Tax Chats

Latest Episodes:

Progressive! A Chat with Ajay Mehrotra about Edwin Seligman Nov 12, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat with Ajay Mehrotra, law professor at Northwestern, about the economist Edwin Seligman. They discuss Seligman's academic legacy, his views on progressive taxation, his influence on Columbia University, his students, and his views on tax policy.

Medicaid! A Chat with Marc Goldwein Sep 24, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat with Marc Goldwein, who is the Senior Vice President and Senior Policy Director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. They chat about Medicaid, a huge piece in the federal government's budget, and an essential piece of understand what needs our tax system must satisfy. They talk about the program in general, ways in which it was recently reformed under the One Big Beautiful Bill, and what we might do to fix it going forward.

A Roman Tax Evasion Trial: A Chat with Anna Dolganov Sep 19, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat with Anna Dolganov, an academy scientist at the Austrian Archeological Institute, about her work on a recently re-discovered papyrus. The papyrus contained notes from a tax evasion trial in ancient Rome, which Dr. Dolganov translated. We discuss taxes in ancient Rome, Jewish tax revolts, how to evade taxes on the goods Rome taxed (including human slaves), and what we can learn from the papyrus about the trial.

A Chat with Hank Aaron about Social Security Sep 15, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat with Henry (Hank) Aaron, a Senor Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution, about Social Security. They discuss how it started, how we fund it, who gets it, how it has been reformed, and how it could be fixed.

No Tax On Tips? Jeff and Scott Receive a Huge Tax Break (a short emergency episode) Sep 04, 2025

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Jeff and Scott very briefly talk about the bombshell news that podcasters are included on the Treasury's list of jobs eligible for "no tax on tips."

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Tipped-Occupations-Detailed-8-27-2025.pdf

Left unexplored is whether any of the other provisions of no tax on tips will preclude Scott and Jeff from receiving tax-free tip income, by means of the credit available to offset declared tip income available in The One Big Beautiful Bill.

Inflation and Tax Policy: A Chat with Kyle Pomerleau Sep 01, 2025

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Jeff and Scott talk with Kyle Pomerleau about how inflation interacts with tax policy and the tax law. Kyle points out that inflation interacts in two major ways: When we tax gains that happen over long periods of time, and we have to think about whether adjusting the gain for inflation would help, and, when the tax system includes explicit dollar values, such as in thresholds, amounts of credits, the income tax brackets themselves.

Brad Setser on Income Shifting and Trade in Pharmaceuticals Aug 27, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat with Brad Setser, a Senior Fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, about income shifting among pharma firms, as well as the impact that shifting has on tariffs and international trade.

A Brief Tour of the Tax Museum's Library Aug 23, 2025

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Jeff and Scott take a look at 4 books that Jeff has recently acquired for the Tax Museum library, which numbers at least 677 volumes. Almost all of these books were a an academic bequest from one of Jeff's mentees, Joel Slemrod.

Jeff introduces four books, asks a question related to the book, and Scott tries his best at answering. The four books mentioned, and the approximate year of their original publication:

Rich and Poor (1898) - Helen Bosanquet

Capital (1867) - Karl Marx

Political Economy (1837) - Francis Wayland

The National Revenues (1888) - Albert Shaw

Does Subsidizing E-Bikes Reduce Carbon Emissions? A Chat With Anders Anderson Jul 31, 2025

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In this episode, Jeff and Scott talk with Anders Anderson, a finance professor at the Stockholm School of Economics about, his research evaluating Sweden’s nationwide e-bike subsidy. The program successfully doubled e-bike sales, but had only a modest impact on reducing car use—far less than survey responses suggested. People bought b-bikes, then didn't really use them. When accounting for actual emissions reductions, the cost of carbon abatement was around $800 per ton, which most people agree is more than the social cost of carbon. We discuss why the policy wasn’t cost-effective and what better subsidies might look like.

AI and Tax Research: A (third!) Chat with BlueJ Tax CEO Ben Alarie Jul 18, 2025

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Jeff and Scott chat for a third time with BlueJ CEO Ben Alarie about new innovations in tax research using artificial intelligence, especially how these tools are being used by tax practitioners, the efficiency gains to using them, and how BlueJ goes about continually improving these tax research tools.

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