I generally get very suspicious when rich people start pontificating on tax policy. People like Warren Buffett, for instance, sometimes advocate higher taxes because they’re trying to curry favor with the political elite. Or maybe they feel compelled to say silly things to demonstrate that they feel guilty about their wealth. Regardless, I don’t like their policy proposal (as […]
read more...An underwhelming proposal.
read more...Back in the 1960s, Clint Eastwood starred in a movie entitled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I was thinking that might be a good title for today’s post about some new research by Michelle Harding, a tax economist for the OECD. But then I realized that her study on “Taxation of Dividend, Interest, […]
read more...Even though I’m a big fan of tax reform, I explained back in June that I’m not very comfortable with the “blank slate” tax reform plan put forth by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). My main gripe is that they start with the assumption that there should be more double taxation of […]
read more...As a long-time advocate of tax reform, I’m not a fan of distortionary loopholes in the tax code. Ideally, we would junk the 74,000-page internal revenue code and replace it with a simple and fair flat tax – meaning one low rate, no double taxation, and no favoritism.* The right kind of tax reform would […]
read more...The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P) released today its latest “Economics 101” video, which analyzes the President’s divisive approach to tax policy. Entitled, “Obamanomics: Class Warfare vs Pro-Growth Tax Policy,” the video explains what’s wrong with the President’s approach and offers a pro-growth alternative.
read more...Even though he promised to bring Americans together, President Obama has used class-warfare tax policy to persecute and demonize successful entrepreneurs and investors. This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains why the tax code shouldn’t be used for anything other than fairly and neutrally collecting a minimum amount of revenue to fund the legitimate functions of the federal government.
read more...In previous posts, I put together tutorials on the Laffer Curve, tax competition, and the economics of government spending. Today, we’re going to look at the issue of tax reform. The focus will be the flat tax, but this analysis applies equally to national sales tax systems such as the Fair Tax. There are three […]
read more...My friends at Americans for Tax Reform have received a bunch of attention for a new report entitled “Win Olympic Gold, Pay the IRS.” In this clever document, they reveal that athletes could face a tax bill – to those wonderful folks at the IRS – of nearly $9,000 thanks to America’s unfriendly worldwide tax […]
read more...Considering that every economic theory agrees that living standards and worker compensation are closely correlated with the amount of capital in an economy (this picture is a compelling illustration of the relationship), one would think that politicians – particularly those who say they want to improve wages – would be very anxious not to create […]
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