You Didn’t Earn That

Posted on 10 March 2018 by eehines

The European Commission has criticized seven member states for “aggressive” tax practices, whereby governments try to undercut others to attract multinational companies.

Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation, and Customs doesn’t like competition; he actually thinks it interferes with the “integrity of the European single market.”

[T]hese practices have “the potential to undermine the fairness and the level playing field in our internal market and they increase the burden on EU taxpayers.”

This is a preview of You Didn’t Earn That. Read the full post (251 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

Because, Tax

Posted on 9 March 2018 by eehines

In a further demonstration that the Progressive-Democratic Party knows only how to tax and to raise taxes, there’s this.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed repealing major pieces of the just-passed tax law, in a plan that would raise taxes on corporations, estates, and high-income households to pay for $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending.

And the Progressive-Democrats actually are touting this for the mid-term elections this fall. It’s not your money, after all, it’s Big Governments, and Progressive-Democrats Know Better how your money should be spent.

Can’t possibly pay for the infrastructure by cutting spending somewhere else. Mm, mm.

This is a preview of Because, Tax. Read the full post (172 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Online Retailers and Taxes

Posted on 8 March 2018 by eehines

The Trump administration is looking at forcing online retailers to pay the same taxes that their brick-and-mortar competitors must pay.

The Trump administration on Monday urged the Supreme Court to expand states’ authority to collect sales tax on internet transactions, joining a chorus of state officials seeking to overrule a 1992 precedent exempting many online retailers from having to add taxes to a consumer’s final price.

This is a mistake.

This is a preview of Online Retailers and Taxes. Read the full post (244 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)

An Economic Misunderstanding

Posted on 6 March 2018 by eehines

In the wake of Georgia’s decision to halt special tax treatment for Delta Air Lines, Inc, over the company’s decision to cut ties with the NRA, Fox News economics pundit Neil Cavuto asked whether the State’s action “was an example of government interfering in the free market”.

This misunderstands what’s happening. The government interference in the free market was the State’s gerrymandering its tax code to give special treatment to a particular company. Stopping a particular special treatment is a step back from that government’s interference, not an extension of it.

This is a preview of An Economic Misunderstanding. Read the full post (125 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)

Buybacks and Tax Cuts

Posted on 5 March 2018 by eehines

Who benefits most and what was the value of the Trump administration’s tax cuts, if all that companies are going to do with their tax cut related income boost is use it to buy back shares? This seems actually confusing to some folks on the Left.

Here are some of the happy totals. Share buybacks have run to some $200 billion in the last three months. Moreover,

This is a preview of Buybacks and Tax Cuts. Read the full post (417 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The 529 Plan Expansion

Posted on 20 February 2018 by eehines

Recall that the tax reform enacted last December expanded the usability of 529 Plans to include expenses for K-12 education. Now some are worried that this will harm State tax collections. It’s a bogus beef on a number of fronts.

In December, as part of a broad tax overhaul, Congress expanded the accounts to cover up to $10,000 a year in expenses for kindergarten through 12th grade.

State budget officials are now concerned that a large number of parents will use 529 accounts to pay private-school tuition, giving them a new write-off for their state taxes.

This is a preview of The 529 Plan Expansion. Read the full post (497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Be Like Europe?

Posted on 20 February 2018 by eehines

Emulate Germany? That’s the constant refrain of the Left and of their Progressive-Democratic Party. After all, Germany is running large budget surpluses, taking the second largest bite out of German wages of all the OECD nations, at nearly 50%, overcoming government spending running 45% of GDP. Here is an indication of the contempt with which German politicians—both “conservative” and Leftist—view German citizens:

[T]he perception of tax cuts in the country’s political mainstream ranges from slightly shameful to outright evil. Many conservatives see them as overindulgent toward voters, while the center-left views them as morally indefensible gifts to the rich. All parties, with the exception of the pro-business Free Democrats, favor a high degree of redistribution.

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

The New Tax Law and Bankruptcy

Posted on 7 February 2018 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal is quick to point out how the tax reform bill passed last December does little to help failing businesses.

The new tax law is a boon to most US businesses, but it will make life harder for one type of company: those that are struggling financially or at risk of filing for bankruptcy.

The new tax law was never intended to help failing businesses, though, it was designed to help the rest of us individuals and our businesses—and to help those who are failing do better next time.

This is a preview of The New Tax Law and Bankruptcy. Read the full post (287 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Mid-Term Elections

Posted on 5 February 2018 by eehines

At their retreat last week, Republicans indicated that they intend to run heavily on the tax reform they got through at the end of last year. It’s good to have something positive on which to run, especially since, at least for the near term, the Progressive-Democratic Party has nothing on which to campaign other than its #NeverTrump and #NothingRepublicanNoWay platform and its standard disparagement of ordinary Americans like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) claim that the tax reform’s aftermath of bonuses and pay raises are just crumbs.

This is a preview of Mid-Term Elections. Read the full post (588 words, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Disparate Impact

Posted on 30 January 2018 by eehines

High-tax States, principally States run by Progressive-Democrat regimes, don’t like the tax reform’s cap on State and local taxes.

The governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut said on Friday that they would sue the federal government to overturn the new US tax law, saying the measure unconstitutionally discriminates against Democratic-leaning states.

This is just the raw sewage of disparate impact being spread across a tax bill—never mind that the tax reform is uniformly applied across all States, across all businesses and individual taxpayers. Never mind, too, that if some taxpayers, if some taxing jurisdictions, are impacted differently than others, it’s solely a result of the conscious individual, business, and State and local government choices. At least when “disparate impact” is imputed to matters of race, the alleged victims have no choice in their position in the differences alleged.

This is a preview of Disparate Impact. Read the full post (332 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.

Tag Archives: taxes