The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year, which means a big tax increase in 2011. Tax rates for all brackets will increase, the double tax on dividends will skyrocket from 15 percent to 39.6 percent, the child credit will shrink, the…
Daily Analysis
Another Sad Example of Mitchell’s Law
I’ve decided my one legacy to the world is the phrase, “Bad government policy begets more bad government policy.” This term, which I am modestly calling Mitchell’s Law, describes what happens when government intervention (Fannie and Freddie, for example, or Medicare…
Taxes Are for the Little People, not John Kerry
In the future, all dictionary publishers should get rid of their existing definitions for “hypocrisy” and replace them with a photo of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. He’s just been caught committing the horrible sin of saving his family more than $500,000 by…
Democrat Tax Cutters?
The Wall Street Journal ponders the mini-tax revolt among some Democrats, ranging from Kent Conrad in the Senate to Jerrold Nadler in the House, who are suddenly making arguments that it would be a bad idea to allow higher tax rates in 2011 (because the 2001 and 2003…
One Fish, Two Fish, High Tax, Low Tax
With apologies to Dr. Seuss, maybe that will be the name of a future book I’ll write about the anti-competitive impact of high tax rates. And one of my chapters will be about what we can learn from the states. Richard Rahn’s column in the Washington Times reviews some…
The Joint Committee on Taxation’s Voodoo Economics
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial this morning on the obscure – but critically important – issue of measuring what happens to tax revenue in response to changes in tax policy. This is sometimes known as the dynamic scoring vs static scoring debate and…
Good News from Romania
Redistributionists hate the flat tax, and this sentiment is widely shared by other statists. These proponents of big government want the tax system to to punish success and generate loot that can be used to buy votes (though they don’t seem to understand that if they…
Americans Voting with their Feet to Escape Obama Tax Oppression
The Financial Times reports that the number of Americans giving up their citizenship to protect their families from America’s onerous worldwide tax system has jumped rapidly. Even relatively high-tax nations such as the United Kingdom are attractive compared to the…
Forget LeBron, the U.K.’s Crazy Tax Laws Are Chasing Away the World’s Fastest Man
The tax benefits of LeBron James’ move to Miami have received a lot of attention, but there’s an even more interesting case on the other side of the Atlantic. The tax laws in the United Kingdom are so punitive that Usain Bolt might actually lose money if he took a big…
Jousting on MSNBC (with a libertarian host?)
This MSNBC interview was halfway through before I got a chance to talk, so I was beginning to think I was a victim of bias, but then the host mentioned Greece degenerating like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged. I’m not sure what to think, but I did get in some good shots…