Border Adjustment Taxes, Tax Reform and Trade

Featuring

Panel 1

Gordon Gray, American Action Forum

 Dan Mitchell, CATO

John Veroneau, Covington & Burling LLP

Moderator: Catherine Schultz, National Foreign Trade Council

Panel 2

Rachelle Bernstein, National Retail Federation

Janet Boyd, Dow

Brian Reardon, advisor to the coalition of US exporters

supporting the Border Tax Adjustment proposal

Rick Woldenberg, Learning Resources

Moderator: Timothy J. Keeler, Mayer Brown

Panel 1

Gordon Gray is the Director of Fiscal Policy at The American Action Forum. Prior to joining the Forum, he served as senior policy advisor to Senator Rob Portman, and also served as policy director during Senator Portman’s campaign. Prior to joining the campaign, he was a professional staff member for the Senate Budget Committee, and before that was deputy director of domestic and economic policy for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. He also spent several years with the American Enterprise Institute.

Dan Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review. Prior to joining Cato, Mitchell was a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation, and an economist for Senator Bob Packwood and the Senate Finance Committee. His work has been published in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Villanova Law Review, Public Choice, Emory Law Journal, Forbes, USA Today, Offshore Investment, Playboy, and Investor’s Business Daily. He has appeared on all the major TV networks, and has given speeches in almost 40 states and more than 30 countries. Mitchell earned a PhD in economics from George Mason University.

John Veroneau is a partner at Covington & Burling LLP, a Washington, DC-based global law firm.  His practice focuses on international trade law matters, and he chairs the firm’s public policy practice group. He has served in Senate-confirmed positions in Republican and Democratic Administrations. Under President Bush, he was Deputy United States Trade Representative (USTR) and USTR General Counsel.  Under President Clinton, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs. Mr. Veroneau was Legislative Director to former US Senator Bill Cohen, Legislative Director to former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Chief of Staff to US Senator Susan Collins. He earned his B.A. from the University of Maine and his J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law.

Catherine Schultz is the Vice President for Tax Policy at the National Foreign Trade Council.  Her responsibilities include international tax policy including legislative, regulatory, non-U.S. tax policy, administration, and tax treaty activity. Prior to joining the NFTC, she was a Principal at Capital Strategies Group, LLC, where she represented client interests on pending tax legislation and served as a legislative advocate on international taxation, research and development, depreciation and capital gains. Ms. Schultz participates in the OECD Technical Advisory Group on the taxation of cross-border services under the VAT, and is a member of the International Fiscal Association. She is on the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute’s Basics of International Taxation program.

Panel 2

Rachelle Bernstein is Vice President and Tax Counsel at the National Retail Federation (NRF) as of June 2004. As such, Rachelle is the principal lobbyist for the NRF on tax policy matters, interacting with members of Congress and their staff, Treasury Department and IRS officials on behalf of the retail industry.  Rachelle also staffs the NRF’s Taxation Committee, made up of the tax directors for the nation’s largest retailers. In addition to advocating for members on tax policy matters, Rachelle serves as a liaison with the IRS’ Retail Industry Group. In this capacity, Rachelle works to negotiate solutions on industry-wide matters that will ease the tax compliance burden for the retail industry. Rachelle also serves as a spokesperson for the NRF in dealing with the media on tax-related issues. Prior to joining the NRF, Rachelle spent 18 years in the National Offices of two large public accounting firms.  From 1986 to 2002, Rachelle managed the legislative services group for Arthur Andersen, being promoted from manager to participating principal during her tenure with the firm.  In that capacity, she managed the analysis and distribution of information on tax legislative and regulatory matters to Andersen’s tax practice and clients. In addition, she provided legislative and regulatory lobbying services to clients.  In 2002, Rachelle joined Deloitte & Touche as a director in the Tax Policy Services Group of the Washington National Tax Office. At D&T, Rachelle’s responsibilities included working with clients on international tax legislative issues and representing retail industry clients on tax legislative and regulatory matters.  Rachelle was a tax advisor to the NRF during the last 13 years that she was in public accounting. During that time, she was involved in preparing testimony on legislation or comments on IRS regulations with respect to every major tax policy proposal that affected the retail industry. She also led several successful industry efforts to limit the scope of IRS coordinated attacks on retail tax issues. From 1981 to 1986, Rachelle worked in the Tax Policy Center of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, heading that group from 1984 through 1986, during the development of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.  Rachelle lobbied on behalf of the Chamber on tax legislative and regulatory proposals affecting both large and small businesses, interacting with senior Treasury Department officials, members of Congress and the media.  Her responsibilities included staffing the Chamber’s Taxation Committee, made up of the heads of tax departments for the nation’s largest companies and interacting with the Chamber’s Board of Directors to develop Chamber positions on tax policy initiatives.  From 1978 to 1981, Rachelle practiced tax law with two Washington, D.C. law firms. Rachelle is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University College of Law.  She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. She is a past chair of the AICPA’s Tax Legislation and Policy Committee, and she served on an AICPA/ABA/TEI Task Force on Tax Simplification.  Rachelle is a founding member of The Tax Coalition.

Janet Boyd is Director of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel for The Dow Chemical Company.  Before joining Dow, Janet was a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, L.L.P., representing clients on a variety of tax policy issues.  She graduated from the University of Texas with a BJ degree and the George Washington University National Law Center, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Tax Committee of the American Bar Association.  She is a member of the Tax Council Board, and Chair of the American Chemistry Council’s Budget, Appropriations and Tax Subcommittee. She is also the immediate past President of the Charities Aid Foundation America, a charitable organization that operates a multimillion dollar program facilitating giving by corporations and individuals worldwide and current President of its sister organization, CAF Canada.

Brian Reardon is a Senior Advisor at Venn Strategies. He previously served as a special assistant to President George W. Bush for economic policy, where he was the principal tax aide at the President’s National Economic Council. Prior to serving on the White House staff, Mr. Reardon was staff director and chief economist for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Mr. Reardon has also been lead tax lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and an aide to Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI). At Venn, Mr. Reardon works to ensure that Venn’s clients have market moving information first; that economic policies are fully understood by Congress and that tax, energy, and health care policy encourages investment. Mr. Reardon has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University and a bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College.

Rick Woldenberg is CEO of Learning Resources, Inc., a 150-employee manufacturer of educational materials and educational toys based in Vernon Hills, Illinois with offices in Gardena, California and Kings Lynn, England.  Rick joined the company in 1990 as a member of the third generation in his family business, and has served as CEO for nearly 20 years. Rick recently started a blog: www.BorderAdjustmentTax.com. Prior to joining LR, Rick worked as an attorney in Chicago.  Rick holds a B.S.E. from Princeton University and a J.D. from University of Chicago.

Timothy J. Keeler is an attorney in the Government and International Trade Group, joined Mayer Brown in 2009, and brings an in-depth knowledge of international trade law and economic policy matters, and a history of working in the Executive Branch and Congress on major economic, legislative and regulatory issues. Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Tim served in a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Government for almost 12 years. Most recently he was the Chief of Staff in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) from 2006 – 2009, where he oversaw implementation of U.S. policy, strategy and negotiations involving all aspects of international trade and investment matters. He worked on a number of key issues including: climate change and trade; US and China relations; WTO negotiations and litigation; free trade agreement negotiations and implementation; and CFIUS decisions. In recognition of his government service, Tim was awarded the USTR Distinguished Service Award, the Treasury Distinguished Service Award, and the Treasury Secretary’s Honor Award twice.