David Stewart 0:01

Welcome to the podcast. I'm David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: taxing season. The 2020 tax filing season has been like no other. As the pandemic was taking hold in the U.S. and speculation mounted, the Treasury secretary announced on Twitter that the filing and payment deadline would be delayed by three months to July 15. This hasn't been the only major change for tax practitioners. In addition to a longer tax season, practitioners have fielded questions from taxpayers about the new coronavirus legislation and faced an ever-changing landscape of guidance. Here to discuss this year's unique tax season is Tax Notes reporter Jonathan Curry. Jonathan, welcome back to the podcast.

Jonathan Curry 0:44

Thanks Dave. It's always a pleasure to be here.

David Stewart 0:46

All right . First off, did you take advantage of the longer deadline?

Jonathan Curry 0:49

Yeah, to an extent. So I managed to wait until June before I finally caved and just filed.

David Stewart 0:54

All right . Well, yeah, you did it earlier than me. So you've been covering the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on tax practitioners. You recently talked to someone who's very plugged into the tax community. Can you tell us about that?

Jonathan Curry 1:06

Sure. I had the opportunity to interview Kelly Phillips Erb, and she's perhaps best known as @taxgirl trademark. She's a very well-known figure in the tax community and on social media. And this year she's been hearing a lot from tax practitioners about this very wild, seemingly never-ending tax season. And I think one of the main takeaways for me is really that it's just been truly unprecedented. There's never been anything like it.

David Stewart 1:28

All right. Let's go to that interview.

Jonathan Curry 1:29

Kelly, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Kelly Phillips Erb 1:33

Thank you for having me.

Jonathan Curry 1:34

How does this filing season compare to previous years? I mean, I'm sure there's absolutely nothing to say here. Everything has gone perfectly fine. Is that right?

Kelly Phillips Erb 1:41

I was actually going to say it's actually the opposite. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before. There's always little glitches or things that happen. There's always something happening in some part of the country. It's really unusual for everything to be happening at the same time. So, definitely out of the ordinary.

Jonathan Curry 1:58

So Kelly, when did you first realize that this filing season was going to be different than past ones ?

Kelly Phillips Erb 2:03

I think we all kind of knew early in March when -- I'm in the Northeast. So I'll go ahead and put that out there because I think that our experience may be a little different timing-wise compared to what was going on in other parts of the country. But in the Northeast, I think people started to get nervous about COVID, and I heard more and more folks say around spring break that maybe they weren't going to come back to their offices, which is unusual in and of itself. And then there started to be more and more conversations on social about the economy slowing down and what does this all mean? And I think even before we heard Treasury or the IRS make announcements, we were already hearing from our clients and taxpayers that things were a little out of the ordinary. Some of the VITA sites were closing down and because it was not a coordinated closure in the beginning, it was sort of by area. So I was beginning to get a lot of emails. But when I knew that things were really, really going to be different was after the CARES Act was passed. And we heard about stimulus checks. But before the IRS had actually offered any guidance on those checks, I started getting emails, and I get a lot of emails from readers, but the sheer volume of emails really shocked me. I think early on, within a couple of weeks, I think I had over 2,000 emails just regarding stimulus checks. We've had rebate checks before, right? A few years ago. But never this kind of just all at once at you , because this was happening. And then all of a sudden the PPP questions started coming in. And it was just different all across the country and it was different sectors. I think that was why it was really striking is that normally when we hear about the economy or when we hear about taxpayers, we sometimes hear about very specific folks, right? So it might be just self-employed persons or it might be just in one sector of the economy. And we started noticing, and my colleagues as well, that we were getting these questions from everyone, from our wealthy taxpayers, from folks that were not tax filers. I think the numbers were just really eye opening, I think.

Jonathan Curry 4:03

Now, you had mentioned some of the practical challenges with offices being closed. What are some of the unique, practical challenges that you saw yourself this year? Like for example, I know the IRS has been a little bit hard to get in contact with. And so as clients have questions and you have questions for the IRS, was the IRS always able to answer those questions?

