedent that limited a state’s authority to tax goods being sold across state lines. A year later, states have amended their laws to target remote sellers and online sales platforms like Amazon.com Inc. Bloomberg Tax reporter Ryan Prete spoke with Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute and president of consulting firm Yetter Tax, to discuss the ruling’s legacy so far and possible future legal issues. She said legal challenges could begin with differing interpretations of the laws, and go as far as class-action lawsuits against sellers for not collecting the taxes appropriately.  Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast | Via Spotify

The 2017 tax law lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%. That has some companies taking a look at their corporate structure and asking: Is a C corp better? "We have the conversation a lot," said Elizabeth Stieff, a tax attorney with Venable LLC in Baltimore. Stieff said clients see this great 21% tax rate and they want to take advantage of it. But, as she explained to Bloomberg Tax's Amanda Iacone, it's only a great opportunity for specific businesses in specific circumstances.Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast| Via Spotify

The OECD released a blueprint for how to rewrite global tax rules. The group hopes to get international consensus around proposals to set a global minimum tax and reallocate more of companies’ taxable profits to countries where their consumers are located. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development wants to get 129 countries to agree to the plan by 2020.Martin Kreienbaum, director general of international taxation at Germany’s finance ministry, spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Siri Bulusu about the outlook for the OECD’s effort.Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast| Via Spotify

American workers are cashing in on their side hustle, picking up small jobs through Task Rabbit, driving for Lyft, or selling jewelry on Etsy. But they owe taxes on that work. And many of these self-employed workers are under-reporting their income to the IRS. It’s contributing to an estimated $450 billion tax gap.Annette Nellen, who directs the graduate tax program at San Jose State University, spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Amanda Iacone about how the gig economy is changing the tax landscape and the challenges facing both workers and preparers.

The retail industry is grappling with a new set of tariffs on about $200 billion of goods coming in from China. David French, senior vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federation, said the tariffs first costs businesses and then hit consumers.French spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Siri Bulusu about how businesses are preparing to absorb some of those costs into various points of their supply chain, and how the costs are eroding the benefits the retail sector gained following tax reform.Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast| Via Spotify  

As countries across the globe debate whether to tax digital transactions, companies and their tax planners need to be prepared for a shifting tax landscape and a more transparent marketplace.  India was among the first to adopt a digital tax and France is currently debating a similar move. Mansi Seth, a tax lawyer with Dechert LLP, calls it a new era for business taxes.  Seth recently spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Amanda Iacone about the significance of India’s tax on online advertising and the challenges to reach a global consensus on taxing rights.Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast| Via Spotify

Place-based tax incentives, like the opportunity zones program or new markets tax credit, have the potential to correct economic disparity between thriving cities and communities hungry for capital investment. The Opportunity Zones tax break under tax code Section 1400Z has attracted avid interest from investors since its creation in the 2017 tax overhaul. John Lettieri, president and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington-based think tank behind the opportunity zones program, talks with reporter Siri Bulusu about previous tax incentive programs, access to the American Dream, and some of the more interesting business proposals that would make use of the tax perk.

It is a shared responsibility, said Cindy Fornelli, executive director of the Center for Audit Quality—the advocacy group stood up in the years after the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The law regulated the audit profession and was intended to restore trust in financial statements after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. Fornelli will retire this month after 12 years of working to build consensus among audit committees, regulators and auditors and preaching best practices. She spoke with reporter Amanda Iacone about the evolution of the profession.  Listen and subscribe to Talking Tax from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via Stitcher | Via Overcast 

Opportunity zone investors should focus on working with state and local governments if they want to make the most of a new capital gains tax break.The break, under tax code Section 1400Z, has attracted avid interest from investors since its creation in the 2017 tax overhaul. In the latest episode of Talking Tax, Margaret Anadu, the head of Goldman Sachs’s Urban Investment Group, talks with Siri Bulusu about opportunity zones, her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria, and how Goldman Sachs’s 19-year impact investing framework lines up with the new tax break.

When House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) asked for six years of President Donald Trump’s tax returns, he relied on a provision in the tax code.Tax code Section 6103 says that the chairman of Ways and Means, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and the chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation can seek tax returns. Stuart Gibson, a former tax litigator with the Department of Justice and now deputy editorial director of international tax at Bloomberg Tax, discussed the law’s purpose and its evolution.Hosts: Amanda Iacone and Siri Bulusu. Producer: Nicholas Anzalotta-Kynoch.