Tax Chats

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Todd Castagno, an equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley, responds to a list of possible ways corporations might  react  to the tax on book income recently passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.  

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Scott and Jeff talk about Tax Foundation with CEO and President Daniel Bunn. We talk about its missions, where it gets funding, and other tax-related issues. We discuss the pro-growth agenda of the Tax Foundation and note that there could be other legitimate objective functions for a think tank.

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Tax Chats is officially one year old! In honor of this anniversery, Scott and Jeff talk through a potential rebranding of Tax Chats with a different name, then go on to discuss two tax headlines. First, they discuss windfall profits taxes on oil companies, then talk about the disclosure of Donald Trump's tax returns.

Jeff also misuses the Spanish verb "recordar."

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In this episode Scott and Jeff discuss Sales Taxes with Whitney Afonso. We discuss sales tax basics, including the difference between who remits the tax and who bears the burden of the tax. We discuss the purposes of sales taxes. We discuss the regressivity of sales taxes. And we discuss how even Fancy Nancy had to deal with the unexpected pain of sales taxes in Shoe-la-la!

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In this episode we talk about the tax consequences of student loan forgiveness. Generally, debt forgiveness is treated as income, and is therefore taxable. If the Biden Administration's current plan to forgive portions of student loans comes to fruition, the forgiven amount would normally be taxable. Provisions have been made to make student loan forgiveness tax free at the federal level. Some states, including North Carolina, would still treat the loan forgiveness as taxable, and borrowers would owe state taxes on the forgiven amounts. We discuss that issue, along with other issues related to taxes and higher education in North Carolina, along with the general business climate and taxation in the state of North Carolina with Senator Phil Berger, President Pro Tempore of the NC Senate.

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Scott and Jeff discuss recent headlines from the New York Times:

Opinion | There Is a Tax That Could Help With Inflation - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Purpose of Extra-Large Marshmallows? A U.K. Court Weighs In. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Lawsuit Seeks to Block Biden’s Student Debt Cancellation Plan - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Endowment Tax on Wealthiest Universities Netted a Fraction of Predictions in 2021 - WSJ

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Scott and Jeff discuss several people Jeff has invited to be on the show, but who have (as of yet!) been unable to make a Tax Chats appearance. Scott guesses why Jeff invited each person to be on Tax Chats.  The "John Edwards Tax Shelter", gas taxes and electric vehicles, soda taxes, and taxing assault rifles are all briefly discussed. 

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Scott and Jeff discuss Pillar 1 of the OECD's Inclusive Framework with Heydon Wardell Burrus of the Centre for Business Taxation at Oxford University.

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Scott and Jeff chat with Larry Zelenak, Professor at the Duke Law School about taxes in sitcoms. Larry has documented the extensive list of episodes that use the federal income tax as a major component of the plot. His work documenting these facts can be found in these two articles:

"Six Decades of the Federal Income Tax in Sitcoms"
"Seven-Plus Decades of the Federal Income Tax in Sitcoms: An Update"

In the episode, we refer most frequently to three episodes:

3Rd Rock From the Sun, Season 4, Episode 12 "Dick and Taxes"
Roseanne, Season 2, Episode 22 "April Fool's Day"
The Simpsons, Season 9: Episode 20 "The Trouble with Trillions"

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In this episode, Scott and Jeff discuss the some of the fascinating details related to the taxation of tobacco. We often think of the tax system as a tool to raise revenue. But the tax system is also used to encourage or discourage behavior. Taxing tobacco is one example of this type of tax, but the existence of the tax creates many strange incentives that affect the way people behave, including, counterintuitively, smoking more under some circumstances.