Kelly Phillips Erb 4:21

Exactly. It's funny because I think people think about it in terms of, well, you just couldn't call them. But there were a lot of other kinds of ways that it impacted, especially tax professionals. And a perfect example is the fact that they took the CAF units, where they process power of attorneys. They took those offline because there was nobody there to staff them. So while e-services remained open, so, you know , on the surface you look and you see, well, you could still pull a transcript for a taxpayer that might need it. If you had a new client, or if you had a taxpayer who had a new year, you couldn't actually transmit that to the IRS. So you couldn't pull those transcripts. So there was a lot of stuff that was happening that wasn't just, "I can't physically pick up the phone." And then you also had taxpayers who were normally not filers. So, folks who might just be receiving Social Security or SSDI, who are all of a sudden rushing to file returns for the stimulus checks before that was sort of sorted out about how they weren't going to require them to file either. Again, VITA sites were closed. TCE sites were closed. So a lot of tax professionals were getting calls from folks looking to file. But these are people who aren't used to paying a professional to do the returns. So you had this weird kind of in between of your phones are ringing from new clients potentially at the same time that you can't ask questions at the IRS. We couldn't get through to PPS, which is the practitioner line. You couldn't get through to, as I mentioned, make sure that the powers of attorney were online. We were still getting notices. So taxpayers were still getting liens and levy notices, even though those were supposed to have stopped, they didn't stop initially. And taxpayers were panicking because if you get a notice that says that they're about to seize your bank account and you call someone and they say, "I'm sorry, I can't ask the IRS to stop it." That causes a sense of panic. So it was just, again, especially in the beginning, a little chaotic. I think once we got used to it, people started adapting and you started advising clients differently. And then the IRS, I think, became much more vocal about what was happening and issuing notices. I think they were slow to roll out some of that guidance. I know that was a kind of a criticism early on, but now they've been pretty good about keeping you apprised of what's going on. So I think as people got used to going to the website or whatever, it was different. But early on, it was a lot of folks who didn't know what was happening and tax professionals who weren't able to tell those folks what were happening.

Jonathan Curry 6:39

Now, we're actually coming up on, I guess, the settled deadline now of July 15. Do you think things have settled down by now?

Kelly Phillips Erb 6:45

It depends. I mean, again, there's a lot of deadlines kind of coinciding, and there's still some confusion like about estimated payments. I know the IRS just issued guidance recently saying for example, that you only have to write one check for two payments. So I think that things are settling. Statistically, most folks have already filed, which is good news for preparers. But I still think there's a lot of questions about how folks are arranging their tax planning and whether or not they're going to be able to pay taxes that are coming due either in June or folks who are on extension in October. I know that tax preparers are planning on filing a lot of extensions. That's pretty traditional. About 10 percent, I think, of taxpayers file extensions every year. I think that again, the timing means that those are going to be pushed a little more because we were waiting to hear and we just heard this week that the date was not going to be extended again. I think when you plan on it every year in April and you know, your information returns or whatever, you need to prepare those returns, aren't going to be available. You file extension early because there are a lot of taxpayers that you know are going to extend. I think a lot of tax preparers held off this year because they thought if they were going to go ahead and extend through October, there was no need to extend. And now they're kind of racing to file those extensions . So again, I think that there's just a lot of stuff happening at the same time.

Jonathan Curry 8:01

There's been a lot of coronavirus-related relief from the IRS and new tax provisions associated with that. Then they're shaking things up in the middle of this filing season. How do you keep track of all the changes?

Kelly Phillips Erb 8:11

I mean, it's really hard. I read a lot of press releases and I follow IRS on social and I'm always checking with their media department, but the changes, there are so many of them. And one of the criticisms I'm sure you've heard is that there appears to not have been as much advanced coordination. And I understand that it seems like maybe an unfair criticism because nobody knew to plan for this. But there's a lot of contradicting information that has come out of Treasury and IRS. So for example, just to kind of reflect on the filing season, Mnuchin actually extended the filing season by tweet and he actually put it on Twitter before --

Jonathan Curry 8:52

I remember that.

