by Dan Mitchell | Aug 14, 2013 | Blogs, Taxation
As a fiscal policy economist, one of my responsibilities is to educate policy makers about the impact of taxation. Simply stated, I try to help them understand that taxes alter behavior. If you tax something at a higher rate, you get less of whatever is being taxed....
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 13, 2013 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Taxation
It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the United States has the world’s worst corporate tax system. We definitely have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and we may have the highest corporate tax rate in the entire world depending on how...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 10, 2013 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
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...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 7, 2013 | Blogs, Economics
Yesterday, Part I of this series looked at what motivates Barack Obama. We reviewed a Kevin Williamson column that made a strong case that Obama is an ends-justifies-the-means statist. Today, we’re going to look at the President’s approach to economic policy and we’ll...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 4, 2013 | Blogs, Economics, Tax Competition, Tax Havens, Taxation
I like tax havens for the simple reason that we need some ways of restraining the greed of the political class. Simply stated, if profligate politicians think that we are “captive customers,” they are much more likely to impose (even) higher tax rates (as we’ve seen...
