The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the Gig Economy: Why the Employee vs. Contractor Debate Matters More than Ever

The issue of whether workers are independent contractors or employees has become even more relevant with recently enacted and proposed legislation and court cases in many jurisdictions seeking to impose employee status on many Gig economy workforce participants, such as ride-share drivers. This article emphasizes that the U.S. income tax rules, especially after tax reform effective in 2018, makes employee status extremely tax-inefficient for these workers. This article explains the relevant tax law changes and provides various examples of typical settings to confirm that workers with even small relative work expenses are often better off as contractors from a tax point of view.

A Toolkit for Developing Effective Projects Under the Federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program

In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, now referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes multiple provisions related to conserving fish and wildlife. One of the most exciting elements of this historic legislation is a dedicated $350 million competitive grant program called the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. In order to assist eligible applicants and partners to understand and take advantage of these new funding and policy opportunities, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation’s Corridors & Crossings Program has created “A Toolkit for Developing Effective Projects Under the Federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.” The document provides: An overview of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program and other fish and wildlife provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, suggestions for how applicants and their partners can engage, best practices, examples, and resources for designing effective wildlife crossing projects in accordance with each of the grant application criterion of the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.

Introduction

It is a great honor for me to edit this issue of the Florida Tax Review in honor of not only one of the greatest educators I have known but also the best human being I have known. I could never reciprocate all that Mike Friel has done for me and my career, and I am sure that his many students and friends share this sentiment. I apologize in advance for my shortage in words, yet I know that Mike will always appreciate academic contributions such as those included in this issue by his students and friends, all of which are original and discuss cutting-edge issues related to tax policy that the world faces at present. I am quite sure Mike will prefer this over lengthy praises, which he greatly deserves. This issue includes three parts. All three include works exposing different perspectives on the universal struggle of Nation States with the economic and market realities of the twenty-first century when they come to form their tax policies. The first part focuses on the United States, whose international tax regime was dramatically reformed in 2017 with an unprecedented lack of guidance. The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) introduced a potpourri of reforms that struggle to reflect a single coherent set of policy goals. Some of the changes represented dramatic policy volte-face, while others implemented long acknowledged contingency plans that had been discussed and analyzed before. Some seem to reflect international developments, conforming to what may be the new international consensus, while others clearly go against such trends.

Reregulating Indonesian Stock Buyback: A Lesson From United States

This article compares the corporate income tax cuts enacted by the Indonesian COVID-19 Relief Law and the US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It investigates the correlation between the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, economic development, and share repurchases in the US. It seeks to identify appropriate limitations on share repurchases in Indonesia following the enactment of the COVID-19 Relief Law. This research was carried out using the juridical normative method by tracing the literature and laws concerning share repurchase arrangements in Indonesia and the US. The results show that there is a slight positive correlation between the reduction of corporate income tax and economic development in the US and that the US income tax cuts have caused significant growth in share repurchases. After the enactment of the Indonesian COVID-19 Relief Law, which also reduced corporate income taxes, Indonesia may be on the verge of extensive share repurchase activity, as occurred in the US. To tackle this problem, we recommend amending Law No. 40 of 2007 concerning limited liability companies to re-regulate the restriction on share repurchases.

Are Tax Cuts Supporters Self-Interested and/or Partisan? The Case of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

In late 2017, the first unified Republican government in 15 years enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. Why did so many citizens support a policy that primarily benefited people richer than them? The self-interest hypothesis holds that individuals act upon the position they occupy in the income distribution: richer (poorer) taxpayers should favor (oppose) regressive policy. Associations between income and policy preferences are often inconsistent, however, suggesting that many citizens fail to connect their self-interest to taxation. Indeed, political psychologists have shown compellingly that citizens can be guided by partisan considerations not necessarily aligned with their own interests. This article assesses public support for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Using data from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study as well as contemporaneous ANES and VOTER surveys to replicate our analyses, we show that self-interest and partisanship both come into play, but that partisanship matters more. Personal financial considerations, while less influential than party identification, are relevant for two groups of individuals: Republicans and the politically unsophisticated.

La sentenza n. 59/2021 della Corte costituzionale: road map per una riforma?

L'articolo, prendendo spunto dalla pronuncia della Corte costituzionale italiana n. 59/2021 - con cui la Consulta ha dichiarato incostituzionale, per contrasto coi principi di uguaglianza e ragionevolezza ex art. 3 Cost. l'art. 18, c. 7, St.lav., come modificato dalla l. 92/2021, nella parte in cui prevede che il giudice, quando accerti la manifesta insussistenza del fatto posto a base del licenziamento per giustificato motivo oggettivo, «può altresì applicare» (invece che «applica altresì») la disciplina di cui al medesimo art. 18, quarto comma» - da un lato, riper-corre le criticità relative alle tutele in caso di licenziamento ingiustificato messe in atto dalla ri-forma Fornero e dal Jobs Act e, dall'altro, mette in luce come la stessa Corte finisca, tra le ri-ghe, per dettare al futuro legislatore una vera e propria road map per mettere ordine nell'intera disciplina dei licenziamenti individuali.