by Dan Mitchell | Jan 18, 2011 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Tax Havens, Taxation
I’m not a big fan of the Internal Revenue Service, but I try not to demonize the bureaucrats because politicians actually deserve most of the blame for America’s complex, unfair, and corrupt tax system. The IRS generally is in the unenviable position of simply trying...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 9, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
I sympathize with almost all taxpayers, but it’s difficult to feel sorry for government workers who get in trouble with the IRS. Compensation packages for federal bureaucrats are twice as lucrative as those for workers in the productive sector of the economy and their...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 2, 2010 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Tax Harmonization, Tax Havens, Taxation
Here’s a Reuters story about the Australian Tax Office harassing Paul Hogan, better known to Americans as Crocodile Dundee, because of a tax dispute. The grinches at the tax office took advantage of Hogan’s return for his mother’s funeral to hold him hostage, refusing...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 29, 2010 | Blogs, Taxation
In the private sector, no business owner would be dumb enough to assume that higher prices automatically translate into proportionately higher revenues. If McDonald’s boosted hamburger prices by 30 percent, for instance, the experts at the company would fully expect...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 29, 2010 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
I know I’ve beaten this drum several times before, but the Wall Street Journal today has a very good explanation of why class-warfare tax policy will backfire. The Journal’s editorial focuses on what happened after the 2003 tax rate reductions. And below the excerpt,...