The Stages of International Tax Reform (Insights from this Weekend’s ABA Tax Section Meeting)

By: Diane Ring

Since December 2017, tax conferences in the United States have focused substantially on the H.R. 1 tax reform legislation. No surprise there — the 2017 changes are among the most significant in the past thirty years. But over the past five months, through attending numerous tax conferences featuring international tax practitioners, I’ve observed some interesting developments in the nature of the discussions and debates at these conferences. These changes are pretty revealing about the process of absorbing the true impact of the new tax law, particularly in international tax. This weekend’s ABA May Tax Section Meeting in Washington, D.C. highlighted some of these trends.

Continue reading “The Stages of International Tax Reform (Insights from this Weekend’s ABA Tax Section Meeting)” →

The Gig Economy Battles Continue: 9th Circuit Weighs In on Seattle Uber Driver Ordinance

By: Diane Ring

Today the 9th Circuit weighed in on the validity of a Seattle ordinance that requires businesses contracting with taxi-drivers, for-hire transportation companies, and “transportation network companies” to bargain with drivers if a majority of drivers seek such representation. The legislation, which effectively enables Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize, drew objections from Uber, Lyft and the Chamber of Commerce— which sued the City of Seattle. In an August 2017 post, I reviewed the ruling of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, which concluded that the Seattle ordinance was an appropriate exercise of the city’s authority and did not violate the Sherman Act (because of state action immunity) and was not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). So what did the 9th Circuit say?

Continue reading “The Gig Economy Battles Continue: 9th Circuit Weighs In on Seattle Uber Driver Ordinance” →

Dog Owners of Tribeca

My favorite news story from last week: it turns out that ten years ago, a group of dog owners in Tribeca installed a lock on a public New York City dog park, and started charging people a membership fee—$120 a year—if they wanted to use the (public!) park. They created a list of rules, most of which focused on keeping others out, and, if you violated the rules, you were kicked out, and apparently had to let your dog play with other proletariat dogs. (N.b.: this state of affairs lasted ten years, until the city finally cut the lock and reopened the park to the public.)

This story has everything: self-absorbed and self-righteous New Yorkers; a funny thing I read on Twitter while sitting in church Sunday; a bit on this week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. And, perhaps more importantly, a tax angle. See, these snooty, selfish New Yorkers did something more than hijack a public space—they formed a tax-exempt organization to manage it. Continue reading “Dog Owners of Tribeca” →

Tax Implications of the Recent Dynamex Worker Classification Ruling

Heather Field
Professor of Law
UC Hastings College of the Law

Greetings from San Francisco, the epicenter of the gig economy, where workers-rights advocates are celebrating Monday’s California Supreme Court decision in the Dynamex case. The ruling, which cites an article by my colleague Veena Dubal, is expected to make it harder for businesses in California to classify gig economy workers (and others) as independent contractors rather than employees. As a result, these workers are more likely to be protected by rules about minimum wage, overtime, rest breaks, and other working conditions, although there are open questions about exactly how these rules will apply to gig workers.

But what is good for workers for employment/labor law purposes may not be so good for workers for federal income tax purposes. As readers of this blog know, independent contractors can generally deduct their business expenses above-the-line and may be able to take the new Section 199A deduction equal to up to 20% of qualified business income (significantly reducing the effective tax rate). Employees, on the other hand, can do neither. Thus, the employment/labor law win for workers in the Dynamex case may come with some unexpected and unwanted tax losses for these same workers. This is especially true for workers with non-trivial amounts of unreimbursed business expenses (although the amount of a worker’s unreimbursed expenses may decline if the worker is classified as an employee because California Labor Code 2802 generally requires employers to reimburse significant business expenses of employees).

So, taking tax into account, is independent contractor status or employee status better for workers? This question involves complicated employment/labor law and tax law tradeoffs. For example, despite the tax disadvantages of employee classification mentioned above, employee status can benefit workers for employment tax and tax compliance purposes. Others (including Shuyi Oei here, Shuyi Oei and Diane Ring here, here and here, and Kathleen DeLaney Thomas here) have written extensively on worker classification/taxation topics, and at least some of them have additional articles forthcoming on these topics. I will defer to them for more details as I am not an expert (at least right now) on worker classification or its tax implications. But even I know that, when analyzing the implications of the Dynamex case, it will be important for commentators to consider the tax, not just employment/labor, consequences.

