by Dan Mitchell | Jan 1, 2021 | Blogs, Taxation, Trade
Yesterday was my review of the best and worst policy developments in 2020. Today, I’ll share my hopes and fears for 2021. These are not predictions (economists have a terrible track record when try to make forecasts). Instead, these are merely good and bad things that...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 24, 2020 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
I don’t like higher taxes, whether looking at levies on income, capital gains, payroll, death, or consumption. But if asked to identify the worst way of hiking taxes, the wealth tax might lead the list because of the economic damage caused per dollar collected. If you...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 23, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
Public finance experts sometime differ in how to describe a value-added tax. Is it a hidden form of a national sales tax, imposed at each stage of the production process? Is it a hidden withholding tax on income, imposed at each stage of the production process? Both...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 16, 2020 | Blogs, Taxation
In Part I of this series, I expressed some optimism that Joe Biden would not aggressively push his class-warfare tax plan, particularly since Republicans almost certainly will wind up controlling the Senate. But the main goal of that column was to explain that the...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 13, 2020 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
During the campaign, Joe Biden proposed a massive tax increase, far beyond what either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton put forth when they ran for the White House. Some people speculate that Biden isn’t actually that radical, and that his class-warfare agenda was...