Kelly Phillips Erb 8:52

And the IRS had not confirmed it. And so folks kept saying, "Well, it's not official until IRS says so," even though IRS is part of Treasury. But it was confusing because the way that information rolled out. Like normally, you know, people were at their offices, the media department would be, I think, responding differently, but because folks were at home information was rolling out very slowly. So in the beginning, I think it was much harder to know and to sort out what was going on. I think it's a little better now. I think one of the challenges quite frankly, is that states are not coordinating with the feds. So in terms of due dates, I know that there was at least one state -- I can't recall off the top of my head -- that only extended through June, not through July. So if you had to file a return in two states, which is not uncommon these days, especially now that people are working from home, right? There were issues about whether or not those returns were going to be filed timely. So I think it's hard to know where to go and what to do. Most tax professionals, I think, subscribe to the news wires and that sort of thing from IRS and follow on social. Sometimes in the profession, and I'm a tax attorney. So I'm speaking mostly as attorneys. We tend to be slow to embrace technology. And I think a lot of the folks in our profession regard social a little skeptically. They think it's only teenagers tweeting about Chris Evans. In fairness , I was also tweeting about Chris Evans recently. But I do think that there's a lot of really good information out there. Even IRS Criminal Investigations is now on social. That's a relatively new development. So I think that Treasury and IRS, one of the best ways to keep up with what's happening right now and throughout this season has been to follow them on social and to follow people who know what they're talking about on social. I mean, one of my frustrations is it's always better to use a primary source, right? So if you hear it from IRS, you know it's right. Or, you can assume it is mostly right. But you hear it from someone who's just retweeting somebody that they heard, it might not be correct. And so there was some of that misinformation, too. I mean, that's kind of the double-edged sword, right, of social is that you can get a lot of good information, but then there's also because of the speed, the potential that misinformation can be distributed really quickly. So we did see some of that. Perfect example was when the filing season was originally extended the payment wasn't -- there was a lot of, "Can we pay later?" Like there was a lot of folks who were just guessing and those guesses were maybe characterized as fact when they weren't. And then we're seeing this again with the stimulus checks. People tweeting that they've heard there's a second stimulus check when there's not. And it's probably because they saw a headline or something like that, or they heard the president say, "Perhaps this is a possibility," but it kind of morphs into "This is truth." And then it gets repeated and repeated. So this is a very long way of saying, when you ask about where do you get your information? I think, you know, primary sources is always good, and trusted sources. The folks that you rely on to give you good information are the people that you should continue to follow and look at and not just chase whatever is most popular or being retweeted a bunch of times.

Jonathan Curry 11:49

Yeah, just an aside, maybe a day or two ago, IRS Criminal Investigations started following me on Twitter. And I think my heart skipped a beat for a moment before I realized, "Wait, I'm a news account. That's OK. No big deal." That's for a moment. I was like, "Uh-oh."

Kelly Phillips Erb 12:00

Exactly. There are a lot of my colleagues that were kind of joking about that. They're like, "Should I be watching what I'm saying now?" I think it's pretty cool that they're on because they actually have a lot of the things that we don't think about, but that are still hot topics like cryptocurrency , for example. They're following the times, so they're a really good source for kind of knowing what IRS is targeting, what we should be seeing. That was how I found out about the first PPP loan arrests. I mean, those are the kinds of really good information. So, but I can see where it might make the hairs on your neck go up a little bit. Kind of feels like somebody is watching you, right?

Jonathan Curry 12:32

I wrote an article back in mid-April about how the filing season was going at the time. And at that time, quite a few people told me that what was really keeping them busy was that they were working on PPP loan applications, and other CARES Act provisions, but it was primarily PPP at the time. And they were not working on tax returns. It's been more than two months since then. What's been your experience being plugged into the tax community? What have you sort of seen people doing, if they're not doing tax returns?

