Taxation
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Economists Should First Do No Harm
We ought to attack the true root cause of inequality — that is, rent-seeking. This is far more productive than redistributing the rents that the rent-seekers captured.
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The Amazon Deal Was An Outrage From the Beginning
There is never any good reason for government to subsidize a private company. Such handouts are appalling in their cronyism, in addition to being a sign of economic ignorance.
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The Real History of the American Income Tax
Income tax history provides many lessons on both the effects and perils of high rates.
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These Shutdowns Devastate the Credibility of Government
The problem is not a single program or regulation. It’s the complete paradigm of a state that knows no limits to its power. That paradigm has gradually faded. Another will take its place.
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These Inequality Statistics are Fishy
Given the high levels of uncertainty surrounding inequality measurement and ongoing improvements to each technique, common sense should caution us against adopting a sweeping tax code overhaul based on such an ambiguous and disputed statistical record.
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Why A Carbon Tax Won’t Work in the Real World
Carbon taxes may sound like an efficiency improvement in the abstract, but their political implementation is a mess.
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Targeted Tax Incentives: Perverse and Ineffective
Often firms that receive these targeted incentives are subject to little or no accountability, and they rarely create the number of jobs or the hourly wage rates they promise.
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The Sneaky Ways that the Democratic House Can Raise Taxes
The Democrats who just took control of the House of Representatives have already implemented changes to House rules so that if they decide to act on Ocasio-Cortez’s idea to jack up the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent, no procedural obstructions will block their way.
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France’s and Austria’s Digital Taxes Will Only Hurt Consumers
While people in France and Austria might not be completely aware that this added tax will actually hurt them in the long run, authorities in those two countries should be reminded that the digital tax is nothing but an additional burden on the consumer; pretending the plan is about fairness will not fly.
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The Incredible Delusion of the 70% Tax Rate
The collapse in confidence in government from 77% to 18% is one of the most striking changes in public philosophy of the last half century. To proceed as if this means nothing represents astonishing ideological blindness.
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The Rich Never Actually Paid 70 Percent
The historical narrative we’ve been hearing is both simplistic and wrong. It relies upon a confusion between the statutory tax rate (i.e., the number that’s on the statute books) and the effective tax rate (i.e., the percentage of income that people actually pay once exemptions, deductions, and other tax-code incentives are accounted for).
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GoFundMe for a Government Program?
The GoFundMe campaign for the wall illustrates both the possibilities and the limitations of relying on voluntary revenue collection. Private efforts might be able to collect the money they need, but they will not and should not obtain the powers that government possesses to take away the people’s liberty and property.
