Talking Tax

Congress and federal agencies are taking steps that, until recently, would have been unthinkable in an attempt to mitigate some of the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

On this episode of Talking Tax, we hear from reporter Allyson Versprille about whether the IRS is doing enough to make life easier for taxpayers—and for its own employees. And Bloomberg Tax's Colin Wilhelm talks about how Congress' $2 trillion spending package is essentially a "bridge loan for the American public."

Small businesses are still struggling to deal with the chaos that resulted from the Supreme Court's Wayfair decision less than two years ago. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is one of the people hoping to bring order from this chaos for small businesses.

On this episode of our podcast, Talking Tax, we speak with Kim, the chairman of a House Small Business subcommittee that handles tax issues, about how the Wayfair decision is affecting businesses in his district and elsewhere, and about whether Congress is inclined to address their problems.

These are trying times for CFOs at companies both large and small. Ash Noah, a former CFO for a global logistics company, says it reminds him of the Great Recession, the 9/11 attacks, and the Gulf War all rolled into one.

On this special coronavirus episode of our Talking Tax podcast, we hear from Noah, now a managing director at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, about what CFOs need to be doing now to respond to the pandemic and about what the federal government should be doing to help keep companies' finance departments above water.

The ink from the President’s signature was barely dry on last year’s SECURE Act before many of its provisions went into effect, forcing companies to change the way they manage their employees’ retirement accounts.

Many of these companies are turning to people like Veena Murthy, a principal at the accounting firm Crowe, LLP, who helped craft the SECURE Act in her previous job as a counsel at Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

Bloomberg Law’s Warren Rojas spoke with Murthy about some of the changes the SECURE Act wrought and what benefits managers should be doing about them.

Andrea Grainger, head of transfer pricing operations at insurance and reinsurance giant Swiss Re, is closely watching ongoing OECD talks aimed at rewriting global corporate tax systems.

She spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Isabel Gottlieb about how different parts of the plan would affect her industry—and why all companies should be paying attention.

Peter Blessing, an associate chief counsel at the IRS, joins Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Allyson Versprille to talk about the agency's strategy for wrapping up implementation of the 2017 tax law.

At Bloomberg Tax's 2020 Outlook on Tax event in Washington, Blessing discusses challenges resulting from companies wanting to bring intellectual property back to the U.S. He also addresses initial international issues arising from the IRS's real-time auditing program for some large corporations.

L.G. "Chip" Harter is spearheading the Treasury Department's implementation of the international provisions of the 2017 tax law. He said the department aims to finish this by October.

Harter spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Isabel Gottlieb at Bloomberg Tax's 2020 Outlook on Tax event in Washington. Harter spoke about a Senate inquiry into Treasury's rulemaking process and he also addresses what's next for U.S. negotiations on tax treaties after the Senate finally broke a decade-long treaty logjam last year.

Google, Facebook, and other tech giants have too much market power and way too much information about all of us. That's the opinion of lots of political figures, as well as of Nobel economist Paul Romer. What makes Romer different is his preferred way of dealing with this problem: taxes.

U.S. states would be the best place to start, Romer says. He speaks with Bloomberg Tax correspondent Michael Bologna on the latest episode of Talking Tax.

This week, we're sharing an episode of the newest weekly podcast from Bloomberg Industry Group, Downballot Counts. It's a podcast about the 2020 U.S. House and Senate elections and the fight to control Congress. The series is hosted by Bloomberg Government Senior Elections Reporter Greg Giroux and Elections Team Leader Kyle Trygstad. Subscribe to Downballot Counts wherever you get your podcasts.

Some of the biggest investment funds—Ares Management Corp., KKR & Co. Inc., and others—converted from partnerships to C corporations after Congress slashed the corporate tax rate in the 2017 tax law. But conversions aren’t for everyone, not by a long shot.

Jeremy Swan, managing principal at CohnReznick in New York, talks about the pros and cons, the questions that businesses should ask themselves, and the political uncertainties right now that signal the wisdom of a “wait and see” approach to further conversions.