One possibility is that the Dynamex case will change California worker classification only for employment/labor purposes and not for tax purposes. After all, the language of the ruling makes it clear that the issue addressed in the case is how to classify the workers “for purposes of California wage orders” (emphasis in original). So the case does not technically have any impact on workers’ tax classifications. Thus, a worker currently classified as an independent contractor for all purposes could be reclassified under the Dynamex standard as an employee for California wage order purposes but could remain classified as an independent contractor for tax and other purposes. The applicable classification standards are different enough that, for some workers, it would be possible to have hybrid status. But I am skeptical about whether businesses will do nuanced context-by-context worker classification determinations. It is possible, particularly if workers (and scholars?) fight for hybrid worker status, but it seems more likely, at least to me, that businesses will just determine worker status based on the employment/labor standard and use that classification across the board. Of course, a worker who believes they have been misclassified for one or more purposes could try to fight the classification, but that is a tough road.

Given the Dynamex decision, will worker classifications change, and if so, for which purposes? I do not know. We will have to wait and see how businesses react to the ruling. Regardless of how businesses respond, I hope that, in analyses of the Dynamex decision and in future discussions about worker classification, commentators will be able to move beyond our legal silos, as Diane Ring recommends in a newly posted paper. This would advance a more holistic analysis that integrates labor, tax and any other relevant issues, and that approach could really help businesses and workers in our evolving economy.

Call for Papers: New Voices in Tax Policy and Public Finance (2019 AALS Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA)

The AALS Tax Section committee is pleased to announce the following Call for Papers:

CALL FOR PAPERS
AALS SECTION ON TAXATION WORKS-IN-PROGRESS SESSION
2019 ANNUAL MEETING, JANUARY 2-6, 2019, NEW ORLEANS, LA
NEW VOICES IN TAX POLICY AND PUBLIC FINANCE
(co-sponsored by the Section on Nonprofit and Philanthropy Law and Section on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation)

The AALS Section on Taxation is pleased to announce the following Call for Papers. Selected papers will be presented at a works-in-progress session at the 2019 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA from January 2-6, 2019. The works-in-progress session is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 5.

Eligibility: Scholars teaching at AALS member schools or non-member fee-paid schools with seven or fewer years of full-time teaching experience as of the submission deadline are eligible to submit papers. For co-authored papers, both authors must satisfy the eligibility criteria.

Due Date: 5 pm, Wednesday, August 8, 2018.

Form and Content of submission: We welcome drafts of academic articles in the areas of taxation, tax policy, public finance, and related fields. We will consider drafts that have not yet been submitted for publication consideration as well as drafts that have been submitted for publication consideration or that have secured publication offers. However, drafts may not have been published at the time of the 2019 AALS Annual Meeting (January 2019). We welcome legal scholarship across a wide variety of methodological approaches, including empirical, doctrinal, socio-legal, critical, comparative, economic, and other approaches.

Submission method: Papers should be submitted electronically as Microsoft Word documents to the following email address: tax.section.cfp@gmail.com by 5 pm on Wednesday, August 8, 2018. The subject line should read “AALS Tax Section CFP Submission.” By submitting a paper for consideration, you agree to attend the 2019 AALS Annual Meeting Works-in-Progress Session should your paper be selected for presentation.

Submission review: Papers will be selected after review by the AALS Tax Section Committee and representatives from co-sponsoring committees. Authors whose papers are selected for presentation will be notified by Thursday, September 28, 2018.

Additional information: Call-for-Papers presenters will be responsible for paying their own AALS registration fee, hotel, and travel expenses. Inquiries about the Call for Papers should be submitted to: AALS Tax Section Chair, Professor Shu-Yi Oei, Boston College Law School, oeis@bc.edu.

