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Tax Center News & Media

IRS Registry for Monetizing Energy Tax Credits Nears Completion

11/03/2023

Bloomberg Tax highlights key takeaways from the Inflation Reduction Act Tax Incentives Panel Discussion that occurred at the 2023 UNC Tax Summit moderated by Gary Hecimovich. Ellen Balfrey, Richard Blumenreich, Scott Dyreng, James Holmes participated as panelists representing perspectives from industry, academia, and government.

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Jeff Hoopes awarded the 2023 Bullard Faculty Research Impact Award

04/10/2023

Jeff Hoopes has received the 2023 Bullard Faculty Research Impact Award which recognizes a professor whose research has had a significant impact on the practice of business. This award was created through the generosity of Clifford E. “Clif” Bullard Jr. (BSBA ’76), CEO of the Bullard Restaurant Group, and his wife Rachelle Bullard. Their goal was to inspire and provide incentives for faculty members to consider the impact on the business world as they choose research topics and communicate their results.

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Hoopes Highlighted in Discussions on Corporations’ Overseas Taxes

02/15/2023

Jeff Hoopes, UNC Tax Center research director, was quoted in a Politico article and a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board supporting more overseas tax disclosure for global businesses.

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Jeff Hoopes Featured in USA Today Fact Check

02/15/2023

UNC Tax Center Research Director was quoted in a USA Today fact check article on Donald Trump's presidential salary donations.

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Cryptocurrency Investor Losses Are Turned into IRS Gains

12/07/2022

Ed Maydew recently presented his working research paper at the 2022 Journal of Accounting and Economics Conference held at UNC on October 13-15, 2022.

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Designating Accounting as STEM

10/28/2022

Courtney Knoll, Ph.D., CPA, Executive Director, UNC Tax Center and Associate Dean of the UNC Master of Accounting ProgramKelli Knoble, CPA, UNC Tax Center Leadership Council member; and Scott Showalter, CPA spoke at a meeting of the House Select Committee on Advancing Women in STEM.

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A Few Companies Could Bear Brunt of New Minimum Tax

09/26/2022

Research by the UNC Tax Center shows just six publicly traded U.S. companies, including Amazon and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., would have paid half the estimated $32 billion in revenue generated by a 15% corporate minimum tax signed into law last month.

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Hoopes To Visit Oxford Centre for Business Taxation

06/28/2022

Following in the tradition of many UNC tax scholars before him including Jennifer Blouin, Michelle Hanlon, Scott Dyreng and UNC Tax Center Founder Doug Shackelford, Jeff Hoopes will visit the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation (CBT) as an academic visitor for three weeks this summer.

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Ed Maydew Speaks About Tax Fundamentals for VC Investors in the BTEI Program

12/20/2021

UNC Tax Center Senior Executive Director Ed Maydew recently spoke on tax fundamentals as part of the UNC Entrepreneurship Center's Black Technology Ecosystems Investors Certificate Program.

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UNC Tax Center Leadership Council Convenes

12/13/2021

We welcomed 19 new and renewing tax industry leaders to the UNC Tax Center’s Leadership Council. This important group of alumni advisors and supporters convened in Chapel Hill for our first in person gathering since 2019.

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Ed Maydew Participates at the Ph.D. Project's Annual Conference and Application

12/01/2021

Ed Maydew, Senior Executive Director of the Tax Center spoke at the UNC Ph.D. Project Conference on November 18th. It is a three-day networking conference, connecting doctoral students, business school representatives, professors and sponsor organizations.

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Jeff Hoopes and MIT Sloan Colleague Michelle Hanlon Address Minimum Corporate Tax Proposal in Letter to Congress

11/08/2021

UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes and MIT Sloan School of Management Accounting Professor Michelle Hanlon, along with more than 200 accounting and tax experts, penned a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to change a proposed minimum corporate tax that would be tied to a company’s book income reported to investors. The proposal, the experts wrote in the letter, risks politicizing accounting rules and complicating tax calculations.