Kelly Phillips Erb 12:55

Yeah, I think, well, first of all, it definitely has been keeping folks busy, but I also think it's exhausting them. Because in a traditional season you would be done in April and then most tax folks that I know take some time off. And then you kind of gear up for the second wave, which is working on your extensions, that sort of thing. And that didn't happen, of course, this year. But the weird thing is because most people anticipated that we wouldn't be extended until we were, I do think that around March, April, people were still working on returns, right? And then when it became apparent that the date was going to be pushed off, they didn't need to make those a priority anymore. But then you did have those PPP and those EIDL loans that folks had questions about. And so tax professionals became busy again, just working on those, helping taxpayers process them, figure out if you needed them. And then of course, when those were over, now you have the forgiveness applications and now you have July 15, right? So there wasn't any break . And of course, once all of this is done, you're going to -- I was going to say ease right into, but that's not really accurate, I guess. You're going to keep dragging into extension season. So there really hasn't been much of a break. And then even more complicating matters, you see that IRS just announced about their backlog. So you're also going to have traditionally correspondent season was June and July. That didn't happen, but now it's going to be pushed off a little bit more. And it just seems like everything is just being squished all together . But those PPP loans did require an extraordinary amount of time. And I think what a lot of folks who aren't in the profession don't -- maybe isn't as apparent, is that some of those questions feel like they should be easy questions, especially stuff like the payroll tax, not withstanding the confusing guidance and the ever-changing guidance. A lot of the folks who needed the money the most were the folks who didn't have their records in the best condition. So you did have -- and this was something that my colleagues were joking that we're all payroll tax experts now -- but you had people who had been filing their own payroll tax returns, maybe not using a company. And now they were kind of throwing them on the desk and saying, "How do I make sense of this?" Or "I don't know how I was supposed to pay myself as an S corporation. I don't think I did it right. What does that mean now?" And so you had a lot of hand holding and folks having to do explanations that wasn't even directly tied to the application. It was more educating taxpayers. And that's also really time consuming. So again, I think it's really easy to say "I did a PPP application. It was a couple of hours' work." I think that's a misnomer because there's a lot of backstory that accompanies that. People did not show up in offices with pristine records and say, "Here, I just need to fill out this application." I think tax preparers and tax professionals were tasked with cleaning up a lot of records and kind of reconstructing a lot of records. And it was a lot of work.

Jonathan Curry 15:43

Now the PPP loan was initially just an eight-week program. Now it's been extended a little bit further. And I know back in March and April, that was sort of taking up a lot of tax professionals' time. Is it still sort of dominating a lot of their workloads right now? Or do you think it's kind of settled a little bit?

Kelly Phillips Erb 15:57

I think it still is dominating workloads. And I think that's because the guidance has changed. I think that we have been having some tax pro virtual happy hours on Zoom and kind of discussing issues that professionals are seeing regularly. And I do think that even they extended the forgiveness application time period. They changed the rules about deductions. There's been a lot of things that have either changed the nature or changed the timing that have kept tax professionals really busy. Again, I don't think it was a straightforward , "Let me fill out something and I'm done." We are still trying to understand guidance. There's still entire Twitter threads dedicated to what's an FTE. I think there are a lot of gray areas that folks are still trying to sort out. And, you know, we just got guidance again last week. It's not like there was guidance that was released in March or April, and then we've just been working through it. We keep joking; who knows what a final interim rule is? You're still trying to sort out what all this means. And I think absolutely it's kept folks constantly busy. We've been joking a lot on Twitter. There are a couple of folks who will check in to remind people what day it is just because there are tax professionals who are not even taking breaks on the weekends, just to try to get through the workload.

Jonathan Curry 17:08

So it looks like the IRS and Treasury are sticking with the July 15 filing deadline for individuals. Are you pro-IRS on this decision?

