Free ABA Teleconference: The Tax Code and Income Inequality: Limitations and Political Opportunities (April 27)

On Wednesday, April 27, the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice will be sponsoring a free teleconference, entitled “The Tax Code and Income Inequality: Limitations and Political Opportunities.” The event is co-sponsored by the ABA Section of Taxation. Our co-blogger, Francine Lipman, is one of the speakers.

From the website:

“Welfare” has become “workfare,” delivered through the Tax Code, e.g., the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. How well is that really working for low and middle income Americans, much less those in poverty? At the same time, tax deductions, credits—and avoidance/evasion schemes—are increasingly benefitting wealthy individuals and big corporations, which increasingly pay a smaller portion of federal tax revenue—revenue that could fund government programs, bolster economic growth and benefit the bottom 99% by providing jobs and increase skills of lower income American. Panelists will discuss how changes to the Tax Code can address income inequality in the U.S. and political opportunities for reform.

Attendance is free and you can sign up on the website.

Uber and Lyft Drivers and San Francisco Business Licensing

By: Shu-Yi Oei

As some of you know, Diane Ring and I have written a couple of papers recently about tax and regulatory issues in the sharing economy.

Well, here’s the latest news out of San Francisco: It was reported a few days ago that the San Francisco City Treasurer recently obtained data about the identities of a number of transportation network company (“TNC,” i.e., Uber and Lyft) drivers and has proceeded to send some 37,000 notices to drivers. The notices require those driving for seven or more days in a year to register as a business operating in the city and pay San Francisco’s business registration fee ($91 for those earning $100,000 or less). The Treasurer’s office apparently refuses to say how they got the data, in the interests of taxpayer confidentiality, but in any case, they now have it and are using it to enforce the business registration requirement and fee against TNC drivers operating in San Francisco.

The applicable regulation lives in San Francisco Business and Tax Regulations Code Article 12, sections 853 and 855 of which impose the registration requirement and fee. The registration requirement and fee are imposed on those “engaging in business” in the city, unless exempt, and as far as I can tell, Article 6, § 6.2-12 specifically imposes the regulation on a person who “utilizes the streets within the City in connection with the operation of motor vehicles for business purposes for all or part of any seven days during a tax year.” The move to require registration also seems consistent with the continued position of the TNC companies that their drivers are appropriately classified as independent contractors, as opposed to employees. So unless I’m missing something big, it’s hard to see how the law would not on its face apply to drivers.

Several aspects of this development are interesting:

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Hello world!

By: Shu-Yi Oei

I’m excited to be blogging on this site!

By way of introduction, I’m Shuyi. I teach tax classes and a legal scholarship workshop at Tulane Law School. My research interests are largely in tax law, though I tend to get curious about bankruptcy law, debtor-creditor law, and social insurance issues as well.

A lot of my research to date has been about tax collections mechanisms (such as the federal tax lien and the offer in compromise procedure), social insurance issues, and forbearance in tax administration. More recently, I’ve been working on a series of projects with my co-author, Diane Ring, dealing with the sharing economy, income sharing, human capital contracts, and other innovative transactions. I’ve very much enjoyed both lines of research, for very different reasons. I’ll likely be posting about these and other topics on this blog.

Taxes aside, I’m also an erstwhile student of the martial arts and denizen of New Orleans. Expect to see posts about these things as well, to the extent that they relate to tax policy and tax teaching.

Finally, we’ve been fortunate at Tulane Law to have the opportunity to host a number of tax and non-tax scholarly events, including our regular faculty workshop series, an annual tax roundtable, a property law roundtable, and a legal scholarship workshop series focused on the regulation of economic activity. I’ll blog here about scholarly happenings at Tulane Law and Tulane’s Murphy Institute as well.