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2019 Tax Center Survey Featured in New York Times DealBook Newsletter

10/28/2021

A survey of 39 accounting academics conducted by UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes was featured in the Oct. 28 New York Times DealBook Newsletter. In the survey, Hoopes asked respondents if they would support Senator Elizabeth Warren's Real Corporate Profits Tax.

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The Big Price Tag to Build Back Better

10/14/2021

The Biden administration has proposed several multi-trillion dollar initiatives to invest more federal dollars in infrastructure, education, healthcare and more. However, these big-ticket items come at a significant cost, which President Biden hopes to cover through tax reforms. As dizzying negotiations and politicking continue in Washington, Kenan Institute Senior Fellow Mary Moore Hamrick and UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes unpack the proposed tax changes and their potential impacts on businesses and households in this week’s Kenan Insight.

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Belnap and Hoopes Commentary on Corporate Tax Rates Featured in Forbes

10/01/2021

Are you ready to read some good news? Did you know that some companies generously share their profits with the government out of the goodness of their corporate hearts? Andrew Belnap, a recent UNC Kenan-Flagler Ph.D. graduate, and Jeff Hoopes, research director of the UNC Tax Center, provided commentary on very high corporate tax rates in a recent Fortune feature.

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New UNC tax professor excited to come home

09/22/2021

During the seven years John Gallemore taught at the University of Chicago, he worked with some Nobel Prize winners and guessed which colleagues were most likely to win the prize down the road. But his love for his home state prompted him to accept an offer to return to UNC Chapel Hill this fall as an associate professor of accounting.

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Executive Director Profiled by The Well

08/30/2021

Courtney Knoll, the UNC Tax Center's Executive Director, was recently featured by UNC-Chapel Hill's The Well for her passion in bringing tax education to students.

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Jeff Hoopes Featured in News & Observer Article on North Carolina's $6.5 Billion Surplus

08/15/2021

UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes spoke to the News & Observer's Ned Barnett about the budget surplus and how potential tax cuts could impact the state's economy.

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Hoopes Quoted in Washington Post Article on Infrastructure Bill

07/21/2021

Research Director Jeff Hoopes weighed in on the bi-partisan infrastructure bill and big corporations' plans to benefit.

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Hoopes Weighs In on the Wealth Tax Concept in Forbes Advisor Article

07/20/2021

Jeff Hoopes, UNC Tax Center Research Director and Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor, offered insights on the idea of a wealth tax in a recent Forbes Advisor piece.

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Jeff Hoopes to Deliver Keynote Address at 11th EIASM Conference On Current Research In Taxation

07/12/2021

At the July 12-13, 2021 virtual European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management Conference, UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes will present the keynote address.

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Hoopes Speaks on North Carolina's Corporate Tax Rate

06/03/2021

UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes spoke to WCNC's Meghan Bragg about North Carolina's corporate tax rate, which is the lowest in the country.

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Hoopes Weighs In on Warren’s Real Corporate Profits Tax

04/28/2021

UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes testified at Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s finance subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, April 27. Hoopes called Warren’s proposal for a 7% tax on book income a "Band-aid solution that creates more problems than it solves."

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Can the Internal Revenue Service Administer a Complicated Tax System on Its Budget?

04/07/2021

The fifth annual Donald C. Lubick Symposium was held on Wednesday April 7. Chief Judge of the United States Tax Court, Maurice Foley, spoke on the challenges of implementing our country’s complicated tax code. He was followed by a panel of experts, including our Research Director Jeff Hoopes, who discussed improving businesses’ tax compliance, how large companies respond to changes in compliance and how IRS budget cuts have impacted corporate tax collections. Opening remarks and keynote discussions included Tracy Gordon, Interim Vice President of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, and Eric Toder, Institute Fellow or the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The discussion panel included Jeff Hoopes, Sharon Katz-Pearlman of KPMG, Douglas O’Donnell of the IRS, Erin Towery of the University of Georgia, and Janel Holtzblatt of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

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Is the extent of profit shifting overstated?

