The Tax Foundation

Tax Foundation Podcasts on Business Taxes

Download or listen to individual podcasts by clicking on the links below for the MP3 files, or subscribe through ITunes so you never miss a podcast.

March 31, 2008

Jim Tisch, President and CEO of Loews Corporation, and Ed McClellan, Tax Counsel at PricewaterhouseCoopers, talk to Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge about the problem of the Untied States' high corporate capital gains rate. They explain the difference between the individual capital gains rate and the corporate capital gains rate, the problem of "locked-in" assets and their detrimental impact on business decisions and job creation, the Untied States' decreasing global competitiveness in the face of European nations that are cutting or eliminating the corporate capital gains tax, and the proposal to cut the 35 percent rate to 15 percent. (18 minutes, 2 seconds.)

January 17, 2008

Dr. William Gentry joins Tax Foundation Vice President for Economic Policy Robert Carroll to discuss who bears the burden of the corporate income tax. Dr. Gentry is an economics professor at Williams College in Massachusetts and recently wrote a paper for the Treasury Department titled A Review of the Evidence on the Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax. Dr. Gentry discusses the growing academic evidence that suggests the burden of business taxes is increasingly falling on labor and impacting workers directly. (14 minutes, 26 seconds)

December 12, 2007

Peter Merrill, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' National Economic Consulting group, discusses his study that shows the United States has the OECD's second-highest corporate tax rate but realizes the fourth-lowest revenue from the tax. He offers his thoughts on the causes of and solutions to this problem, and ways for the U.S. to become more competitive and efficient.

October 2, 2007

Alex Brill of the American Enterprise Institute discusses his new study on business tax rates across the world and shares his observations, findings and suggestions for the future. He points out that the U.S. rate is well above that of competing nations and that the U.S. should lower its rate dramatically to improve international competitiveness.

February 27, 2007

Mark Weinberger, Americas Vice Chairman for Tax Services at Ernst & Young and former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy at the U.S. Treasury, explains the importance of bipartisanship and cooperation between the President and Congress, the difficulties of achieving tax simplification in the face of so many attempts to implement social policy through the tax code, the possibility of reform or repeal of the alternative minimum tax, Social Security reform, and the effect of our high business tax rate on corporate inversion. (15 minutes, 39 seconds)

December 5, 2006

Mihir Desai, Associate Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, discusses various aspects of business taxation, including the effects of taxation on business decisions, the damage caused by the tax treatment of corporate capital gains, territoriality, the advantages of reconciling book and tax accounting, and the complacency surrounding the United States' high corporate tax rate. (15 minutes, 17 seconds)

November 7, 2006

Douglas Shackelford, Meade H. Willis Distinguished Professor of Taxation and Director of the University of North Carolina Tax Center, and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, discusses the effect of cuts in capital gains and dividend taxes on the stock market; double taxation; the conformity of book and tax accounting; and the viability of the corporate income tax in an economy increasingly comprised of intangible goods. (18 minutes, 2 seconds)

October 17, 2006

Kevin Hassett, Resident Scholar and Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, discusses the effectiveness of federal budget rules, the worldwide impact of the corporate income tax on wages, and the relationship between budget deficits and recent tax policy (11 minutes, 10 seconds).

October 10, 2006

The United States is increasingly linked to the world economy through trade and investment. But does the current tax system help or hinder this process of integration into the world economy? Robert Carroll, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury, discusses principles of fundamental tax reform, the costs of federal tax compliance, and the impact of the current tax code on U.S. international competitiveness (12 minutes, 20 seconds).

July 18, 2006

R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and former Chairman of the President's U.S. Council of Economic Advisers discusses options for reforming the U.S. corporate tax system (9 minutes, 28 seconds).

July 25, 2006

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, discusses trends in rising federal spending, dynamic scoring of federal tax policies, and options for international business tax reform (12 minutes, 26 seconds).

August 1, 2006

Bill Archer, senior policy analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers and former Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, discusses the U.S. corporate tax burden, territorial vs. worldwide tax systems, and the effect of the corporate income tax on outsourcing and global investment flows (11 minutes, 4 seconds).

August 15, 2006

Economist Martin A. Sullivan, contributing editor at Tax Analysts, discusses corporate tax competition around the world, ways to improve the U.S. corporate income tax, and the economic case against using state and local tax incentives to attract companies (12 minutes, 30 seconds).

September 12, 2006

Stephen Moore, editorial board member of the Wall Street Journal, discusses the politics of fundamental tax reform, the impact of corporate income taxes on workers' wages, and options for reforming the alternative minimum tax (9 minutes, 57 seconds).