Kelly Phillips Erb 17:15

So I know this is crazy unpopular to say, but I am. But I do have a caveat. I do think that it would have been better for tax preparers and taxpayers to know that the deadline was not going to be moved earlier. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said last week he was still thinking about it. That's just two and a half weeks out. So I think the timing on the announcement wasn't terrific. But in terms of do I think that the deadline should have been moved? I think no. And the reason for that is, again, if we had known earlier, you could start preparing those extensions a lot earlier. So that's one of the flaws in the timing of the announcement. But if you push it out again to October, first of all, I think the season never ends for tax preparers, which I think is really hard on the profession. But I think also it's going to make things more difficult for the IRS because next tax season is actually not that far away. They're usually around Columbus Day planning for the next season, right? So this year, if we had pushed the deadline to October 15, can you imagine just the workload of IRS? I mean, they already have backlogs. So I think the announcement was the right thing to do. I think the timing was off. I think it should have been made earlier. That being said, I would like to see some opportunity for automatic penalty abatement for folks who don't pay until October. I think that the dragging of the feet on the announcement led some people to believe that they wouldn't have to pay until October, even though that's not true, but I think people believed that. And I think with all of the payments now coming due in July, some folks aren't going to have the money. And I think that that's going to create a problem for tax preparers who are going to have to do abatements. I mean, again, folks were joking on social about cutting and pasting in penalty abatements. I get that drum beat's already started. So I do think that some penalty abatement for payment would be welcome. But I do understand the IRS's position on the filing. I just wish that the announcement had been made a lot earlier.

Jonathan Curry 19:26

Last question. I did see a tweet recently from an accountant who is commiserating with quite a few others in a very lengthy thread over the issue of filing season burnout. Now, did you ever have a burnout moment yourself ? And if so, how did you sort of de-stress in these kind of unprecedented times?

Kelly Phillips Erb 19:40

Oh yeah. I'm surprised that more tax professionals really aren't being burnt out. And I will say that it's not just the sheer load of work. I think that there's a little bit of projection that's happening with tax professionals. That's really painful and stressful. And what I mean by that is a lot of us, when we work with our clients, we're not doing a five-minute data entry. Like these are folks we've known for years. These are people that we understand their businesses. We see them yearly. And now these are the folks who are calling us and telling us that they're going to have to close down their business. They're going to have to fire their best employees. There's a lot of economic hurt in the country right now. And tax professionals, we've become listeners because we're the ones who see the numbers. We're sometimes the ones who have to deliver the bad news. And I think it's been really hard. I can tell you personally, when I was checking out the emails earlier, I ended up getting over 7,000 emails over the course of this, especially the stimulus check run. And so many of them were just stories that were hard to read about people who only had $30 left in the bank because they had been laid off. Seniors who relied on charities to bring them food and other things normally, and they weren't getting that because of the shutdown. There was just a lot. People telling me stories about how they started their businesses last year, and now they're closing their doors. And it's really hard to say goodbye to a dream. And I think that tax professionals, in addition to doing all the work, we've heard these stories constantly for months. I mean, Congress hears them occasionally in those hearings. I don't think they understand what it's like to hear that every week. So when you talk about stress and you talk about overload, it's not just the hours, it's the personal nature of the job. I think it's hard. I don't know how to articulate it in the way that I want to. Because it's really hard to explain when someone calls and tells you that they have a problem, you want to fix it. And part of my job is as a tax attorney is I'm a fixer, right? So when someone calls and tells me something that I can't fix, it's really hard. And there have been nights when I've told my husband, like I need to sit here right now and I need the kids to not be here for a minute because I have to think. And it's hard to just kind of process all of the stories that people have told you and know that there's not a lot that you can do. And folks are begging you for it. You know, are we going to have a second stimulus check? Where is my EIDL advance? What do I do if I don't get the PPP loan? And those are really tough questions. So I think there has been an inordinate amount of stress. And again, not just related to workload, but just the substance of what we've been kind of facing all through the economic downturn is I think we've really seen it and felt it in our profession a lot more than maybe other folks have. And I think that is kind of contributing to some serious burnout. And I actually was talking to Jeena Cho, she's an attorney who deals with meditation and self-care. And she and I were talking about this. We actually talked about it quite a bit last week. And I was saying like, I do think that this is something that we're not taking a moment for ourselves because we've just been kind of dedicating ourselves to our clients. And I do think that's not a good thing. Like I'm hopeful that this July 15 deadline will kind of signal to folks that there's a little bit of a break coming and maybe we'll all kind of take time to take care of ourselves. I was just going to say, if you know me, you know that I'm usually a really optimistic person, which is why I think this is particularly hard to say, because it's been hard to live. Right? So, and I hate to sound kind of down. Because you know, I think we all love what we do. I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining. I think it's hard.

