Topic: Taxation

Tax Day: Inverting the Experience

“Tax season’s sophisticated sleight-of-hand will have most Americans wondering what they’ll buy with their refund, instead of questioning whether they saw results for all the dollars they won’t get back.” ~ Laura Williams

The Tax Code: A Playground for the Few, A Labyrinth for the Many

“The tax code’s complexity has created an environment in which tax-preparation services, lobbyists, favored industries, and politicians thrive, while taxpayers struggle to make sense of ever-changing rules and regulations.” ~ Antony Davies

Direct Democracy in the United States: Petitioners as a Reflection of Society

Tax Strike!

“For political reasons, the beefed-up IRS probably will not cause serious trouble until processing 2024 returns in 2025. Unless, that is, taxpayers rebel the only way they still can, via the electoral process, starting with candidate selection.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Let’s Cut the Budget Nonsense

“The Biden administration’s goal seems to be to spend lots of money on new unnecessary programs or failing existing programs, and to pay for it with yet more debt and with novel taxes likely to fall more heavily on middle class Americans and small businesses than on big corporations or the rich.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Why Progressive Taxes Are Especially Harmful to Productivity and Harm the Poor

“‘Progressive’ taxes impose a particularly strong disincentive for more productive work. Depriving the economy of greater productivity curtails the alleviation of poverty, and as a result disproportionately harms the poor.” ~ Brian Balfour

The Biden Budget: Smoke, Mirrors, and Class Warfare

“Beyond tired class warfare rhetoric and anti-competitive measures, the Biden administration is attempting to increase not only the size of the state (through more taxing and spending), but also the scope of the state, through misguided commercial and industrial policy.” ~ Nikolai G. Wenzel

What To Do About Deficits, Debt

“When it comes to fiscal follies, this time is different. Let’s not pass the buck. Instead, let’s make the necessary sacrifices to ensure the long-run integrity of the United States. Let’s plant the trees.” ~ Alexander William Salter

Taxation in the Data Economy: The ‘Invisible’ Competition

“It remains to be seen whether data experts and policymakers will come up with a tax that encapsulates ‘fairness, certainty, convenience, and efficiency’ as Adam Smith argued for, but each idea is worth hearing in today’s data-governed market.” ~ Virginia Fournari & April Liu

Taxes, Special Privileges, and “Private Enterprise”

“Income, corporation, and capital-gains taxes are taxes on the general welfare. Also harmful to the public welfare are protective tariffs and similar restrictions on how people may peacefully spend their own money.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Is Wokeness the New Sumptuary Laws?

“A truly free and socially-egalitarian society will reject sumptuary taxes, no matter what form they take. Awake to the woke, and reject how it’s spoke.” ~ Anthony Gill

Income Distribution and Inequality

“Invariably, however, the proposed solution to any form of income inequality has been an indiscriminate and highly punitive progressive tax on all income and wealth, regardless of how it was earned.” ~ Robert F. Mulligan