The Parsonage Allowance in Brief(s)

By Sam Brunson

I’ve blogged several times about the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s suit over the parsonage allowance.[fn1] Quick refresher: Section 107(1) allows “ministers of the gospel” to exclude church-provided housing from their gross income, while section 107(2) allows them to exclude housing stipends. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued and won in the district court. The Seventh Circuit found that FFRF didn’t have standing, so two of its executives claimed a refund for the portion of their salary that had been designated a housing allowance and sued again. Again, the district court held that section 107(2) was unconstitutional.[fn2]

Now we’re in the briefing stage. And a week and a half ago, the government and intervenors filed their most recent briefs in Gaylor v. Mnuchin.

I’m not going to analyze the full briefs, but I do want to respond to a central point that the government mentions, and that the intervenors find critical in their opening brief: the idea that the parsonage allowance is part of a series of provisions that relax the default exclusion rule. Continue reading “The Parsonage Allowance in Brief(s)” →

Reform 2.0 – Some Passing Thoughts on S.B. 2687

Senator Ted Cruz has introduced S.B. 2687, described as a bill “to make permanent the individual tax rates in effect for taxable years 2018 through 2025.” Speculation about the success of the effort has run the gamut (see here and here), but after last year’s holiday surprise, the new bill, which would lock in rate gains across the board, merits a quick read-through. It is possible that Congress would pass this bill or a similar one. With the legislature having made corporate rate cuts permanent and individual rate cuts temporary, individual members may be motivated to respond to constituents’ distributive justice-based criticisms.

Notably, S.B. 2687 would make the increased estate tax exemption—previously $5 million, now $10 million—permanent. Given that this Congressional love letter to the wealthy is paid for by permanently eliminating deductions for things like health care expenses, it might be a wish-list item for Republicans to use as a bargaining chip. It affects a vanishingly small number of constituents, and allowing Democrats to win on this front might be face-saving enough to swing a vote or two.

Most of the proposed legislation is business as usual though. The bill would, as advertised, make the new personal income tax rate cuts permanent. It would permanently repeal the personal exemption and miscellaneous itemized deductions, and it would continue to limit the home mortgage interest deduction and the deduction for state and local taxes. As I previously have written, repeal of the personal exemption might adversely affect large and non-traditional families, a possibility that the original reform and Senator Cruz’s subsequent effort would mitigate (but not eliminate) by doubling the child tax credit. For more on that, see Shannon Weeks McCormack’s article here.

A couple of miscellaneous provisions in the bill are worth mentioning (and here, I am not claiming to be comprehensive). The first would permanently restrict deduction of moving expenses under IRC § 217 to members of the armed forces who relocate in connection with active duty. As long as we are re-upping this provision for Congressional consideration, why not add Americorp and Teach for America to it? Moving allowances for these programs may not cover all of the participant’s cost, but like members of the armed forces, participants move on assignment in service to their country. Adding Americorp and Teach for America to section 217 likely will not cost much—these young people don’t have high incomes, so their deductions are proportionately smaller— and their inclusion in section 217 signals the importance of their public service. Our laws embody our values, and allowing the moving expense deduction for Americorps and Teach for America participants would more broadly express the government’s vision of personal sacrifice for the public good.

A second interesting provision of S.B. 2687 is permanent repeal of IRC § 132(f)’s exclusion for qualified bicycle commuting expense reimbursements. Is it just me, or is this narrow repeal sort of peculiar? From a nudge perspective, the exemption seems like a net good. Biking is expensive, and people on the margins otherwise might choose to drive, causing pollution and diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle. On the other hand, we all know that in most cities, only the truly committed bike to work. It’s dangerous; it requires a lot of gear and a funny hat; and at the other end, despite what people may tell you, you need a shower. Cyclists don’t need a tax incentive; they are impervious to people who swear at them from the passing lane, and they will bike whether we pay them to or not. In fact, the market appears to be so inelastic that Oregon taxes bicycles. Maybe the fringe benefit for cyclists is not warranted on behavioral grounds. But even if the section 132 allowance doesn’t change anyone’s behavior, allow me to park a final question in this spot. Why single out this one small piece of the Code for elimination when, perhaps, all of section 132 is due for a tune-up?

Follow me on Twitter– @prof.hoffer

#TaxNerd: Tax Day in the Supreme Court

Today may be the most perfect #TaxNerd day possible. Not only are federal tax returns due, but the Supreme Court is actually hearing a tax case today! (For lots of great Surly coverage of Wayfair, check out Adam’s posts.)

In honor of today, I decided to wear my Illinois sales tax cufflinks. And how did I get Illinois sales tax cufflinks? Well, I was looking on Etsy for tax-related cufflinks, as one does, and came across them.

Buying them made me curious, though: what exactly are sales tax tokens? Continue reading “#TaxNerd: Tax Day in the Supreme Court” →

IU Tax Policy Colloquium: Burman, “The Rising Tide Wage Credit”

Colloquium pic) — Left to right: Len Burman, Tim Riffle, Leandra Lederman, Karen Ward, Frank DiPietro, Brad Heim

By: Leandra Lederman

On April 5, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Tax Policy Colloquium welcomed Len Burman from Syracuse University and the Urban Institute/Tax Policy Center, who presented “The Rising Tide Wage Credit.” This intriguing new paper is not yet publicly available.

The paper proposes replacing the existing Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) with a new credit, the Rising Tide Wage Credit (RTWC), which, unlike the EITC, would be universal for workers, rather than phased out above low income levels. The RTWC also would differ from the EITC in that the amount of the RTWC would not depend on the number of children the taxpayer has. Instead, the RTWC would be a 100% credit in the amount of a worker’s wages, up to $10,000 of wages. The credit could be claimed on the taxpayer’s tax return, or subject to advance payment via the taxpayer’s employer. Thus, the maximum credit for an unmarried taxpayer would be $10,000, and for a married couple filing jointly would be $20,000. (The credit would not have a marriage penalty.) The credit would be indexed to increase with increases in GDP.

Because the proposed new credit would not vary with the number of children the taxpayer is supporting, the paper also proposes increasing the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500, and proposes making the child tax credit fully refundable (rather than partly refundable, as it is under current law). The RTWC and the increase in the child tax credit would be funded by a value added tax (VAT). The paper estimates that the proposal could be fully funded with an 8% VAT, along with federal income tax on the RTWC. A VAT was chosen as the funding mechanism because it is closely correlated with GDP. The paper discusses 3 illustrative examples and includes a table that shows the overall progressivity of the proposal under certain assumptions. Continue reading “IU Tax Policy Colloquium: Burman, “The Rising Tide Wage Credit”” →

Call for Papers: “Reshaping Work in the Platform Economy”

By: Diane Ring

Last October, the international conference “Reshaping Work in the Platform Economy” was held in Amsterdam. I blogged about the two-day event that explored a wide range of legal, business and social issues here and here. The call for papers for the Fall 2018 conference (October 25 & 26, 2018, Amsterdam) has just been issued:

call for papers 2018 2_Page_1

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Diplomacy, or the Art of the Tax Deal 2.0?

The Republican-led passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may have evoked a Marx Brothers movie for some, but when it comes to international competition for the capital investment of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs), the reform seems to fall squarely into President Trump’s 2016 campaign promise, “America First.”

After a decades-long rise of free trade agreements and the automation of manufacturing jobs, United States political sentiment seems to be shifting away from international cooperation. (Hence the barrage of tariffs?) The new law, rather than seeking to harmonize international taxation (which could decrease the outsized role of tax in decision-making), instead casts the United States as Rocky making a comeback in the global fight for capital investment. In other words, from an America First perspective, efficiently allocating capital investment to create the most value for the global economy is less important than bringing that investment into the United States, even though it might be less productive here. The reform’s tax competitive stance is likely to be politically palatable because most voters neither understand nor care that the Trump administration’s fight for a larger United States share of the worldwide economy might result in a smaller worldwide economy overall.

