Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

IMF Fiscal Monitor: Progressive Taxation Need Not Deter Growth The latest from the IMF is a must read for progressives even if it runs contrary to the nonsense coming out of the White House: At the global level, inequality has declined substantially over the past three decades, but within national boundaries, the picture is mixed: some countries have experienced a reduction in inequality while others, particularly advanced economies, have seen a...

Does Kevin Hassett Understand Transfer Pricing? Howard Gleckman does: It is true that bringing US corporate rates in line with our trading partners may reduce incentives for improper transfer pricing. But there is a flaw in Hassett’s argument: While these practices are aimed at reducing tax lability, they do not represent real economic activity. And limiting income shifting won’t significantly increase domestic employment. He was noting this...

The Times Handles the Trump Tax Cut Framework with Kid Gloves There’s been a good bit written about the Trump tax cut framework released just over a week ago.  Most of it points out, as I have here and here, the absurdity of the claims by Trump and GOP spokespeople that this isn’t a tax cut aimed at benefiting the ultra wealthy.  After all, even with few details and no attempt to deal with the really tough issues that would face real tax reform...

The Tax-Cut Framework Won’t Create Jobs and Digs the Inequality Ditch even Deeper Marcus Ryu, a self-described Silicon Valley entrepreneur who created, with others, a company now worth $5 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, argues in today’s Op-Ed section of the New York Times that “Tax Cuts Won’t Create Jobs“, NY Times (Oct. 9, 2017), at A23 (the title in the digital edition is different from the print title:  Why Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Create...

Part of Patriotism is Paying Taxes As Americans, we pay taxes to allow our government to support important activities that we as individuals or individual businesses either can’t do at all or can’t do as successfully.  Both individuals and businesses benefit from government, so that paying taxes is a wonderful exercise in patriotism. For individuals, the idea of paying taxes as patriotism may be obvious to many of us, because we think that taxes are an...

Right Wing Propaganda Tank IPI Likes the Trump Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich “framework” There’s no surprise here.  The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a right-wing “think” (i.e., propaganda) tank that has consistently argued for tax policies that favor multinational corporations and the wealthy.  So IPI has a posting on Sept 29 that is supportive of the so-called “tax reform framework” put out by the Trump administration. As an earlier post noted...

by ProGrowthLiberal  (originally published at Econospeak) Trump’s Inadequate Response to Hurricane Maria and the Posse Comitatus Act Credit to Matthew Yglesias for his discussion of the incompetence of Donald Trump as well as the excuses for it from his defenders including: Officials have also cited the Posse Comitatus Act as a complicating factor that helps explain why Trump was so much slower to dispatch assistance to Puerto Rico than the Obama...

Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts: Jon Chait and Alex Pareene I have a Jon Chait problem. I generally agree with him on most issues. I find him very provocative. I am very sure that no one cares about my opinion about Chait’s latest post. That includes me. I don’t want to waste time thinking about the exactly how far I agree with him. But here I am. I also have a vaguely favorable view of Alex Pareene, but don’t read him much. I was very...

Trump’s Refusal to Release His Own Tax Returns and California’s Legislature As most everyone is aware, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, breaking precedent with decades of presidential candidates and president’s release of tax returns.  Even Dick Cheney,  grumpy corporatist veep, released his tax returns.  I had fun using them as the raw material for an introductory course in federal income taxation where we looked at the returns to...

Trump’s “Give the Rich a Break” Tax Plan National GOP leaders on Wednesday released a 9-page document that they called a tax “framework” (available here on the Washington Post site) describing in vague terms how they intend to cut taxes for the nation’s wealthiest people while doing very little that serves the government needs. Overall, the GOP framework would amount to about $2.2 TRILLION in less revenue to support federal programs (like protecting the...