Talking Tax

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.

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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.

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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.

Improving the country’s infrastructure system is just one of the possible places where Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin could align with congressional Democrats.

An infrastructure plan is a priority in Congress, though there isn’t agreement on funding a package. Mnuchin appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee on March 14.

Bloomberg Tax’s Kaustuv Basu and host Amanda Iacone talk about what to take away from the hearings, and what to watch for in the coming weeks, in this episode of Talking Tax.

Host: Amanda Iacone.

Producer: Nicholas Anzalotta-Kynoch, 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will make his first appearance before the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee on March 14 to talk about the administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget. Mnuchin will also appear before the Senate Finance panel the same day.

A Ways and Means subcommittee will discuss temporary tax breaks at a hearing March 12. And while the tax-writing committees stay busy, chatter continues about the request for President Donald Trump's tax return. Bloomberg Tax’s Kaustuv Basu and Allyson Versprille talked to host Amanda Iacone about tax policy in Congress.

Host: Amanda Iacone.

Producer: Nicholas Anzalotta-Kynoch.