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 10, 2021 • 35min
The BBB (Build Back Better) Potpouri
Send 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 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 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 • 34min
The Tax on GAAP is Back (or at least proposed)
Send 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 5, 2021 • 33min
A Billionaires Tax? Is it a wealth tax? Could it happen?
Send 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 4, 2021 • 32min
Building Back Better with SALT-y Tax Cuts for the Rich?
Send 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
