Week in Insights: Hitting It Out Of The Park
Kelly Phillips Erb
Writer | Speaker | Tax attorney. I help taxpayers get out of—and hopefully stay out of—trouble. I also create and share stories about tax and financial crimes.
If you’re a regular reader, you knew this story was coming. The Phillies—or as I call them, “my Phillies"—are going to the World Series.
If you don’t follow baseball, this probably doesn’t feel like a big deal. It may feel like, “It’s sportsball, and Kelly’s team is going to the World Series.” But that’s not the real story. Let me back up.
In May of this year, my Phillies were 21–29. That’s right. They had more losses than wins, and it did not get better.
The next month, Bryce Harper—that Bryce Harper, the one who hit those home runs in those World Series playoffs and went on to be named the National League Championship Series MVP—broke his thumb when he was hit by a wild pitch. He needed surgery and would be out for weeks. And that meant that we were without one of our strongest players in a stretch where wins were paramount.
It looked like the Phillies were finished or the season. And then this amazing thing happened: The team pulled it out. They kept hitting, they kept catching, and they kept playing. They kept the Phillies in it.
With that, all it took was a few wins—and key losses by the Brewers—to land a wild card spot. They made the most of it. A team that only won 87 games (the Dodgers, by contrast, won 111 games) blasted the St. Louis Cardinals to make it to the playoffs.
The last time the Phillies made the playoffs? It was 11 years, 132 months, 577 weeks, or 4,037 days ago.
But the Phillies weren’t content to just show up. They went on to beat the reigning world champions—Atlanta Braves—in four games. Then they defeated the San Diego Padres in five games. And now, they face the Houston Astros on baseball’s biggest stage.
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate how amazing that is. The truth is, we all love a good comeback story. We love it when the unexpected happens. We love the rally. We love the big moments.
This week, tax professionals have shared their stories with us—their big moments. We’ve loved hearing from you on social about what makes working in tax so great. And we hope you’ll keep sharing.
At Bloomberg Tax , we aim to build a community where we learn from each other—and that can take all kinds of forms. Next week, we’ll be back to our regular programming with great commentary and insightful analysis on federal, state, and international tax issues—there’s no catch.
(If you watch—and I hope you will—enjoy the World Series!)
The Exchange… It’s where great ideas intersect.
—Kelly Phillips Erb
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Quick Trivia
How many Major League Baseball teams exceeded the $230 million luxury tax threshold in the current season?
Answer at the bottom.
Tax Pro Essays
Our Insights and Commentary team recently posed a series of questions to tax practitioners asking why they do what they do—not only to reinforce the importance of the tax profession but also to show others why they should consider a career in tax. Here’s a look at some of our favorite submissions:
What do you love most about your job?
Why did you decide to pursue a career in tax, and what would you tell your younger self about the profession?
When was the first moment that made you feel confident about your work as a tax pro?
What is the most common misperception about the tax profession, and how are you working to change it?
What kinds of changes have you seen in diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts (which have become more of a focus at many firms), and how are you engaging with those efforts?
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Global Insights
International Trade and Tax Consultant G.B. Sahqani looks at some of Pakistan’s economic and tax problems, and considers the challenges facing Pakistan’s new coalition government and the fiscal proposals set out in its 2022–23 budget.
Monique van Herksen of Simmons & Simmons LLP discusses the recent guidelines from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, intended to provide best practices to improve the effectiveness of the bilateral advance pricing agreement process.
Dr. Shay Menuchin of KPMG argues that to maintain the efficacy of cross-border trade for companies of all sizes, tax authorities around the world need to join forces and focus their attention on developing more appropriate and cohesive dispute resolution processes—enabling taxpayers, especially small and medium-sized businesses, to effectively resolve their cross-border tax disputes when more than one tax authority is involved.
Christiaan van der Valk of Sovos looks at the digital developments in value-added tax reporting and collection across Europe, as governments seek to increase their tax revenues.
Reader Responses
At The Exchange, we welcome responses from our readers and encourage diversity and civil discussion. We are especially interested in responses that add to the conversation, or introduce a different point of view. If you have a response to one of our published Insights, we’d love to hear from you.
A Closer Look
Nonfungible tokens hold intrinsic value due to their digital properties and traits. In this edition of “A Closer Look,” Stout’s Fotis Konstantinidis looks at the challenges of valuing NFTs, as well as the methods and data used for valuation.
Columnists
Social harms taxes for guns, such as those levied on tobacco, would reallocate the economic costs of gun violence from the harmed community to the armed community. That, writes Don Griswold, would shift the costs to those who produce and purchase firearms while upholding the current US Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment.
The world of tax is its own microcosm because taxes touch everything. Zeroing in on the intersection of tax and technology, for example, may include working with retail establishments, point-of-sale systems, and even writing. At the end of the day, being tax pro is about helping people, and that feels pretty darn good, writes Andrew Leahey in a bonus column for Tax Pro Week.
It could be easy to dismiss Taylor Swift as just a pop star. But that would be a $570 million mistake. This week, I look at a few ways to use Swift’s business savvy in your own career.
This week, headlines announced that the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial began in New York State Court in Lower Manhattan. But don’t expect any dramatic opening statements or witness testimony yet—the first order of business was jury selection, a process that took the better part of a week. And since this is a tax case, choosing a jury can be extra challenging. Here’s my quick primer on juries and tax cases.
Career Moves
David Shechtman and Matt Meltzer have joined Flaster Greenberg as tax attorneys in the business and corporate law practice group in Conshohocken, Pa., the firm said.
Tim Becker and Wells Miller have joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP as partners in the tax practice in Boston, Mass., the firm said.
Spotlight
Our Spotlight series highlights the careers and lives of tax professionals across the globe. This week’s Spotlight is on Rachel Gillette, a partner at Holland & Hart LLP in Colorado and leader of the firm’s cannabis practice.
Quick Trivia Answer
Six. According to the AP, the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, and the San Diego Padres will pay the tax for 2022. That number ties the record set in 2016. (The Chicago Cubs won the World Series that year.)
Our Team
I know we talk about tax a lot. But there’s a lot more that you might hear us talking about if you popped into one of our Teams meetings. Here’s a quick look at what some of us are watching, reading, and listening to this week:
Watching:
Reading:
Listening:
What Did You Think?
Your feedback and suggestions are important to us, so don’t hesitate to reach out on social or email me directly at [email protected].