Taxes

Inequality, Taxes

Rates 

If the candidates’ solutions for ending corporate inversions seem unnecessarily complex, their cure for income inequality is unlikely to produce the desired results. In a recent Brookings Institution paper entitled, “Would a Significant Increase in the Top Income Tax Rate Substantially Alter Income Inequality?,” economists William G. Gale, Melissa S. Kearney and Peter R. Orszag answer, no. Or, in their own words: “An increase in the top tax rate leads to an almost imperceptible reduction in overall income inequality, even if the additional revenue is explicitly redistributed.”

Via Raising Top Tax Rates Won’t Cure Income Inequality @ Economics21.

Taxes

The Taxman 

In total, Sanders would raise taxes by about $15.3 trillion over the course a decade, according to an analysis from the Tax Policy Center, via more than two dozen different tax hikes. And although Sanders tax hikes would be concentrated amongst high earners, just about everyone would pay more.

This would substantially cut average incomes. Sanders would raise the average tax burden in the country by about $9,000, and decrease after-tax income by about 12.4 percent, according to TPC’s estimate. Extremely wealthy people would bear the brunt of the hike, with the richest 0.1 percent paying about $3 million more in 2017 than they would with no changes—equal to nearly half (45 percent) of their average pre-tax income of $6.9 million.

But the middle class would face a significant tax hike too: with those in the middle quintile of the income range facing a tax increase of about $4,700, resulting in an average decrease in after-tax income of about 8.5 percent.

That’s worth repeating: With Sanders’ plans in place, middle-class earners would face a nearly 9 percent loss in after-tax income.

Via Bernie Sanders’ Political Revolution Is a $15 Trillion Tax Hike @ Hit & Run : Reason.com

Economy, Taxes

The Insidious Tax

Conservatives, libertarians, and other advocates of limited government have consistently argued that we should never allow Washington to have a broad-based consumption tax unless the 16th Amendment is first replaced by new language that makes it clear — even to John Roberts and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — that an income tax never again would be allowed to plague the nation.

Via No to the Value-Added Tax @ Cato.

Business, Economics, Taxes

Adam Smith, right again

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Adam Smith, right again, via
Acton PowerBlog.

Business, Taxes

Guess who likes carbon taxes

“On the surface such advocacy may seem counter-intuitive. Why on earth, other than out of selfless benevolence, would a firm (or group of firms) advocate for higher taxes on their products? But on reflection, it makes some sense, and the reasoning is similar to why an online retailer like Amazon might be in favor of…

Courts, Federal Government, Government Spending, Law, ObamaCare, Taxes

Federal Subsidies Survive to Tax Another Day

“Obamacare’s subsidies will live, thanks to the Supreme Court.

The High Court has ruled 6-3 in favor of the administration to uphold the subsidies in Obamacare’s federal exchanges. The case challenged the administration’s decision, through the Internal Revenue Service, to allow subsidies in the 36 exchanges run by the federal government under the law….”

Via Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare Subsidies in King v. Burwell @ Hit & Run : Reason.com.

Crony Capitalism, Taxes

Congress Rigs the Tax Code for Its Friends

Lower taxes for some, but certainly not all: Many of the provisions strike us as outright cronyism – whether subsidizing alternative energy or giving privileged treatment to industries like Hollywood and NASCAR. Even some of the more well-intentioned measures bring with them baleful consequences, such as tax credits for college tuition that have the practical…

Taxes

Tax Breaks

Tax breaks – expenditures, by one way of thinking — mean trillions in lost revenue – but that means higher overall rates:

Crime, Federal Government, Law, Misconduct, Taxes

She’ll take the Fifth

IRS official Lois Lerner, very much at the center of the scandal over selective scrutiny of conservatives’ tax-exemption applications, plans to exercise her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when she testifies before Congress. There are two ways to consider her exercise of that right. First and foremost, she’s entitled to do so, and as a…

Federal Government, Misconduct, Taxes

Recourse against the IRS

Internal Revenue Service bias against Tea Party groups’ applications for tax- exempt status won’t simply be a talk-show topic: unfairly denied or delayed applicants are readying to sue: Jordan Sekulow, policy director of conservative public interest law firm the American Center for Law and Justice, said he will be taking legal action against the IRS…

Taxes

Shakespeare: He Didn’t Want to Fund the State, Either

Confiscatory tax policies aren’t just burdensome to the working class, but to artists, too: Uncertainty over the likely future success of his plays led William Shakespeare to do “all he could to avoid taxes,” new research by scholars at Aberystwyth University has claimed. The collaborative paper: “Reading with the Grain: Sustainability and the Literary Imagination,”…

Business, Taxes

Google v. The Tax Man

Google’s doing what it can to avoid taxation by foreign nations. Good for them: their shareholders and customers needn’t help bail out foreign governments’ fiscal failures, or subsidize their wasteful public projects. Via Ars Technica.

Banking & Finance, Cato, Government Spending, Taxes

How Government Discourages Savings

One often hears that Americans don’t save enough, but why is that? For a few, it’s probably the consequence of spending too much, conspicuously, to keep up appearances. For most people, though, that’s not true: the percentage of lavish, status-conscious spenders is a small part of most communities. One of the reasons Americans don’t save…

Business, Crony Capitalism, Economy, Government Spending, Taxes

A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism

Even in a small and struggling city like Whitewater, Wisconsin (pop. 14,622), big business expects subsidies from taxpayers. Originally posted at FREE WHITEWATER on 4.13.12 — Multi-city Generac, a large industrial concern, wants government money — federal, state, local — for a bus line to bring workers from the Janesville-Beloit area to its plant in…