Warren Buffett once said that it wasn’t right for his secretary to have a higher tax rate than he faced, leading me to point out that he didn’t understand tax policy. The 15 percent tax rates on dividends and capital gains to which he presumably was referring represents double taxation, and when added to the tax that already […]

I’m dumbfounded and amazed. When Democrats and Republicans have a game of chicken, the GOP blinks 99 percent of the time. And I thought for sure this was going to happen in the fight about whether to extend all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (the GOP position), or whether to impose a big, class-warfare tax […]

Thanks to the Obamacare legislation, we already know there will be a new 3.9 percent payroll tax on all investment income earned by so-called rich taxpayers beginning in 2013. And the capital gains tax rate will jump to 20 percent next year if the President gets his way. This sounds bad (and it is), but the news […]

Kevin Hassett and Alan VIard of the American Enterprise Institute have a column in the Wall Street Journal showing how Obama’s proposed tax hikes will impose significant harm on small business owners and other entrepreneurs. Higher tax rates are damaging for the obvious reason that business cash flow gets diverted to the IRS, but also because […]

Two things struck me about this debate. First, the guy from the Center for American Progress was either clueless or dishonest about double taxation. Second, nobody seems to understand that balancing the budget is a simple matter of restraining the growth of government spending. I want deep cuts, but that’s not even necessary.

In a very predictable editorial this morning, the New York Times pontificated in favor of higher taxes. Compared to Paul Krugman’s rant earlier in the week, which featured the laughable assertion that letting people keep more of the money they earn is akin to sending them a check from the government, the piece seemed rational. But […]

It’s hard to believe that anybody would classify the Germans as a master race after reading this Spiegel article. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have a nutty (but at least non-coercive) plan for rich people to give away a big share of their fortunes. The German billionaires are rejecting this plan. But not because they […]

With the public unconvinced of the wisdom of soaking the rich, the latest hot idea floating around in statist circles is not to soak the rich, but rather the really, super-duper, ultra rich. In a class-warfare filled screed, James Surowiecki wrote in the New Yorker on the need to “Soak the Very, Very Rich.” A […]

Caroline Baum of Bloomberg has an excellent column explaining why soak-the-rich taxes don’t work. Simply stated, wealthy people are not like you and me. They have tremendous control over the timing, composition, and level of their income. When the rich are hit with higher tax rates, they adjust their behavior and protect themselves by reducing […]

I have a column in today’s New York Post about Obama’s plan for higher taxes next year. My main point is that higher tax rates on the so-called rich have a very negative impact on the rest of us because even small reductions in economic growth have a big impact over time. This is a […]