Talking Tax

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What Comes Next for the IRS and Tax After the Long Shutdown Nov 19, 2025

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Congress is back after ending the longest shutdown in US history. But the bipartisan accord left funding for the IRS and Treasury Department ending in less than three months and the fate of the enhanced premium tax credits at the center of the crisis still unresolved.

On this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax Congress reporter Zach C. Cohen and Bloomberg Government health policy reporter Erin Durkin discuss next steps for appropriating funds for the IRS and Treasury after current funding runs dry Jan. 30, and potential legislative solutions to rising health-care premiums.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Mamdani's NYC Tax Agenda Prompts Advisers to Caution Patience Nov 13, 2025

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New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ran on an expansive affordability agenda that would be paid for by higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

The democratic socialist's vision will be tough to realize, though, because any tax hikes would have to be approved by the New York State legislature and tax hike-averse Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). Local tax practitioners are emphasizing this political reality to worried clients who called and emailed in a hurry after Mandani won the Nov. 4 mayoral contest.

“There’s been kind of some demystifying as to how can or how will the mayor be able to make these ideas or proposals law," Jeremy Gove, a state and local tax counsel at Eversheds Sutherland, tells Bloomberg Tax editor Benjamin Freed on this week's episode of the Talking Tax podcast. "Explaining this to taxpayers is what we’ve been tackling over the past week or so.”

Gove says that while higher taxes could compel some New York companies and wealthy individuals to decamp for lower-tax states, there's also a "wait and see" sentiment prevailing. Taxpayers might even welcome some proposals from Mamdani, such as hiring more auditors to clear out the Department of Finance's hefty case backlog, he says.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Grant Thornton Leader Leveraged PE Deal to Raise Audit Bar Nov 05, 2025

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Grant Thornton’s top audit leader is bullish on the practice’s future after a 2024 deal that sold a significant stake in the accounting and advisory firm to private equity investors led by New Mountain Capital.

The audit practice has benefited from a boost in dedicated resources and also bolstered its safeguards against conflicts of interest. Those improvements stem from an operating contract between Grant Thornton’s legacy audit practice and its PE-backed business, said Ron Messenger, CEO of Grant Thornton’s audit business.

The firm’s private equity deal ushered in a new two-part legal structure that created a corporate entity to provide its tax and advisory work while audit partners run the firm’s legacy assurance business. Nearly half of the largest 30 firms have cut PE deals and they all rely on what the industry calls the “alternative practice structure.”

Underpinning that new operating structure is a services agreement spelling out the relationship between the two entities from governance to resources.

Those agreements can’t be an afterthought, Messenger said. He spoke with Bloomberg Tax reporter Amanda Iacone about how Grant Thornton's services agreement came together, how regulators informed that document, and how it will influence the quality of the firm’s auditing.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Plan to Drop 10-Qs Threatens to Trip Up Analysts' AI Models Oct 29, 2025

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A Trump administration push to reduce the frequency of corporate earnings reports risks hurting the accuracy of artificial intelligence-fueled models used by analysts, an accounting adviser said.

Chief financial officers and other C-suite leaders would in turn need to address greater reputational risk if a plan to give public companies the option to file financial reports semiannually instead of quarterly advances, according to Steve Soter, vice president and industry principal at financial compliance platform Workiva.

Companies prepare and submit quarterly reports, called Form 10-Qs, to the Securities and Exchange Commission's filing system in XBRL format, which makes the information more easily accessible and computer-readable, Soter said. Analysts' models consume this data to provide analysis and observations.

Depriving investors and analysts' AI models of this information increases the risk of erroneous analysis and ensuing reputational damage, Soter said.

On this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax financial accounting reporter Jorja Siemons spoke with Soter about what steps C-suite leaders can take to mitigate data risks if the SEC reporting schedule shifts.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Treasury Is Working to Implement GOP Tax Law Amid Shutdown Oct 22, 2025

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Despite the ongoing US government shutdown, many at the Treasury Department remain on the job working on guidance related to the July GOP tax law.

Those at Treasury handling the international provisions used to be coworkers of Beth Bell, who became a principal at PwC’s National Tax Service in Washington less than a month ago.

On this week's episode of Talking Tax, Bell sat down with Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Chris Cioffi to discuss US efforts to secure agreements to allow the US tax system to coexist with the Pillar Two project, and what might prompt Republicans in Congress to reintroduce what came to be known as the "revenge tax" when the law was debated.

Bell has deep experience with multilateral tax negotiations and worked as a staffer in both the House and Senate, playing a role in major tax legislation that passed in both the Biden and Trump administrations.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Ireland Mulls Tax Options to Stay Competitive in Global Economy Oct 16, 2025

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Ireland has presented a frugal budget for 2026 in the face of uncertainties caused by President Donald Trump's tariff and tax policies.

The 15% global minimum tax on corporations and Trump's threats to impose large tariffs on pharmaceutical companies—most of which are US companies headquartered in Ireland—have increased pressure on the country to find ways to remain competitive.

With foreign-owned multinationals in Ireland paying the majority of the country's corporation tax, the government is mulling incentives to encourage them to stay.

In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter Ryan Hogg discusses some options the government is considering, including an increase in the R&D tax credit.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

What an IRS CEO Means for Tax Administration, Agency Functions Oct 08, 2025

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Taxpayer advocates are keeping close watch on this week's decision to name Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano as CEO of the IRS, and have many questions about what it could mean for the agency.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday he was creating a new IRS CEO position, and Republicans in Congress seem to be generally supportive, though some said the White House should still name an IRS commissioner nominee. The Treasury Department assured staff in GOP Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's office that a commissioner nominee would still be sent to the Senate.

At the same time, the Senate Finance Committee voted Wednesday to advance Derek Theurer's nomination to be undersecretary for legislative affairs and Donald Korb's nomination to be IRS chief counsel.

That's good news for Pete Sepp —president of the National Taxpayers Union, a taxpayer advocacy group—who is concerned that many of the top IRS positions remained unfilled.

Sepp, who sat down with Bloomberg Tax Senior Reporter Chris Cioffi for this episode of Talking Tax, said Congress is right to seek answers about how the CEO job interacts with the commissioner. He said he hoped the CEO position, in the future, would be selected by an IRS oversight board that has been dormant for more than a decade.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

How Transfer Pricing Can Help Fix a Student Athlete Pay Problem Oct 01, 2025

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Ever since student athletes gained the right to be compensated for use of their image in advertisements and merchandise sales, the money has flooded in, but so have some problems.

While the athletes can now be compensated for their name, image, and likeness—or NIL—schools still can't directly pay them for playing, and the NCAA has rejected any notion of "pay-for-play." Instead, athletes can receive compensation when merchandise with their name or number is sold or for showing up in advertisements or social media posts for businesses.

But the line between NIL and pay-for-play can get blurry. A business owner who wants to support the team could overpay an athlete in an NIL deal, raising a question: Is it a bona fide business deal?

On this week's episode of Talking Tax, University of Kentucky professor Stephen Lusch talks with reporter Caleb Harshberger about how transfer pricing and tax law concepts can help show whether the deals are done at reasonable prices that really reflect the value the student brings.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Hashing Out US-World Tensions on 'Side-by-Side' Global Tax Deal Sep 24, 2025

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About three months have passed since Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US, along with its Group of Seven allies, agreed to work on a system that would exempt American companies from parts of the global minimum tax.

In that time, the US proposed a technical solution to separate its tax system from the global minimum tax.

But other countries have raised concerns about what the US position means for their own tax sovereignty and whether their companies will be left at a competitive disadvantage compared to their American counterparts.

In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporters Saim Saeed and Lauren Vella hash out these countries' frustrations and discuss the feasibility of coming to an agreement on a "side-by-side" system by Dec. 31, the deadline suggested by the Trump administration.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

How IRS Attorney Departures Will Prolong Cases, Spur Settlements Sep 17, 2025

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Big job cuts and reductions in resources at the IRS are liable to prolong disputes over tax bills and force the agency to leave money on the table when cases are finally resolved.

More than 170 attorneys have withdrawn from representing the IRS in cases in US Tax Court since Donald Trump became president in January, according to a Bloomberg Tax analysis. Many have quit the IRS altogether amid a major exodus of employees. Some Justice Department attorneys who represented the IRS in tax disputes in federal appeals courts have also left, moves that could impact some of the biggest, most prominent tax-related cases in the courts.

The diminished resources suggest it’ll take longer to resolve cases, former attorneys and former IRS and DOJ officials say. The IRS may also be pushed into considering settlements in some cases where perhaps it wouldn’t otherwise. That would mean settling cases on less favorable terms for the agency, and potentially give taxpayers a leg up in dealing with the IRS.

In this episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Michael Rapoport discusses the attorney departures and their implications, as well as attorneys’ frustrations about their jobs and fears about the future that prompted some to leave the IRS.

Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

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