03/31/2021

UNC Tax Center Academic Fellows' research is discussed during recent Senate Finance Committee hearings.

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Tax Boycotts

03/30/2021

Consumer boycotts are not a new concept. We have seen them in response to several social issues in the past few years. Boycotts in response to corporate tax planning are fairly novel. A noteworthy boycott of Starbucks in the U.K. in 2013 was first of its kind. Our Research Director, Jeff Hoopes, along with H. Scott Asay of the University of Iowa, Jacob R. Thornock of BYU, and Jaron H. Wilde of the University of Iowa look into this specific type of boycott. Their analysis focus on the frequency and impact of boycotts due to corporate tax planning. The researchers conducted a survey of U.S. consumers and found none of them had participated in a boycott because of a business’ tax practices. When looking at changes in consumer purchase behavior, little evidence of actual changes was found in response to tax news. In conclusion, the authors found that tax boycotts to be an ineffective response to corporate tax planning.

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Research Director, Jeff Hoopes and Coauthor submit official statement to Senate Finance Committee

03/29/2021

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Senate Committee of Finance heard arguments for major tax policy changes. One of the main topics of discussion was whether to include financial accounting income in the tax base. Our Research Director, Jeff Hoopes, with Fabio B. Gaertner of the University of Wisconsin-Madison submitted a statement to the committee advocating against this change.

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Should you sell stock before President Biden raises the capital gains tax rate?

03/22/2021 Hoopes, Jeffrey L.

Everyone is freaking out about potential increases in capital gains taxes. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me if they should sell all their gains and take advantage of the low rate, I would have, by my accounting, about 85 cents (which is a lot—how often are you asked the same question 17 time!?!). For example, I recently got a call from a friend. She had bought a stock for $150,000 that was now worth $200,000. She knows President Biden wants to increase the capital gains tax, and hears that all the smart folks are selling their capital gains now to take advantage of the lower tax rate. She asked me what she should do. Sell now, to lock in that sweet lower capital gains tax rate, or sell later, and like a fool, pay a higher rate?

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Professor Michelle Hanlon testifies for Senate Finance Committee

03/16/2021

UNC Tax Center Academic Fellow Michelle Hanlon presents her views on corporate tax policy at a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing.

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Proposed Low-wage Tax Penalty Has Broad Set of Ramifications

03/08/2021

Democrats are planning on taxing companies with too many low paid workers. This would drive large firms to outsource to keep costs low. Dr. Jeff Hoopes adds that it would take a long time to see the intended results from this new plan.

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Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Cause A Surge in Share Repurchases?

03/02/2021 Hoopes, Jeffrey L.

After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed on December 22, 2017, there was much speculation of what the effects would be. One claim was that with the cash savings from the tax cut, and with the cash that had been locked abroad, corporations would engage in massive stock repurchases. And, not many months after tax reform passed, and for the year after, there were many, many news articles ensuring us that tax reform resulted in massive share repurchases. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, for a few examples. Feelings were so heated regarding share repurchases, that even Republican Senator Marco Rubio devised a plan to stop companies from returning cash to their shareholders. But what actually happened?

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Hoopes Adds Perspective to Cryptocurrency Investing

02/12/2021

UNC Tax Center Research Director, Jeff Hoopes, was quoted in a recent Forbes article on the topic of cryptocurrency. He shares insight into minimizing tax burdens created by investing in the virtual currencies.

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Leadership Council member Presents on Innovating with Blockchain

01/07/2021

Leadership Council member Louise Reed spoke at the FDIC’s Accounting and Auditing Conference on the Challenges of Innovating with Blockchain, drawing on her experience founding the blockchain-powered tax credit marketplace, Afloat.

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Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award

07/30/2020

UNC Tax Center Tax Director, Edward L. Maydew, and Academic Fellows, Scott D. Dyreng and Michelle Hanlon, to receive the American Accounting Association 2020 Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award.

