Quick Thought on Tax Reform

Posted on 12 November 2018 by eehines

The Progressive-Democrats won a majority in the House, and the Republicans look like they’re going to expand their majority in the Senate. That looks like legislative paralysis in the next Congress.

However.

The next Congress won’t be sworn in until 3 January 2019. That gives two months for the present Congress, with Republican majorities in both houses, to get some remaining stuff done.

Top on that list in my august view is tax reform. This Congress needs to move to make permanent the individual income tax cuts that otherwise will expire in 2025. Get it done now, before the Progressive-Democrats, with their gridlock, take sufficient office to block the reform.

This is a preview of Quick Thought on Tax Reform. Read the full post (144 words, estimated 35 secs reading time)

Federal Redistributions of State Funds

Posted on 2 November 2018 by eehines

In response to Robert Poole’s Wall Street Journal bit about making some aspects of our infrastructure more affordable, a couple of folks wrote Letters to the Editor. And so I have my own response.

[A]sset recycling is not about finding more efficient ways to modernize and expand infrastructure. It’s about raising money for cash-starved treasuries….

and

The solution is to allow all states to retain the federal gas tax generated by each state.

This is a preview of Federal Redistributions of State Funds. Read the full post (211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

Fairness

Posted on 31 October 2018 by eehines

Various nations around Europe and Asia are looking at ways to add to the tax burden on multinational technology companies doing business in those nations.

Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy and Finance, rationalized the movement this way:

It is a question of fairness.

Leave it to a European politician to not understand the concept.

No. Fairness is cutting taxes, not raising them, thereby leaving more of the citizens’ money in their hands.

This is a preview of Fairness. Read the full post (210 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

Income Taxes and Retirement Savings

Posted on 18 October 2018 by eehines

Professor Benjamin Harris (Kellogg School of Management) made a case for redoing our 401(k) retirement savings system. He had several good points, too: the tax break today compared to the taxes due on withdrawal during retirement’s usually lower tax rate is irrelevant to those whose current income is low enough to go untaxed or not taxed much. Contributions are tax deductions vs tax credits equal to a portion of contributions. The whole system is complex from a tax-figuring perspective (what are the tax brackets in play for a particular saver, what taxes will be in play when the saver retires, how will investments perform in the interim).

This is a preview of Income Taxes and Retirement Savings. Read the full post (200 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)

Austerity

Posted on 5 October 2018 by eehines

Continuing the theme that other parts of the world still exist, this thought on Brazil’s upcoming presidential election. In a Wall Street Journal piece about the Brazilian presidential candidates’—all 13 of them—big economic plans with no money to implement them, the item’s author offered this bit:

Mr. Bolsonaro has raised the most hopes in financial markets of tackling the endemic spending problem. …his top economic adviser, economist Paulo Guedes, has promised investors fiscal austerity….

This is a preview of Austerity. Read the full post (280 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

Taxes and Caps

Posted on 4 October 2018 by eehines

Howard Gleckman, Senior Fellow at the Tax Policy Center, wants the $10,000 cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes repealed. After all, he worries [emphasis added],

what will happen to state budgets if high-income residents resist tax increases that are now less subsidized by the federal revenue code[?]

Further, Gleckman is arguing,

restoring the old distortion “may indirectly benefit low- and moderate-income households” by propping up state spending.

This is a preview of Taxes and Caps. Read the full post (170 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Budgets and Austerity

Posted on 29 September 2018 by eehines

The Italian coalition government (interesting in its own right, consisting as it does as a teaming up of the far left 5 Star Movement and the far right Liga) has decided to increase government spending and decrease taxes. This has been projected to produce a 2.4% budget deficit. For a government already badly in debt, this deficit isn’t good.

Cutting taxes has been decried by others as being the cause of such deficits and debts. Spending cuts cannot be allowed, say the same folks, because that would be an austere measure.

They’re wrong.

This is a preview of Budgets and Austerity. Read the full post (271 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

Ignorant Voters

Posted on 26 September 2018 by eehines

Recall the erstwhile tax on job creation that the Seattle city government passed a while back, and then repealed. The tax would have charged businesses making more than $20 million in annual revenue a per employee tax of $275. Although, in response to business and public outcry, the city repealed the tax a couple months later, the commentary of the tax’s chief supporter is illuminating. Seattle City Councilwoman Lorena González, the lead proponent of the jobs tax:

This is a preview of Ignorant Voters. Read the full post (248 words, estimated 1:0 mins reading time)

Foolish

Posted on 21 September 2018 by eehines

Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) has offered legislation, in coordination with Congressman Ro Khanna (D, CA), that is his latest bit of socialism. His legislation would hit large businesses with a tax equal to 100% of the welfare payments any of their employees might receive while working.

Sanders and Khanna say—and they’re actually serious—that this would pay for the welfare programs involved.

Andy Puzder has a different view of such legislation.

This is a preview of Foolish. Read the full post (245 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)

A Change in Tone?

Posted on 13 September 2018 by eehines

Recall the start of President Donald Trump’s response to the People’s Republic of China’s economic conflict with us, when he began imposing tariffs on PRC goods over their continued theft of American companies’ intellectual property.

Vice President Wang warned US business chieftains there would be corporate casualties. President Xi told others that Beijing would “punch back” at the US.

Now we’re getting sweet words.

Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s economic-policy chief, told visiting American business representatives that US companies’ China operations won’t be targeted in Beijing’s trade-brawl counterattacks. “We won’t allow retribution against foreign companies,” Mr Liu said[.]

This is a preview of A Change in Tone?. Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

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