Tax Chats

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Jeff and Scott chat with Max Ghenis, co-founder and CEO of PolicyEngine and founder and CEO of the Axiom Foundation, about using technology to improve tax policy analysis. We discuss PolicyEngine, an open-source tool that allows anyone to simulate how tax and benefit policies affect individuals and the broader economy, as well as his work with Policy Lab. We also explore Max's extensive use of artificial intelligence, including his dozens of AI model subscriptions, how he uses AI to develop software and conduct research, and what these rapidly improving tools could mean for the future of tax policy analysis.

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Jeff and Scott talk with Zorka Milin, Co-Director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, and Daniel Bunn, President and CEO of the Tax Foundation, about the push for greater corporate tax transparency. We discuss public country-by-country reporting (CbCR), the new FASB requirements for income tax disclosures in financial statement footnotes, and what these expanded disclosures can, and cannot, tell us about corporate tax behavior.

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Jeff and Scott talk with Annie Lowrey, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the new book The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It. Annie explains how government bureaucracy imposes a hidden tax on Americans through paperwork, waiting, and complicated administrative requirements. We discuss why these burdens often fall hardest on lower-income Americans, how tax filing fits into the broader problem, and what government could do to give people back their time. Scott complains about his interactions with the government.

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Jeff and Scott talk with economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick about their new book, The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There, in which they use vast amounts of tax return data to gather evidence that paints a picture of who America’s rich really are and how they got there. It’s not just public-company CEOs, but franchise owners and car dealership owners. They finish by giving advice to Scott’s kids about how they can end up rich.

Buy the book here: https://www.everywheremillionaire.com/.

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Scott and Jeff speak with Brandon Arnold , the Executive Vice President of the National Taxpayer's Union, about data centers. Do they drive up real estate prices? Do they use too much water? Are they just a substitute for people's fears about AI? And, what are they doing for property taxes (this is, after all, Tax Chats!). Read Brandon's article on data centers here:

https://www.ntu.org/publications/detail/smart-policies-not-kneejerk-bans-can-help-taxpayers-benefit-from-data-centers

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Recent research suggests that the Laffer curve is less curve-like than originally thought.  Jeff and Scott talk with Jared Walczak from the Tax Foundation about the Laffer Curve, and why we think it is mesa-like, based on his writing here: https://thesaltroad.net/p/the-laffer-mesa.

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Jeff and Scott talk about wasteful tax expenditures with Calvin Johnson, which Professor Johnson believes includes basically all tax expenditures.

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Jeff and Scott chat with Brian Galle about his new paper, How to Tax the Ultrarich.  Most proposals that seek to tax the very wealthy differently eliminate the principle of realization, such as wealth taxes or mark-to-market regimes. These approaches carry considerable baggage, including liquidity problems, valuation problems, and related concerns. By contrast, Brian proposes a tax that eliminates some of the value of deferral, which would reduce the incentive to hold assets merely to delay taxation, but still only levies taxes upon realization. 

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 Jeff and Scott speak with Charles Crain, Managing Vice President of Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Charles works closely with NAM’s member companies to advocate for tax policies that support manufacturers and strengthen the manufacturing sector. In this episode, Jeff and Scott first discuss the important matter of how to pronounce NAM (NOT like Viet-NAM). They then discuss NAM’s role in the policy process, how the organization identifies and prioritizes its tax policy agenda, and some of its most significant advocacy successes. They also explore the story behind NAM’s efforts to secure the bonus depreciation adjustment in the corporate alternative minimum tax. 

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Jeff and Scott chat with Ben Jaros, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, about his paper, “Tobacco Tariffs in the Colonial Chesapeake.” Ben explains how tobacco tariffs shaped the finances of colonial Maryland and Virginia, the English Crown, and the broader Atlantic economy from the early 1600s through the Revolutionary War. We discuss who actually bore the burden of these tariffs, why European consumers may have paid most of the cost, and how tobacco revenue helps explain Britain’s fiscal interest in maintaining control over the colonies