Indeed, foreign-based MNEs are likely to benefit from increased capital investment in the United States going forward. At an event hosted on March 5 in Vienna by IFA Austria, one panelist noted that at least three large foreign manufacturers—Daimler, BMW, and Siemens—expect to see initial benefits in the hundreds of millions of Euros. In fact, the United States reform has prompted the EU to request an OECD investigation of whether the new law violates international standards on harmful tax practices.

The United States’ forward-leaning stance is somewhat (or some might say almost entirely) unhinged from typically applicable diplomatic constraints, both formal and informal. In particular, Congress seems to have disregarded potentially applicable WTO prohibitions on export subsidies. (For more on this point, read my OSU colleague Ari Glogower and others here and here.) Given the United States’ long history of these types of violations (you may recall the DISC, the foreign sales corporation, and the extraterritorial income system), this new WTO fence-jump cannot easily be viewed as accidental. Already several EU finance ministers have already lodged complaints about it with members of Congress and the U. S. Treasury.

It is difficult, then, not to think that the new law was written in part to provoke a worldwide competitive response. Particularly in light of the president’s move toward tariffs, the new tax law reads like a catch-us-if-you-can grab for capital. Christian Kaeser, global head of tax for Siemens, described it as a “showcase of protectionism.” German newspaper, Die Welt, ran an editorial headline that translates, “Europe Dreams of a Tax Fortress- Trump Acts.” Ralf Kronberger, Head of the Department of Financial, Fiscal and Trade Policy at the Federal Austrian Economic Chamber, said of the EU, “We have to be in the game and create an attractive environment, and tax policy must contribute its share.” He added that while countries like Austria may be forced to compete with the United States for capital investment, “tax and trade war are not beneficial for anyone.” (Would someone please tell that to the president?)

So how will Europe react? Corporate tax policy in the European Union generally assumes that coordination within Europe and cooperation under BEPS will be sufficient to protect the tax base. Coordination, though, may not be compatible with competition, which the new United States law seems deliberately designed to provoke. Casually, tax folks here in Europe have been wondering aloud whether increased pressure to compete will further strain the effectiveness of the European Union’s effort to curb base erosion or whether it may put pressure on the alliance itself. If nothing else, economists and political scientists should be having a moment. The new law sets up a credible natural experiment for the observation of tax as a factor in capital mobility. And if viewed as a tool to encourage renegotiation of trade deals and bilateral tax treaties, it is an exciting (frightening?) opportunity to see what happens when a world power brings a business approach to statecraft at a time when states cannot be as facile as businesses in their response.

Follow me on Twitter @profhoffer.

The Workability of Pike Balancing for Sales and Use Tax Collection Obligations

Hayes Holderness
Assistant Professor
University of Richmond School of Law

As covered in earlier posts (here, here, here, and here), the Supreme Court is currently considering the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., which calls into question the physical presence rule for sales and use tax collection obligations. This rule holds that a state cannot require a person to collect the state’s sales and use taxes unless that person has a physical presence in the state; the rule was justified as a way to prevent undue burdens on interstate commerce. On March 28^th, Wayfair filed its brief with the Court laying out its argument for retaining the physical presence rule.

The arguments in Wayfair’s brief are mostly expected: that state and local sales and use tax systems are still too complex and varying to expand taxing authority to remote vendors, that the dollars at stake are relatively small and declining, and that the physical presence rule benefits small vendors who would otherwise be unable to meaningfully engage in interstate commerce. However, one section of Wayfair’s brief addresses the argument of many amici that the balancing test from Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137 (1970), should replace the physical presence rule going forward. (Surly Blogger Adam Thimmesch has been at the forefront of these arguments.) Wayfair pulls no punches—it argues that Pike balancing would be “fundamentally unworkable for addressing the burdens of state sales tax collection,” i.e., that it would be unable to prevent undue burdens on interstate commerce in this context.