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Is President Trump likely to be indicted for tax fraud?

07/16/2020

UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes weighs in on this question in a recent Newsweek article.

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COVID-19 Saps US Trade Threat On Digital Taxes: OECD Official

06/04/2020

Pascal Saint-Amans, director of OECD's Center for Tax Policy and Administration, asserts that the U.S.'s potential retaliatory tariffs on countries that impose digital service taxes on American companies have lost some effectiveness due to COVID-19. With foreign trade diminished due to the pandemic, countries are exporting less goods. This means tariffs will be a less potent tool for the U.S.

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Associate Director Courtney Knoll discusses her perspective on retirement account conversion during down markets

04/15/2020

Associate Director Courtney Knoll is quoted in a recent Fortune article discussing the advantages to converting to a Roth IRA during a down market.

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Everything you need to know about the new 401(k) no-penalty withdrawals in the CARES Act

04/09/2020

UNC Tax Center Associate Director Courtney Knoll is quoted in a recent Fortune article discussing how the recently enacted CARES Act affects options for accessing money inside of retirement accounts.

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Do Your Taxes Like Nobody's Watching–Because Honestly, They Probably Aren't

03/31/2020

Professor Jeff Hoopes talks with Tax Maven podcast host and NYU Law Professor Steven Dean about the different incentives private and public companies have to tax plan. Counter to conventional wisdom, Hoopes research finds that public firms are doing more tax planning than private firms.

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Can I Ever Retire?: The Effects of COVID-19 on Financial Security

03/25/2020

The COVID-19 financial downturn will have short- and long-term effects on personal and consumer finance, as explored by a panel of Kenan Institute-convened experts during a press briefing held yesterday. The full recording of this briefing—along with a deeper-dive analysis on the specific implications of the downturn on personal retirement income by Kenan Institute Executive Director Greg Brown, is available in this week’s Kenan Insight.

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What role do taxes play in Retirement? Dr. Courtney Edwards adds her Perspective to this Discussion

01/17/2020

Planning for retirement often comes down to analyzing how much money you need to live comfortably. Taxes are a hot topic in the discussion of retirement planning. Dr. Courtney Edwards expands this discussion on retirement to consider quality of life and less financially focused subjects.

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Hoopes Weighs in On Trump Tax Records

10/07/2019

Kenan-Flagler Business School professor and UNC Tax Center Research Director Jeff Hoopes comments on the intricacies of interpreting the president’s tax records if the push to release them ever comes to shove. Hoopes was quoted in this NPR article, which has been posted by more than 50 media outlets so far.

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Leadership Council Member Louis Reed Featured in Journal of Accountancy

10/06/2019

UNC Tax Center Leadership Council member and Kenan-Flagler Business School Master of Accounting program alum Louis Reed is featured in the October edition of Journal of Accountancy. In this article, she discusses how the company she founded, Afloat, creates a blockchain-based marketplace for transferring state tax credits.

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Andrew Belnap receives Edmund Outslay Outstanding Discussant Award

10/03/2019

Andrew Belnap received the Edmund Outslay Outstanding Discussant Award for his discussion at the Doctoral Consortium of the University of Illinois Symposium on Tax Research. The award honors the late Ed Outslay, who was a dear colleague and mentor to many in the tax research community.

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Ed Maydew Keynote Speaker at 9TH EIASM Conference

07/18/2019

Ed Maydew, director of the UNC Tax Center and David E. Hoffman Distinguished Professor of Accounting, was a keynote speaker at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management’s annual conference on taxation in Barcelona, Spain, July 8-9.

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Institute Insights: How to Nip and Tuck Costs

07/09/2019

Can simply upgrading a hospital’s accounting systems cut costs? By examining a healthcare IT database that spans 24 years, UNC Kenan-Flagler researchers Eva Labro and Lorien Stice-Lawrence found that upgrading systems can significantly reduce hospital expenditures.

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The Devil is in the Details: Practitioners and academic researchers discuss businesses’ responses to TCJA

06/28/2019

On June 6, the UNC Tax Center and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) hosted a joint conference, “Effects of Corporate and Business Provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” (TCJA).

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Institute Insights: Increased Use of Predictive Analytics Is Re-Shaping the Factory Floor; Headquarters Relationships with Managers and Employees Shift

05/07/2019

Plants become more efficient, decision-making is centralized, but access to real-time data may “Uberize” workforce according to new research from UNC Tax Center Research Scholar Eva Labro and her colleagues.

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Institute Insights: Taxing Book Income Will Distort Book Income

04/22/2019

UNC Tax Center Research Scholar Jeff Hoopes shares his take on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's recently proposed tax on financial accounting income.

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UNC Tax Center's Jeff Hoopes Featured in NBC News Story

04/11/2019

Jeff Hoopes, a research scholar with the Kenan Institute-affiliated UNC Tax Center and an assistant professor of accounting at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, provided insight on company tax breaks under President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to NBC News.

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Institute Insights: Tax Reform and Me

04/10/2019

In honor of tax season, UNC Tax Center Associate Director Courtney Edwards shares how the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affected her personal tax liability as an example of some of the ways in which reform may have altered your returns as well.

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U.S. Tax Reform Hits Foreign Firms Unevenly, Shifts Competitive Landscape

04/09/2019

The passage of U.S. tax reform legislation in 2017 had an effect not only on companies based in the U.S., but on foreign firms as well, with Chinese companies seeing the biggest negative impact and companies in South America generally benefiting, according to a new study that looks at daily stock market returns around key dates leading up to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA).

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22nd Annual UNC Tax Symposium

04/05/2019

On March 29, researchers from across the country, as well as Spain, Germany and Canada, gathered in Chapel Hill for the 22nd annual UNC Tax Symposium. This event, hosted by the UNC Tax Center, provides a forum each year for researchers from accounting, finance, economics and other related fields to discuss their latest work.

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Get to Know UNC Tax Center Visiting Scholar Marcel Olbert

03/26/2019

Marcel Olbert is a research assistant and fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Mannheim Business School in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His primary research interest concerns empirical research in accounting, with a focus on international company taxation and decision-making within business groups.

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Jeff Hoopes Presents Research at Meeting of the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers

03/19/2019

Tax Center Research Scholar Jeff Hoopes cited research results from his co-authored working paper "Tax Reform Made Me Do It!"

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Tax Reform Made Me Do It!

03/08/2019

The enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) on Dec. 22, 2017 dropped the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, creating the prospect of substantially improved cash flows for many U.S. companies.  While the effects of this tax cut are still working their way through the economy, it’s not too early to ask an important question: where did (or will) the money go?

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UNC Tax Center's Jeff Hoopes Featured in Triangle Business Journal Article on the Impact of Tax Reform on N.C. Companies

03/05/2019

Jeff Hoopes, research scholar with the institute-affiliated UNC Tax Center, is quoted in a recent Triangle Business Journal cover story on the effects of tax reform on North Carolina public companies. Hoopes draws on his most recent tax reform research to explore how companies are faring under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

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Michele Mullaney and Andrew Belnap Present at the 2019 American Taxation Association

02/28/2019

Michele Mullaney and Andrew Belnap both presented research papers at the 2019 American Taxation Association’s (ATA) Mid-Year meeting, held this year in Washington DC. Michele and Andrew are both fourth year PhD students with research focused on corporate taxation.

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Did tax law produce virtually no new business investment, as Joe Biden said?

02/04/2019

Former Vice President Joe Biden — a possible 2020 presidential contender — criticized the Republican tax law signed by President Donald Trump. Biden suggested that the law did not have a big enough impact on the economy to justify its costs, which include a reduction in federal revenues by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

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Federal Tax Cuts Boosted Investment More Than Wages

01/28/2019

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Trump on Dec. 22, 2017, made a number of changes, including cutting the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent and altering how foreign profits are taxed.

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