Quit Dodging the Issue and Tell Us the Revenue-Maximizing Point on the Laffer Curve

by Dan Mitchell | May 19, 2013 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation

I feel like I’m on the witness stand and I’m being badgered by a hostile lawyers. Readers keep asking me to identify the revenue-maximizing point on the Laffer Curve. But I don’t like that question. In the past, I’ve explained that the growth-maximizing point on the...

OECD Study Admits Income Taxes Penalize Growth, Acknowledges that Tax Competition Restrains Excessive Government

by Dan Mitchell | May 17, 2013 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation

I have to start this post with a big caveat. I’m not a fan of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The international bureaucracy is infamous for using American tax dollars to promote a statist economic agenda. Most recently, it...

Why the So-Called Marketplace Fairness Act Is a Misguided Expansion of Power for State Governments

by Dan Mitchell | May 8, 2013 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation

I’m either a total optimist or a glutton for punishment. I recently explained the benefits of “tax havens” for the unfriendly readers of the New York Times. Now I’m defending a different form of tax competition for CNN, another news outlet that leans left. In this...

If the Government Doesn’t Double Tax Your Retirement Savings, Are You Benefitting from an Entitlement?

by Dan Mitchell | May 8, 2013 | Uncategorized

I’ve cited some remarkable examples of Orwellian language abuse. The World Bank published a study of national tax systems and countries with higher tax burdens were rewarded with a grade of “high effort.” A German bureaucrat accused a Czech politician of  “obstructing...

New European Data: When Tax Competition Is Weakened, Politicians Respond by Increasing Tax Rates

by Dan Mitchell | May 4, 2013 | Blogs, Financial Privacy, Tax Competition, Taxation

I often argue that we need to preserve tax competition and tax havens in order to limit the greed of the political class. Without some sort of external constraint, they will over-tax and over-spend, creating the kind of downward economic spiral already happening in...