Continue reading “The Workability of Pike Balancing for Sales and Use Tax Collection Obligations” →

IU Tax Policy Colloquium: Satterthwaite, “Optional Taxation: Survey Evidence from Ontario Microentrepreneurs”

Left to right: Maicu Díaz de Terán, Tim Riffle, Emily Satterthwaite, Brian Broughman, Leandra Lederman, David Gamage, #taxprofbaby, Pamela Foohey, Austen Parrish

By: Leandra Lederman

On March 22, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Tax Policy Colloquium welcomed Prof. Emily Satterthwaite from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, who presented “Optional Taxation: Survey Evidence from Ontario Microentrepreneurs.” This interesting new paper is not yet publicly available.

The paper explores Canada’s “small supplier” exemption from value-added tax (VAT) registration. Canada’s exemption allows suppliers with less than CAD $30,000 of sales (turnover) in a year to avoid registering for and complying with the VAT unless they opt in. (This amount is not indexed for inflation, and Emily’s paper explains that this threshold is fairly low.) Although it may seem odd for someone to opt into a tax system, as Emily’s paper explains, some small suppliers have incentives to do so: if they buy supplies subject to VAT, they can offset that against VAT owed, and obtain a refund if VAT paid exceeds VAT due. In addition, some small suppliers may be encouraged by their VAT-registered customers to become part of a formal supply chain, because the VAT those customers pay on inputs is creditable. The downside of registering is the cost of doing so, which includes the requirement to file an annual return regardless of whether VAT is owed. Continue reading “IU Tax Policy Colloquium: Satterthwaite, “Optional Taxation: Survey Evidence from Ontario Microentrepreneurs”” →

Congratulations to Surly Blogger Sam Brunson!

As announced on Taxprof Blog today, Surly blogger Sam Brunson has been named the Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law. Sam’s work focuses on how tax law affects various groups of taxpayers, with a particular focus on investors and families. He also write on tax administration. Sam also has a book, entitled God and the IRS: Accommodating Religious Practice in United States Tax Law, forthcoming at Cambridge University Press.

Congratulations, Sam!

Are Forty Percent of Tax Compliance Employees About to Get the Boot?

By Stephanie Hoffer, @prof.hoffer

New technology has the potential to completely change the face of tax law and accounting: that was the take-away from a recent installment of a tax and tech series organized by Professor Jeffrey Owens and Julia de Jong of Vienna University’s Digital Economy Taxation Network. The roundtable on Governance Implications of Disruptive Technology assembled experts from Microsoft, PWC, think tanks, and the academy.

The session began with a staggering prediction that large companies will sack up to 40% of their tax compliance employees in coming years. Why? Experts anticipate that technological progress in data collection and algorithmic reporting will allow audit functions to be built directly into data collection and management. This integration will allow governments to coordinate seamlessly with taxpayers by assuming the role of tax preparers whose reliance on algorithms largely eliminates the need for auditors. Similarly, data technology will eventually obsolete VAT returns, an administrative headache for most of the globe and a major source of work for the accounting industry. Eelco van der Enden, a partner with PWC Netherlands, went so far as to predict the breakup of Big Four accounting within ten years as technology grabs the tax prep reins and renders auditing obsolete.

Disruptive technologies that leverage data also have the potential to revolutionize how we address the tax gap. As van der Enden noted, “[d]ays are gone when you could create a bunch of bullshit” in a tax return to force regulators into a negotiation. The ready availability of data from sources as disparate as taxpayer reporting, social media accounts, and even satellite pictures of the planet are poised to revolutionize business and tax transparency. In addition, advances like quantum computing, when combined with what has been called a tsunami of data, will allow tax systems to handle an exponentially increasing amount of complexity. Transfer pricing, for instance, will be a whole new ballgame with the advent of close-to-omniscient tech. When (not if, but when) complexity no longer results in a loss of efficiency on the human side, tax administrations could see large gains from re-regulation in some cases.

As Harald Leitenmuller of Microsoft concluded about tax experts going forward, “[t]he future of your profession is to be a good data scientist who can leverage the knowledge hidden in the existing data.” Congress and IRS, take note.

(Written with thanks to Fulbright Austria for supporting my work.)