This article appeared in Thomson Reuters Accelus.

What do cigarettes and capital gains have in common? Well, they both start with the same letter, so maybe the Cookie Monster could incorporate them into his favorite song, but I’m thinking about something else. Specifically, both cigarettes and capital gains tell us something important about tax policy, the Laffer Curve, and the limits of political bullying. […]

I don’t like international bureaucracies because they generally push for policies that expand the burden of government and undermine economic growth. But I recognize that there are some good people who work at these institutions and I’m always willing to acknowledge when they publish good research. The IMF said that Greece had reached the tipping point where […]

It’s a bad idea when governments demand information on your bank accounts and investments so they can impose economically destructive double taxation. It’s a worse idea when they also demand the right to tax economic activity in other jurisdictions (otherwise known as “worldwide taxation“). And it’s the worst possible development when governments decide that they should impose […]

The worst part of the tax code is something most Americans have likely never heard of.

Poor marks for the U.S. tax code, bad anti-“tax haven” legislation in Maine, and tax competition lessons for European nations.

I realize this may be a thought crime by DC standards, but it sure would be nice to eliminate the high tax rates that undermine economic growth and reduce American competitiveness. At the risk of sharing too much information, I fantasize about a world without the internal revenue code. In addition to getting rid of high tax rates, […]

I’ll be first in line if there’s a contest over who thinks most strongly thatpoliticians are corrupt, or whether they can waste money in creative ways. But if somebody asserts that politicians are stupid, I’m going to argue on the other side. This isn’t because I’m a fan of elected officials. Far from it. However, having […]

President Obama promised he would unite the world…and he’s right. Representatives from dozens of nations have bitterly complained about an awful piece of legislation, called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), that was enacted back in 2010. They despise this unjust law because it extends the power of the IRS into the domestic affairs […]

I’m thinking of inventing a game, sort of a fiscal version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Only the way it will work is that there will be a map of the world and the winner will be the blindfolded person who puts their pin closest to a nation such as Australia or Switzerland […]