Talking Tax Bloomberg Industry Group

The US Supreme Court brought a muted end last week to its biggest tax case in years, but the arguments that propelled the case are far from over, especially about what the court’s ruling could mean for future attempts to enact a wealth tax.
The court voted 7-2 to uphold the mandatory repatriation tax, a one-time tax on past foreign corporate profits. Washington state residents Charles and Kathleen Moore had challenged the constitutionality of the tax, arguing that it had forced them to pay $14,729 in taxes on the profits of an Indian company in which they’d invested even though the company’s profits were never distributed to them.
But the case’s significance went far beyond the Moores. Many had feared that striking down the tax not only would lead to billions of dollars in refunds to giant multinational companies that were the tax’s primary targets, but also would call into question a host of other taxes based on similar legal principles.
The Supreme Court said the tax was constitutional, and stressed that its ruling was narrow, with any outside issues left for another time. But that left unanswered questions about what the ruling could mean for any future wealth tax. Many such proposals would tax wealthy people’s “unrealized” gains on investments—profits that haven’t actually been distributed or monetized—which was the same issue over which the Moores questioned the repatriation tax.
And while the court’s ruling was narrow and set aside the realization issue, at least four of the nine justices supported the idea that income should have to be realized before it could be taxed, a signal that any future wealth tax could have a hard time passing legal muster before the court.
This edition of Talking Tax has two interviews with two very different perspectives on the Moore ruling. Bloomberg Tax senior reporter Michael Rapoport spoke first with Chye-Ching Huang, executive director of the Tax Law Center at New York University’s law school, who wanted to see the tax upheld, and then with Andrew Grossman and Jeff Paravano, attorneys for BakerHostetler who represented the Moores and wanted to see the tax struck down.
Producer: Matthew S. Schwartz.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Wealthy taxpayers are rushing to prepare in case a more generous exemption from the estate tax expires at the end of 2025 along with many of the individual tax cuts from the Republicans' 2017 tax overhaul. 
In 2024, taxpayers are exempt from the 40% estate tax on the first $13.6 million of assets passed on to heirs.
But the exemption is set to fall by about half, practitioners estimate, if Congress doesn’t act to extend it.
People are moving money into different types of trusts now to take advantage of that higher exemption amount. 
Deloitte Managing Director Laura Hinson spoke to Bloomberg Tax reporter Erin Schilling about the most popular trust strategies and how to avoid “donor remorse.” 
Hinson also explains how the Supreme Court's recent decision Connelly v. United States will affect estate planning.
Produced by Matthew S. Schwartz.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Countries are under pressure to finalize and sign the text of the OECD's multilateral tax treaty, one part of the international tax deal known as Pillar One, by the end of June. 
Several OECD officials, including Manal Corwin, director of the organization's Center for Tax Policy and Administration, have reported significant progress on finalizing the document. But negotiations have hit a snag.
The problem area is treatment of another part of Pillar One, known as Amount B, that's meant to simplify the way businesses value intercompany marketing and distribution transactions. The US and India, in particular, have butted heads over whether the measure should be mandatory. 
In this week's episode of Talking Tax, Bloomberg Tax reporter Lauren Vella sits down with Dr. Santiago Gomez Cifuentes, head of congressional affairs at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, to talk about progress made on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-led deal and what's holding back the completion of Pillar One.
Gomez Cifuentes is in close contact with the Colombian delegation to the OECD, and serves as a go-between representing Colombian interests in conversations with US lawmakers. He spoke with Bloomberg Tax on his own behalf and doesn't represent the official position of the Colombian government.
They also talk about Colombia's interest in the US Inflation Reduction Act and tax incentives that could boost mineral exports from Latin American countries.
Produced by Matthew S. Schwartz.

Six months into implementation of the new global corporate minimum tax, countries are racing to craft incentives to attract and maintain outside investment. Companies, too, are pouring resources into complying with the tax.
The tax took effect in January in dozens of countries across the globe, with a goal of "raising the floor" tax rate to 15% in every country that a multinational company operates in, to reduce profit shifting to low-tax countries.
In this podcast episode, Bloomberg Tax reporter Lauren Vella talks through all the ways companies and countries are responding to the new global tax regime, and what new guidance companies can expect in the future.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Talking Tax is on hiatus for a bit while we create some great new episodes for you. Until then, we're pleased to offer a special presentation of our ABA Silver Gavel award-winning series, UnCommon Law.
Generative AI tools are already promising to change the world. Systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT can answer complex questions, write poems and code, and even mimic famous authors with uncanny accuracy. But in using copyrighted materials to train these powerful AI products, are AI companies infringing the rights of untold creators?
This season on UnCommon Law, we'll explore the intersection between artificial intelligence and the law. Episode one examines how large language models actually ingest and learn from billions of online data points, including copyrighted works. And we explore the lawsuits filed by creators who claim their copyrights were exploited without permission to feed the data-hungry algorithms powering tools like ChatGPT.
If you like this episode and want to hear part 2, visit news.bloomberglaw.com/podcasts, or search for UnCommon Law in your podcast app.
Guests:

Matthew Butterick, founder at Butterick Law, and co-counsel with the Joseph Saveri Law Firm on class-action lawsuits against OpenAI and others

Isaiah Poritz, technology reporter for Bloomberg Law

James Grimmelmann, professor of digital and information law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School

The new 15% global minimum tax that took effect this year is turning out to be compliance beast.
The tax, which is part of an international tax deal agreed to by more than 140 countries in 2021, contains a slew of new technical terms, complex rules, and hundreds of pages of administrative guidance.
Now, some of the largest accounting firms in the world have been tasked with interpreting these rules, educating their clients, and building complex data systems to help multinational companies calculate their global minimum tax bills.
In this week's episode of "Talking Tax," reporter Lauren Vella sits down with Danyle Ordway, principal of tax technology and data analytics at Ernst & Young LLP, to talk about how the firm is helping clients adapt to the new levy.
Do you have feedback on this episode of Talking Tax? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.