National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson spoke to law students at Villanova University at an event sponsored by the Tax Law Society and the Women’s Law Caucus. A Pennsylvania native, Ms. Olson spoke about her unorthodox career path as a private practitioner, business-owner, social entrepreneur and public advocate.

The following day, Nina Olson participated in a colloquium on Tax and the Sharing Economy hosted at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Generally, the “sharing economy” refers to the sharing of underutilized assets in ways that improve efficiency, sustainability and community. Well-known examples include Airbnb, Uber and Lyft.  

This colloquium brought together leading tax scholars from across the country to examine and debate the complexities of tax and the sharing economy. Colloquium was moderated by Villanova Law professors Les Book and Joy Mullane, and included the following participants:

• Shu-Yi Oei, Associate Professor, Boston College Law School
• Nina E. Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate
• Gregg D. Polsky, Francis Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law, University of Georgia School of Law
• Diane M. Ring, Professor and Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar, Boston College Law School
• Manoj Viswanathan, Associate Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of Law

This gathering of renowned scholars fostered free-flowing discussion on topics such as:

• the benefit of the Section 199A deduction for “Qualified Business Income” of pass-through entities;
• the application of “reasonable compensation” requirement to S-corporations and sole proprietorships;
• the macro-level impact on worker classification as a result of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act; and
• recommendations to improve tax compliance from the sector of taxpayers involved in the sharing economy.  

Source: taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov