Commenting on Supercommittee deliberations last month, I asked whether Republicans will choose the real budgetary savings of a sequester or surrender to a tax hike. Well, it appears that the GOP likes being known as the Stupid Party and is seriously considering a plan…
Daily Analysis
A Lesson on the Laffer Curve for Barack Obama
One of my frustrating missions in life is to educate policy makers on the Laffer Curve. This means teaching folks on the left that tax policy affects incentives to earn and report taxable income. As such, I try to explain, this means it is wrong to assume a simplistic…
Forget the Moochers on Wall Street, Shareholders Should Occupy Washington
Most of us are aware that America has a punitive corporate tax system, but here’s a sobering bit of analysis. Corporations pay more money to governments than they do to their shareholders. Here’s a chart from a recent Tax Foundation analysis. Now here’s something even…
CF&P Warnings on OECD Confirmed by New Study
Dr. Andrew P. Morriss of the University of Alabama and Lotta Moberg of George Mason University have produced a new paper titled, ““Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign Against ‘Harmful Tax Competition’,” which thoroughly documents the…
Humorous Halloween Tax Video
In what will probably become an annual tradition, here is the Halloween tax video I posted last year. The last 30 seconds of the three-minute video actually contain some very good economics, roughly akin to this classic cartoon. Yes, incentives matter. And since it is…
CF&P Objections to IRS Regulation Take Center Stage at Congressional Hearing
Fighting the revival of a decades-old proposal that would drive much needed foreign capital out of the US, CF&P has aggressively laid out the case against the regulation to require reporting of non-resident alien deposit interest information to the IRS, an action…
Tim “Turbotax” Geithner Has a British Soulmate
The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is infamous for conveniently forgetting to pay tax on $80,000 of income and then getting kid-glove treatment from the IRS when his crime was uncovered. Not only did Geithner avoid even a slap on the wrist, he was confirmed…
Kudos to Obama Administration for Fighting Extraterritorial European Tax Scheme
I don’t often have reason to praise the White House. But the Administration occasionally winds up fighting on the right side when dealing with the statists on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I lauded the Obama Administration two years ago when the Treasury…
Grading Perry’s Flat Tax: Some Missing Homework, but a Solid B+
Governor Rick Perry of Texas has announced a plan, which he outlines in today’s Wall Street Journal, to replace the corrupt and inefficient internal revenue code with a flat tax. Let’s review his proposal, using the principles of good tax policy as a benchmark. 1….
Cain’s 9-9-9 Tax Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Actually, the title of this post should probably read, “The Good, Good, Good, Bad, and the Ugly.” That’s because Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan has low tax rates, it eliminates double taxation, and it wipes out loopholes, and those are three very big and very good…