Jonathan Curry 23:16

Yeah, no. I've been seeing that all over Twitter. Lots of people sharing this, their experience. It's been hard to see. Well, that does it for my questions. Kelly, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today.

Kelly Phillips Erb 23:25

Thank you for having me. I

Coming Attractions with Faye McCray

Kelly Phillips Erb 23:26

appreciate it.

David Stewart 23:28

And now coming attractions. Each week, we highlight new and interesting commentary in our magazines. Joining me now from her home is Content and Acquisitions Manager Faye McCray, Faye, what will you have for us?

Faye McCray 23:46

Thank you, Dave. In Tax Notes Federal, Jennifer Ray and Katie Fuehrmeyer examine the tax consequences that can arise when a partner receives an allocation of excess business income expense and then engages in a transaction regarding partnership interest. Helen Cheng and Steven Chidester consider how an exempt organization should classify its separate unrelated trades or businesses. In Tax Notes International, Andrew Hughes discusses how to handle coronavirus-related service expenses in an intercompany context. Steven Dean discusses the impact of racial diversity on U.S. international tax policy. And on the Opinions page, Martin Sullivan points to how the South Korean government builds taxpayer morale by enlisting the support of its nation's superstars. And now for a closer look at what's new and noteworthy in our magazines, here is Tax Notes State Editor in Chief Jéanne Rauch-Zender.

In the Pages Sneak Peek with Robert Plattner

Jéanne Rauch-Zender 24:35

Thank you, Faye. I'm excited to have Tax Notes State columnist Robert Plattner join us. Robert is the former deputy commissioner for tax policy at the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. And now serves as a senior advisor to the chair of the state Senate Finance Committee. He's joining us by phone to discuss his recent article, "The Commerce Clause Strikes Back." Welcome, Robert.

Robert Plattner 24:58

Glad to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Jéanne Rauch-Zender 25:01

Oh , thank you so much. This is a real pleasure. This article is the second of a two-part series. Can you tell us a little bit about this series?

Robert Plattner 25:09

Sure. I'd be glad to. Let me just give you a few background facts that will help make things sensible when I take the next step. So I've been critical of business tax incentives for a very long time, actually since the mid-1980s, which would mean that I was onto the issue in junior high school. Very precocious. And when it comes to tax incentives being unconstitutional, I've felt that many of these tax incentives are unconstitutional for well over 20 years. The third piece of information that's important to know is that I believe that 2019 -- first time in my memory that I saw support for the traditional economic development policy that relies on these business tax incentives -- begin to wane. It was an interesting year. Billy Hamilton documents it very well in your magazine. And I think there's a real opportunity that there could be an inflection point here with progress made to move away from tax incentives as the major form of economic development. And I think it's unclear, though, whether that will happen or it will be just a blip. So with those things said, my big idea in the current article is that it would be possible to help the cause of moving away from the status quo of business tax incentives running rampant, by having a state, or one or more states actually, challenge the constitutionality of these tax incentives before the Supreme Court. And what's nice about that is that when a state sues another state, the matter goes directly to the Supreme Court and that would be a real advantage. It would shorten litigation by several years. You would arguably be guaranteed to get before the Court and you could make policy quickly and relatively inexpensively. I'm convinced that the correct answer on the constitutional issue that most of these are in fact unconstitutional. And I'm also convinced on the policy side that the framers of the Constitution would very much favor the Court coming down on the side of the commerce clause here that let the states do through subsidies rather than tariffs is really just the flip side of protection as behavior that undermines a national market and was exactly what the commerce clause was intended to prevent. So I'm anxious to see if we can get some governors to sign up, but that's one of the hurdles we'll face. If in fact we can make this happen, it wouldn't render every incentive unconstitutional automatically. It's hard to say exactly what the precise impact would be. But I think it's safe to say that it would certainly undermine the current status quo and strengthen the hand of those who are looking to move away from the current way of doing business. Now, one of the issues that's interesting and a little bit problematic is that a challenge by one state against another, as I noted, has the original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court and also under congressional law has exclusive jurisdiction. But unfortunately the Court has also said that their jurisdiction is discretionary. So we could take all of the measures I've taken, get to the Supreme Court, have a strong case, and for whatever reason or no good reason, they could just choose to say they're not interested. And that to me would seem to be a risk because back in 2006, when there was a case called Cuno , that was decided on the merit up through the circuit court, when it got to the Supreme Court, they decided that there was no standing, and so overturn the case. We never got an affirmative decision on the constitutionality of the credit and things have stayed that way for -- it's now 14 years since Cuno. And I would argue that that was a very political decision by the Court. That at that time, the business community, the unions, the governors, they were all in favor of this economic war among the states. Nobody wanted it to go away, except for me and a handful of policy wonks trying to tell the states to do something they really didn't want to do. And it made sense that the Court found sort of a way not to rule on the merits. So that's where things will stand now, is that with any law, there will be at least some further discussion of the issue. Whether there'll be any interest among governors in actually signing up for it , whether the case would get heard by the court is iffy, but it's a service to put the issue out there, to put the thought out there. It's not one I'd heard before. And so to see whether it has legs or it kind of falls on its face. But I'm optimistic that other readers can maybe improve on it. And it is one of the big issues, I would say, state tax systems for as long as I've been around, which is this real misuse of the systems to try to attract the jobs to their state in ways that have been proven ineffective, but are very attractive politically, and just so have persisted for decade after decade. And that's about what I have to say.

Jéanne Rauch-Zender 30:09

Thank you, Robert. I certainly believe it has legs. It's very interesting, and certainly a must read. Why don't you let us know what inspired you to write this series?

Robert Plattner 30:19

Well, I definitely have a strong interest in getting a constitutional decision on credits before I retire from the business. As I said, it's been a long time that I've held this position. It seems to me just wrong somehow that there are literally hundreds of laws on the books in the different states that I think are unconstitutional and having a tremendous impact on the state tax systems and the way policy is done. So, separate from the fact that I would like to see policy improve, I just also, as a constitutional lawyer with a real interest, would like to see a decision. And of course, I'd like to see it go the way that I think about it. So that's something. In terms of the making the connection to perhaps have a case brought directly before the Supreme Court, does a case called Maryland v. Louisiana from back, I believe, 1971, where nine states sued Louisiana over something called the first use tax. And the court did take the case as a matter of original jurisdiction, did rule that Louisiana's tax was unconstitutional, declared it unconstitutional as violating the commerce clause. And so I knew that was out there. And if we're lucky, maybe we can get nine states to be plaintiffs in this case.

Jéanne Rauch-Zender 31:35

Would you share with our audience where they can find you online?

Robert Plattner 31:38

Sure. I don't have a website. I do have a site on LinkedIn, where if you're on LinkedIn, you can find me. And I do have a Gmail email account, which I'm happy to share. It's r.d.plattner@gmail.com. I'm somewhat retired and have the time to have interesting conversations with folks about tax issues. And so I welcome hearing from them and find that there's often a lot to learn from exchanging with other people with similar interests. So that would be great to hear from people, particularly if they've read my articles and have constructive comments to make.

Jéanne Rauch-Zender 32:17

Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Robert. You can find Robert's article online at taxnotes .com. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel Tax Analysts for in depth discussions on what's new and noteworthy in Tax Notes. Again, that's Tax Analysts with an S. Back to you, Dave.

David Stewart 32:34

You can read all that and a lot more in the pages of Tax Notes Federal, State, and International. That's it for this week. You can follow me online at @TaxStew, that's S-T-E-W. And be sure to follow @TaxNotes for all things tax. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us podcast@taxanalysts .org . And as always, if you like what we're doing here, please leave a rating or review wherever you download this podcast, we'll be back next week with another episode of Tax Notes Talk.