Tax Chats

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 Henry David Thoreau famously refused to pay his poll tax and went to jail (very briefly) as a result. Jeff and Scott chat with Laura Dassow Walls, emerita English professor at Notre Dame and author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life, about what we can learn from Thoreau about taxes and the relationship they create between taxpayers and the state. 

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Jeff and Scott chat with Jacob Bastian, assistant professor of Economics at Rutgers, about the earned income tax credit (EITC). 

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Jeff and Scott talk to Nathan Goldman,  accounting professor at North Carolina State University (completing the tax triangle between UNC, Duke, and NC State!)., about taxes and online sports betting. Sports betting was recently legalized in North Carolina, and Nathan co-wrote (with Christina Lewellen) a widely circulated piece about the tax implications of sports betting,:

https://poole.ncsu.edu/thought-leadership/article/the-taxation-of-online-sports-betting-in-north-carolina/

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Scott and Jeff chat with Martha Gimbel, executive director of The Budget Lab at Yale University.  We discuss the functions of the lab, including its efforts on budget scoring. 

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Jeff and Scott chat with Gabriel Zucker about Code for America's efforts to enable better access to free tax filing, both at the federal level, and, facilitating state tax filing as the IRS roles out its direct filing program.

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Jeff and Scott chat with Partho Shome about taxes  in the colonial era in India, especially the excise tax on salt. They then discuss how these taxes lead to the famous "salt march" led by Mahatma Gandhi, which ultimately lead to Indian Independence.  This experience is contrasted to the American independance movement, which also had roots in taxes levied by the British East India Company, and lessons for modern tax policy are discussed. 

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Recorded on April 15, Jeff and Scott Chat about tax code complexity. Why is the tax code so complex? Is it because life is complex? Because we have chosen to hone the tax code to achieve certain social goals? Jeff and Scott chat about it all in light of Scott not being able to complete his tax code until the very last moment.

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Scott and Jeff chat with Nic Duquette, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. We discuss charitable giving, tax deductions related to charitable giving, tax exempt organizations, and the like.

Listener submitted correction: "there is no longer an above-the-line charitable deduction for cash contributions for tax years after 2021 (it was a temporary Covid-era provision as Scott had thought in asking the question). It was first enacted in the CARES Act for tax year 2020 only - prior law sec. 62(a)(22). It was then extended to tax year 2021, the final year it was in effect, through sec. 170(p).  The provision initially read "In the case of taxable years beginning in 2020" - but the only tax year that begins in 2020 is the 2020 tax year. Under sec. 170(p), the provision reads "In the case of any taxable year beginning in 2021" (again, the only tax year that begins in 2021 is the 2021 tax year). The deduction was $300 in 2020 and increased to $600 in 2021 for joint returns."

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 app. Go to the Tax Chats channel, register for the course, take a short quiz, and earn your CPE certificate.

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Jeff and Scott chat with Samford University law professor Tracey Roberts about Cordell Hull. Hull was a senator, secretary of state, and, won the Nobel Prize for his role in creating the United Nations. However, he also had a substantial role in creating the income tax, which Tracey, Jeff and Scott discuss.  This episode is based on Professor Roberts article, "A Man for His Era and for Ours: Cordell Hull, Father of the Federal Income Tax", published in the Cumberland Law Review.

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Jeff and Scott chat with Clyde Ray, a political scientist and author of the book John Marshall's Constitutionalism, about the Supreme Court case McCulloch v Maryland, which hinged on whether a state could tax a federal bank. 

In this case, John Marshall teaches us that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy."