The State Fight to Eliminate the Federal Restriction on Tax Cuts

Joseph Bishop-Henchman of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation discusses the litigation of a provision in the American Rescue Plan Act restricting states from using federal funds provided by the law to offset reductions in net tax revenue.

For additional coverage, read these articles in Tax Notes:

• Civil Liberties Group Sides With Ohio in Offset Provision Lawsuit
• Ohio Attorney General Seeks Permanent Injunction in Tax Restriction Suit
• Offset Provision Guidance Could Be Thorny for States Eyeing Tax Cuts
• Judge Denies Ohio's Request to Prevent Treasury From Enforcing Offset Provision
• Judge Dismisses Missouri's Suit Over Restriction on Federal Funding
• Federal Government Argues 13 States Lack Standing for Preliminary Relief
• Treasury Issues Much-Awaited Guidance on Tax Offset Provision

In our “In the Pages” segment, University of Virginia School of Law professor Ruth Mason chats about her recent Tax Notes piece, “State Aid Enforcement After Amazon.”

***
Credits
Host: David D. Stewart
Executive Producers: Jasper B. Smith
Showrunner: Paige Jones
Audio Engineer: Jordan Parrish
Guest Relations: Christa Goad

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

David D. Stewart 0:01

Welcome to the podcast. I'm David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: the state of state tax cuts. In March, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This $1.9 trillion relief package was designed to help boost the national economy and combat the effects of the pandemic. The new law also included $350 billion in aid for state and local governments, but it seemed to come with a catch. States could not use the federal funds to offset reductions in net tax revenue. Since then a number of states have filed lawsuits challenging the provision, and the U.S. Treasury Department in May released guidance clarifying its stance. So where does this leave Treasury in the states today? And what will come of these lawsuits? Here to talk about this is Tax Notes senior reporter Lauren Loricchio. Lauren, welcome back to the podcast.

Lauren Loricchio 0:55

Thanks for having me.

David D. Stewart 0:56

So let's start off with the American Rescue Plan Act. What does this law mean for states and localities? And what does it say about states making tax cuts?

Lauren Loricchio 1:04

So the law provided $350 billion in emergency funding for state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. State and local governments asked for the funding to help address budget deficits and rising costs of providing services. The funding is pretty flexible, and can be used for a variety of things like covering public health expenses, budget deficits, etc. But there's a catch: a provision added to the law at the last minute by Senate Democrats says the funds can't be used directly or indirectly to offset a reduction in net tax revenue. If states do, then they have to repay the funds to Treasury.

David D. Stewart 1:42

So states were not particularly happy with this provision. Can you tell me about the legal fight that's going on? How many states are involved? And is this all one lawsuit or is it several lawsuits?

Lauren Loricchio 1:50

There's been a lot of concern over what the provision means for state policymaking. Six federal lawsuits have been filed, mostly by Republican state attorneys general who want to block Treasury from enforcing the provision. One suit was filed by Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi; that's the latest one that was filed. Ohio was the first state to file a lawsuit. Arizona filed one. Missouri filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed, but the state filed a notice of appeal in that case. And there's another suit that was filed by 13 states that's being led by West Virginia. And Kentucky and Tennessee have filed a lawsuit as well. The arguments vary in each lawsuit. This might be an oversimplification, but basically they're arguing that the provision is federal overreach because it prohibits states from cutting taxes and states should be able to set their own policies. The federal government is arguing that the act doesn't prevent states from cutting taxes, that it restricts the state's ability to use federal funds to offset a reduction in net tax revenue. They point out that states can turn down the funds.

David D. Stewart 2:53

Now I understand the Treasury Department released some guidance on this issue in May. Can you tell me about that?

Lauren Loricchio 2:58

Sure. So Treasury adopted an interim final rule May 10. It hasn't been finalized yet. It lays out a four-step framework for determining whether the funds have been used to offset a reduction in net tax revenue and it explains how the recapture provision works and how it's computed. The tax practitioners I spoke with said the rule takes more of a holistic approach by allowing states to consider tax cuts in the context of their overall revenue picture. They said it's good that the rule contains a de minimis level and a safe harbor. The de minimis level allows states to lower revenues by 1 percent of the baseline year without triggering the clawback. The safe harbor requires governments to compare the reporting year's actual tax revenue to the baseline year, which is 2019. They also said, it's good news that Treasury will allow organic growth to count toward offsetting tax reductions. But they said the process is very complicated and will be difficult for states to comply with, and that it will also be challenging for Treasury to enforce.

David D. Stewart 3:57

All right, so we're recording this on June 15. Can you tell me where things stand today?

Lauren Loricchio 4:02

As of today the litigation continues. We'll just have to wait and see what the outcome of these cases will be.

David D. Stewart 4:08

And you recently talked to someone about this. Can you tell me about your guest?

Lauren Loricchio 4:11

I spoke with Joe Bishop-Henchman, vice president of tax policy and litigation at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. We discussed state litigation over the American Rescue Plan Act, and his organization's involvement in that litigation.

David D. Stewart 4:25

And we'll have that interview after a quick break.

Lauren Loricchio 4:47

So Joe, can you tell me what the National Taxpayers Union Foundation is, and what the organization's involvement has been in the state lawsuits filed over the American Rescue Plan Act?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 4:58

Yeah. NTUF, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, we're the voice of America's taxpayers, and so NTUF and our sister organization National Taxpayers Union have for decades worked to make sure that taxpayers are represented at the legislative negotiating table and are being informed about what's going on at the national and state levels about issues that affect them. Every other lobbyist or every other lobbying group has lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and in state capitals. But oftentimes the taxpayers are left out, both current taxpayers and future generations of taxpayers, so NTUF and NTU fills that gap. And then I lead a program, a project at NTUF called the Taxpayer Defense Center, which engages in litigation and other legal activities to support the overall mission. And you asked about the ARPA provision. Gosh, there's a lot I can go into there, but very briefly, earlier this year Congress passed a big law to provide rescue funds associated with the coronavirus pandemic relief and all of that, including like additional rebate money and a bunch of changes. One of the provisions that was inserted at the last minute could be argued and has been argued to prohibit states from cutting their taxes through 2024. The actual language of it, it's a bit of a tongue twister language that doesn't really make much sense when you write it all out. But it says that states cannot "directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue," and then it picks up later, "or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase." So whatever offsetting a reduction in the net tax revenue means, states can't use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to do that. And some people argued very quickly that because it says directly or indirectly, you know everything's indirectly. So it means states can't do any tax cuts at all whether they're directly using the funds or indirectly using them, and so it created a whole bunch of chaos really quickly. The Treasury Department was pestered by everybody to issue clarifying guidance. A bunch of bills were introduced in Congress to change or repeal the provision, and a bunch of lawsuits were filed and NTUF's been engaging in all of those, including filing briefs in each of the lawsuits.

Lauren Loricchio 7:13

How many lawsuits are there? And can you tell me a little bit about them?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 7:17

Sure, there's six so far and generally — I think this is true of all of them, and I hope I'm not mistaken on that and I do apologize if I am — I think they've all been filed by Republican attorneys general. They're each been filed in a different judicial circuit. And what I'm guessing the strategy is — I don't know for sure — but it's having different judicial circuits hear this case because for the Supreme Court to hear a case, most Supreme Court practitioners would say the best way to get the court to take a case is if there's different decisions in different circuits. If you really want it to be heard quickly, which a lot of people do on this because the clock is ticking, you have it being heard by as many judicial circuits as possible. So it's six different cases. Some of them are just one state suing the federal government. There's a lawsuit that has I think 13 states on it. So when you add it all up, it's quite a few states that are challenging this provision.

Lauren Loricchio 8:12

Why do you think the provision is problematic?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 8:14

Well, nobody knows what it says. Even the Treasury Department, which has to enforce this provision, they came up with guidance that is not a bad rule on how to make sure that ARPA funds are used properly and not used to finance on sustainable tax cuts or anything like that. But if you really read the provision and read the guidance, they're really kind of narrowing the language of this provision. The language itself — either it's so vague to really be unconstitutional for that reason, or it's so broad that it expands congressional power to basically be a supervisor of state tax policy for years come. So those are the basis of the lawsuits there. As I mentioned, Treasury did issue some guidance, which cleaned up some areas. But the guidance essentially pretended the word "indirectly" was not in the statute, which makes sense because if they wrote guidance using the word "indirectly," it'd probably be unconstitutional.

Lauren Loricchio 9:15

You said it clarified some things, the interim final rule. I mean, what were some of the good things that it did?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 9:20

It clarified that the process that Treasury is going to do. So what counts as a reduction in net tax revenue — that needed to be defined. And there was fear that Treasury was going to set up some independent process, or go by whim, or who knows what because the statute was very unclear on that. But what the Treasury guidance says is they're going to rely on state submissions. So that's good because states already track this and they're best positioned to be able to provide this information. They also read very narrowly the question of what does it mean to offset this revenue? And they're going to look at the gap in revenues between a base year and the subsequent year, and expect the state to explain any revenue drops. So if a state just through natural revenue growth has more revenue one year than the past, they're probably going to be OK. The problem will be if a state does have a drop in revenue, which when you subtract out federal funds, quite a few states have had that in the last year due to the pandemic and the associated economic impacts. The problem with that is you can't always explain a revenue gap. You could cut taxes — let's say you have a state that has a billion-dollar drop in revenue. And sometimes you can explain that and sometimes you can't. Sometimes if you cut taxes by $500 million and revenue drops by $500 million, OK that's a good explanation. But sometimes the economy just is the economy, and you have these revenue fluctuations that can't necessarily be ascribed to certain causes. That's a problem with the Treasury guidance. What Treasury couldn't fix is the constitutional question, whether Congress can even pass this provision in the first place. And they also can't necessarily fix if somebody were to sue to try to enforce this provision — who's not the Treasury Department — and decides to read the statute a different way. What happens if they get a court to agree with them?

Lauren Loricchio 11:18

Your organization has filed some briefs in this case. Can you tell me about those and maybe some of the arguments that you're making?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 11:23

Yeah. We make two key points. One [is] the provision, the wording is so ambiguous that its enforcement will essentially be arbitrary. And actually the Treasury guidance reinforces our position on that. Because Treasury essentially pretended the word "indirectly" was not in the statute, which is admirable because it'd probably be clearly unconstitutional if they had used that word. But it results in essentially an arbitrary interpretation of this provision, in which a future Treasury Department, or somebody suing, or who knows who could certainly give a different definition. And this isn't just about like, "Oh, they have this nonsense sentence in the law and so we need to sue about it." The reason this matters is because taxpayers and state governments and the federal government deserve fair notice on what is permitted and what is not permitted under the law. And when you have an ambiguous statute that doesn't provide that fair notice, there's ample precedent that says that such a vague statute essentially violates due process under the constitution. The second argument we made — which I guess I just briefly touched on — is that the term "indirectly," if you actually do enforce that and say any indirect use of this revenue for tax cuts — indirectly is everything. Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everything's connected with everything else, certainly when it comes to money and state budgets. It's very fungible. And if you actually applied that to its logical extent, then this is an unconstitutionally intrusive condition on state governments. Budget allocations — we pretend they're very fixed and that a pot of money in one account is different from a pot of money in another account. But in reality, it's mostly a post hoc accounting exercise that we do to reconcile everything after the budget year has ended. So the real danger that we worried about is that any state that accepts federal funds and cut taxes can be said to have indirectly used funds for that purpose, and therefore violates the provision. And Treasury's guidance did not — it did not clearly say no, that's not the case. So that worrisome interpretation and an unconstitutional interpretation is still out there.

Lauren Loricchio 13:39

Are there any cases that you're watching more closely than others? Or any that you think you're going to see a decision in sometime soon?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 13:46

Well, they have been moving very quickly. So all of these cases were filed between March and May, not long after the provision was first enacted. And we actually have one decision from a trial judge and then another one that's likely to come soon. There's the Ohio case, where Ohio asked for a preliminary injunction and the judge denied it. But in denying it, his explanation was, "You don't really want a preliminary injunction because that's not going to stop anything. What you want is a victory on the merits because what am I enjoining if you ultimately lose? And if you ultimately win, the injunction isn't going to have gotten you anything." And part of that was that Ohio is not actively working on a tax cut and they hadn't yet applied for ARPA funds. But anyways, that was essentially the judge's rationale. But in explaining that, he really laid out his view that the phrases "indirectly, "offset" and "net tax revenue" don't really have discernible meaning. And under the constitution, Congress cannot offer states money on ambiguous terms. If it's going to attach conditions to federal funds to the states, it's got to be clear on what those conditions are. So Ohio feels pretty good that they're going to win at the trial level from that judge. So that's what we're waiting on right now. Briefing's ongoing in that. Ohio is now asking for a permanent injunction. I think it's good likelihood that they're going to get it. And then of course the federal government will probably appeal after that, up to the , I think it's the Sixth Circuit that covers Ohio. The other case that's moving along pretty well is Missouri. The state of Missouri filed and the judge ruled against them and said Missouri — actually ruled against them on standing grounds, and says Missouri has not demonstrated it would suffer harm from this provision. So the judge said, "The only way you'd violate this provision is if you used federal funds to offset a tax cut. That condition is permissible. Don't do that. And by the way, because Missouri is not cutting any taxes or hasn't said it's going to cut taxes, this case is premature. So dismissed on standing grounds and on ripeness grounds that the case hasn't gotten to a point where it can be heard yet." This was unexpected I think by both parties. I think both parties expected to argue about the merits of the provision, not to get tossed on the grounds that there's no conceivable way Missouri could be harmed by this provision. And indeed in every previous case about unconstitutional conditions of federal funds to the states, there's never even been a dissenting opinion from a judge saying, "We shouldn't hear this case on standing or ripeness grounds." You know there's a hundred years of cases like that. So the judge really came up with something to kick the case out of his docket that no one's really done before. On May 18 Missouri said it's appealing to the Eighth Circuit and briefing's being done right now. It should be done in July. And we'll see what the Eighth Circuit says about this standing decision. But because — even in the big ticket cases like the Obamacare case, when that went to the Supreme Court. In the Obamacare case that involved a condition attached to Medicaid expansion funds and said, "If you don't take the Medicaid expansion funds, you lose all of your Medicaid money." And the question was, was that an unconstitutional condition? The majority of the Supreme Court said, "Yes. That was an unconstitutional condition." And there was four dissenters who said, "No, that's not an unconstitutional condition." None of those nine justices said, "We shouldn't be hearing this case because of standing or ripeness." And the judge in his opinion didn't point to any precedent that supports that interpretation of things. So it's really hard for me to believe that Congress provides funds, attaches a condition to it that says "State, you can't do X, Y, or Z." A state says, "I want to do X, Y or Z. I don't think this is constitutional." And a judge says "You have no standing." But we'll see what the Eighth Circuit says on that.

Lauren Loricchio 17:42

So what's an ideal outcome for taxpayers on this?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 17:45

Well, I think the provision has got to go. I think there is a place for the Congress to put some kind of condition on federal funds to make sure that they're used wisely. I think it's very hard in this case because it really was just this avalanche of money to the states that they didn't really need. Some states were having budget issues. I feel like the amount of money provided was like 10 times the actual possible budget issues. So right now you've got states absolutely so flushed with cash and so limited on what to do with it. So maybe the whole ARPA state aid provision needs to be repurposed or redone to address that. But this provision in particular really has to go because it's just so broad. And if what Congress was getting at — and this was put in by Sen. Joseph Manchin III, D-W.V., along with the Senate Majority Leader Charles Ellis Schumer, D-N.Y. If what they were getting at was, "Don't take this $500 billion and permanently cut taxes to set up a structural deficit in your budget year to year, for years to come, that's understandable." And I don't know. I haven't talked to Sen. Manchin about this, but at the time this was going on his home state West Virginia was debating whether it wanted to repeal the state income tax. And so maybe his concern was, "Oh man, they're going to use this money to repeal the state income tax. They'll be fine for a year, but then what are they going to do in year 2, 3, 4? So I better put something in to prevent that." And he went to, I don't know, somebody who doesn't know how to write these things and it ended up kind of sloppy and broader than that. So there's a way to narrow it, to focus precisely on potential harms like that. Because right now this essentially says if you really enforce it based on what it actually says, at least the best interpretation I can find of it because it is very sloppy language, is states can't cut taxes through 2024. And Congress can't mandate that.

Lauren Loricchio 19:38

Do you expect states are going to prevail in these cases?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 19:41

I think they will in part because lots of states are just ignoring the provision and passing tax cuts. It's hard to see how they don't violate it. So for instance, a lot of states automatically update their tax code to match federal law. But there's also states that have to manually do it every year. California was one of those states, so every year they have to pass a bill saying the starting point of our state tax code is the federal tax code as of January 1, 2021. And they have to update it from when it said 2020 to make it say 2021. So if the federal government passed any tax cuts in the intervening year, which they have now because we had for instance, we suspended taxes on a certain amount of unemployment benefits at the federal level. So if a state were to just make that one change in law from 2020 to 2021, it's a big tax cut for anybody who received unemployment benefits. And if we're using ARPA funds for that, well that violates the provision. And in fact, California recognized that. California, not a red state, recognized that and wrote the Treasury secretary and said, "Is what we're about to do legal under this provision?" And Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen quickly wrote back a letter and said, "Yes, it's legal." And I'm glad she said that, but it's really hard to square that with what the statute says, arguing that it is legal. There's a lot of other tax cuts going on that may have been pre-planned. There's states that are phasing down taxes over a period of years, or that have them based on revenue triggers. Maryland passed a huge tax increase on digital advertising, and then suspended it for a year because it's engaged in a legal and litigation about it. Does suspending a new tax for a year count as a tax cut financed indirectly by ARPA funds? We may find out in court. There's a lot of ambiguity about this, and it's hard to see the federal government prevailing on all of these, especially since there doesn't seem to be much appetite to really wield the hammer on all of this. Which some people may think, "Oh, well, isn't that the end of the case?" But we don't want this hammer sitting out there for some future administration or somebody five years from now saying, "Oh, these tax cuts were all improperly passed," and going back and trying to recollect the revenue. There's a lot of danger with just letting this provision exist.

Lauren Loricchio 22:05

Just one more question, in terms of the provision, it's my understanding that it would be Treasury saying that states can't produce net tax revenue. So it's not really saying you can't enact a tax cut. It's just saying you have to use the framework that they laid out in the guidelines, right? So they can enact a tax cut, but it can't reduce their overall net tax revenue. Right?

Joe Bishop-Henchman 22:32

That's what the Treasury guidance tried to say, which if that's where it sticks, there's some areas that need to be clarified further, but that's not a bad starting point. The danger is if Treasury changes its mind or someone sues and says, "Yeah, that's Treasury's opinion, but judge, look at what the statute actually says." Treasury guidance is not law. And if someone can convince a judge that the law is clearer, that the law should supersede what Treasury tried to say it was, that's a big deal.

Lauren Loricchio 23:04

All right. Well, thank you so much.

Joe Bishop-Henchman 23:05

Pleasure to be here.

Coming Attractions with Paige Jones

David D. Stewart 23:08

And now, coming attractions. Each week, we highlight new and interesting commentary in our magazines. Joining me now is Acquisitions and Engagement Editor in Chief Paige Jones. Paige, what will you have for us?

Paige Jones 23:19

Thanks, Dave. In Tax Notes Federal, Jeffrey Hochberg and Andrew B. Motten consider why some SPACs have been formed as foreign corporations. Gary Wilcox and Warren Payne argue that the Biden administration's focus on an international tax agreement may not be the best plan. In Tax Notes State, Nikki Dobay and Jeffrey Friedman examine the interim final rule issued by Treasury regarding state and local government aid provided by the American Rescue Plan Act. Dennis Rimkunas warns of California's unusual law regarding sale exemptions. On the Opinions page, Nana Ama Sarfo looks at some of the IMF's ideas for corporate tax reform. Marie Sapirie explores the IRS online portals meant to help families navigate the advance child tax credit for 2021. The submissions period for the Christopher E. Bergin Award for Excellence in Writing will be closing soon. This annual award recognizes superior student writing on unsettled questions in tax law or policy. Eligible students must be enrolled in an accredited undergraduate or graduate program during the academic year. Submissions are due by June 30, 2021. Visit taxnotes.com/students for more details.

In the Pages Sneak Peek

Paige Jones 24:31

And now for a closer look at what's new and noteworthy in our magazines, here's Tax Notes Executive Editor for Commentary Jasper Smith.

Jasper B. Smith 24:39

Thank you, Paige. I'm here with Ruth Mason, professor of law and taxation at the University of Virginia School of Law. Welcome back to the podcast, Ruth.

Ruth Mason 24:47

Thanks a lot. Happy to be here.

Jasper B. Smith 24:48

So today we're going to chat about your recent Tax Notes piece on the EU General Court's judgment in the Amazon case and the future of state aid. So to begin, can you tell us a little bit about the Amazon judgment?

Ruth Mason 25:00

OK, so this is just the most recent case in the long running saga between the commission and EU member states. We see in Amazon the commission sort of starting to feel the pain of domestic tax administrations, and in transfer pricing cases, the standard is vague. Those cases are hard to win and courts are trepidatious about applying big assessments. I think what's important about Amazon is that, as in Apple and Fiat, it confirms that the commission can use the OECD transfer pricing guidelines to check a member state's assessment, a ruling that it gives, or the self - assessment taxpayer does in accordance with that ruling. So that's not new, but it's an important confirmation of that idea. And then the other thing that the case does, which is consistent with the prior cases, is that it lays the burden of proof firmly at the feet of the commission. This is why these cases have started reading like domestic transfer pricing cases. The commission has to say exactly where the member state allowed the taxpayer to get away with something. And to do that, the court ends up getting into the weeds of transfer pricing.

Jasper B. Smith 26:16

All that makes sense. And so with that said, what does this case mean in your opinion for the future of state aid?

Ruth Mason 26:23

Well, I think it's hard to say until we start getting some decisions by the EU's higher court, the Court of Justice. But I'm a U.S. professor. I'm an outsider to EU law. But over the last few years, I've been to a bunch of conferences and dinners with Europeans where the view is expressed that the EU courts would have to affirm these decisions. Even the real outlier decision of Apple, outlier in the sense that it's not supported by precedent, the reason for this was political necessity. This is what the commission really wanted. It was what the powerful member states wanted. And to some extent it's what European voters wanted. So as an outsider, I'm comforted when I see the EU's lower court walking carefully through the law and the precedent and not making a decision that's obviously politically motivated because we have seen those decisions in Europe. We've seen them made in anticipation of cases that might challenge the legality of digital services taxes. And those decisions, I'm thinking of the Hungarian turnover tax cases, the reasoning in this case is thin. But what we end up with is just an unenviable win-loss record for the commission in these cases. It lost Starbucks. It lost Amazon. And most importantly, it lost Apple. These losses don't mean though that transfer pricing is not a vector of state aid. It just means that the way the commission is pursuing that as a course of argument has so far been unsuccessful. And I have academic papers about how the commission could look to the U.S. Supreme Court, which applies a similar law for a simpler, more logical, more predictable approach. That's something for the future. But in the meantime, I'm at least heartened by how the lower EU court has really taken the commission to task. Equally important here, I think is what Amazon doesn't say. So for example, it doesn't say anything about what I've called in Tax Notes — right? — the sui generis arm's-length standard. This is the idea that the Commission can apply its own arm's-length standard, not withstanding whatever the domestic law of a member state says. So Amazon wasn't about that issue. It didn't say anything about that issue. So we have to wait. We have to wait also for decisions of the Court of Justice to tell us what the prohibition of state aid is for when it comes to tax cases. Right? So we know that in other areas of law, the prohibition of state aid has been interpreted to prevent member states from interfering with private competition, competition among private enterprises. But there's been a suggestion by the commission that in the tax area it's also about preventing tax competition among the member states. And that's something we don't get a clear answer on. We haven't gotten a clear answer yet from the EU courts on that.

Jasper B. Smith 29:13

I appreciate your insight. Very nice explanation. We look forward to seeing what comes of it and hope you are there to write for us again on the matter. Before we let you go, where can listeners find you online?

Ruth Mason 29:26

Well, they can find lots of my papers online on the Tax Analysts website. I think this is my ninth paper for you guys on article on state aid and nearly all of my academic work is available for free on SSRN and I'm on Twitter @ProfRuthMason.

Jasper B. Smith 29:45

Wonderful, and thank you again, Ruth, for coming on the podcast with us today.

Ruth Mason 29:49

Thanks a lot. It was fun .

Jasper B. Smith 29:50

As Ruth mentioned, you can find all of her articles online at taxnotes.com and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel Tax Analysts for more 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 D. Stewart 30:07

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 at 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.