Tax Chats

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Scott and Jeff chat with Ruth Braunstein about her recent book " My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America " wherein we discuss complicated issues related to using tax dollars to fund controversial issues like abortion and war. We discuss taxpayer resistance. We chat about the complexities that arise in government use of taxpayer dollars when...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Kathleen Thomas, a UNC tax law professor, about a recent proposal to allow businesses to have a standard deduction, rather than track expenses. Kathleen explains how this proposal would simplify compliance with and administration of the tax code. 

Send us Fan Mail The House Ways and Means Committee has pass The One Big Beautiful Bill the TOBBB). Knowing this was coming up, Jeff invited Scott to go on a Tax Chats road trip, but, got rejected--Scott was too busy. So, Jeff watched the process from a  distance. Jeff discusses what he observed, and Jeff and Scott discuss the contents of the bill, for far as it was passed by the House Ways and Me...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott talk about the relationship taxes have with each other.  How are value added taxes related to sales taxes or the border adjustment tax, and how are all related to income taxes (or are they just unrelated)?  Find out by listening to this amazing episode.

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott talk to Ryan Monarch, economics professor at Syracuse University, about what we know about the tariffs imposed by the first Donald Trump administration in 2018.  

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Adam Michel of the Cato Institute about tax expenditures. Adam currently has on his X account the Tax Expenditure Madness brackets (also on his substack: https://adamnmichel.substack.com/). Adam sets up brackets like the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament,  but instead of pitting basketball teams against each other to establish the best team*, he has...

Send us Fan Mail  Jeff and Scott chat with Bill Gale of the Tax Policy Center about his new paper (with Oliver Hall and John Sabelhaus), "The Same But Different: How the Income Tax Affects Black, Hispanic, and White Households." We discuss how the bottom 70% of Black households, by income, pay less in tax than White households with similar incomes. This occurs because Black households ha...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Oyebola Okunogbe, an economist at the World Bank. They discuss tax enforcement in the developing world, including the challenges developing world countries face that more developed countries do not face, and, how those challenges shape tax systems.  Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott talk about Elena Patel , an economics professor at the University of Utah, about her time working at the Council of Economic Advisors. Elena worked as a tax economist advising the chair of the CEA, who is an economic advisor to the President. Elena talks about how one gets this job, what one does in the job, what the CEA is general, and how the CEA interacts in a ve...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Rita de la Feria on tax fairness. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder, and tax fairness, in particular, appears to be particularly sensitive to whose eye is beholding.

Send us Fan Mail This episode originally aired on January 15, 2022. We are releasing it for Martin Luther King day, January 20, 2025. If you already heard it and don't wish to hear it again, skip it! 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 Mar...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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 effec...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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. 

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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.

Send us Fan Mail Scott 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.

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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.o...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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. 

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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 e...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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  producti...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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 availab...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff 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...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Senator Daniel McCay, chairman of the Utah Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, about how he thinks about tax policy, what the objectives of tax policy are, and how he thinks Utah is doing tax-wise. Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https://earmarkcpe.com/ to down...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott chat with Michael Graetz, Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale, about his new book, The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America. We talk about the start of the anti-tax movement with the opposition to property tax increases in California, the Regan-era tax cuts, and how the desire to cut taxes has shaped American politics over the last 40 years. Get...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott talk with Iowa law professor Andy Grewal about the recent Supreme Court case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which effectively eliminates Chevron deference.  They discuss the ramifications for tax and non-tax administrative law. Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are available approximately one week after episodes are published. Visit https:...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff and Scott talk with Scott Hodge (who is revealed to be a more authentic "Scott" than Scott Dyreng), CEO Emeritus to the Tax Foundation. They discuss his new book, " Taxocracy: What You Don't Know About Taxes and How They Rule Your Daily Life ", about all the ways which taxes shape our lives. Get CPE for listening to Tax Chats! Free CPE courses are ava...