after five rounds of unsustainable tax cuts in 2001-10, federal tax revenues are now at a 60-year historical low of 14% of GDP, when the U.S. historical average is 19%. … we are now back to a second Gilded Age as income and wealth inequality is as high as in 1929 at the onset of the Great Depression after the Gilded Age of the 1920s. And
Four things Republicans used to believe Rex Nutting - MarketWatch
Interesting article. Republicans used to be more open to taxation, a strong presidency, environmental regulation, and universal healthcare.
Too bad the party has veered towards big business.
Since the recovery began, 38% of all jobs created in America have been created in Texas
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, starting at 1:15 in this video via fact check
“He credits tort reform (in addition to less regulation, low taxes, etc.”
He also talks about the natural gas boom in texas. He touts the Texas port. He says Texas is entrepreneurial. He says there are no state income taxes. He cites tort reform. He says that’s one reason lots of companies move there. He says limited government is also a factor.
Texas is 8% of the US population so this is significant.
Here are a few more stats :
Texas added 265,300 net jobs, out of the 722,200 nationwide, and by far outpaced every other state. New York was second with 98,200, Pennsylvania added 93,000, and it falls off from there.
Pennsylvania, Texas, and New York are the principal states in which the natural gas boom is taking place.
Brothels to Nevada: Please Tax Us
unlike most industries, Nevada’s prostitution industry has long wanted to pay taxes, hoping that contributing to the state’s coffers will help legitimize the seedy industry.Lawmakers have been bashful about bringing ‘that money’ into the mix…Anytime prostitution is brought up, it attracts a media frenzy drowning out the serious work they’re doing.
Yes, they should pay taxes, and politicians should get over themselves.
Carried Interest Tax Break Is So Unfair
“John Paulson, the most successful hedge-fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero.”
This is the trick: “So long as they leave their money, known as “carried interest,” in the hedge fund, their taxes are deferred. They only pay taxes when they cash out, which could be decades from now for younger managers. How do these hedge-fund managers get money in the meantime? By borrowing against the carried interest, often at absurdly low rates—currently about 2 percent.”
How the oil industry saves $4.4B a year on taxes - unfairly
1. They classify themselves as “manufacturers”
It allows companies of almost any type to deduct from their taxable income up to 9 percent of profits from domestic manufacturing. Under the rule, oil and gas companies were classified as manufacturers, but their deduction was capped at 6 percent.
This provision alone is expected to save the oil and gas industry $18.2 billion over the next ten years, or 42 percent of the $44 billion total.
2. They just get unfair depreciation tax breaks. Normally businesses depreciate over the life of a factory, or in this case a well - which can be 8 or more years…
nstead, small, independent drillers are allowed to deduct all of these expenses in the first year; major, so-called integrated companies like ExxonMobil can deduct 70 percent in the first year.
The break is worth $12.5 billion over the next ten years.
oil companies can depreciate the value of their wells allows drillers to deduct 15 percent of the well’s revenue from its taxable income per year.
The break is worth $11 billion over 10 years.
Rich People Still Don't Realize They're Rich - NYTimes.com
6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are “too low.” Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were “about right,” and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were “too high.”
when this same group of high earners was asked whether “upper-income people” paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said “upper-income people” paid too little, 30 percent said it was a “fair share,” and 38 percent said it was too much.
people who are rich but not the richest — in the $250,000 zone, say — see they have more than lots of poor people, but also much less than a few very visibly rich people. Then they conclude they’re in the middle, so they must be middle class.
European and US Employment - Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com
Young Europeans don’t work in part because they don’t have to: thanks to more generous student aid, they’re less likely to have to work while in school. But there’s also a lack of job opportunities. And the elderly retire earlier, largely thanks to generous benefits.
The paper krugman cites has a lot more, one eg:
The French riots of the banlieue in 2005 and riots in Southern Italy in January, 2010, remind us that many European youth are marginalized from contact with the market economy. … American youth are expected both by their parents and by colleges to work part‐time during the school year and full‐time during the summer. They adopt early a culture of work rather than idleness, and this continues after graduation from college. In contrast, judging from the low employment to population ratios for Europeans aged 15‐29, much of the time in this European age group is wasted, especially when we recognize the larger share of American youth compared to European youth going to college and hence removed from the employment‐population ratio.
The paper also says that the US also has more younger people as a percent of the total population than Europe.
The paper correctly points out, after tax wages in Europe are so low and benefits are so high that people take lots of time off.
Europe is essentially paying its youth not to work and is feeling some of the consequences.
Unauthorized Immigrants Pay Taxes, Too
The most interesting stat in here is that half of immigrants pay income taxes (federal and state). Of course they pay sales taxes directly and pay real estate taxes indirectly via renting. The only immigrants who do not pay income taxes are those who work “off the books” and thus their income taxes are not withheld.
This is a big deal because people bash illegal immigrants as freeloaders, but the data doesn’t really support that.
Tax compliance costs about 3% of our GDP
individuals and businesses must pay the government the $1 in revenue plus the costs of their own time spent filing and complying with the tax code; plus the tax collection costs of the IRS; plus the tax compliance outlays that individuals and businesses pay to help them file their taxes.
In a study published last week by the Laffer Center, my colleagues Wayne Winegarden, John Childs and I estimate that these costs alone are a staggering $431 billion annually. This is a cost markup of 30 cents on every dollar paid in taxes. And this is not even a complete accounting of the costs of tax complexity.
Pretty staggering and a big incentive to reduce complexity in the tax code.
Flip-Flops : A Political History of Donald Trump's Publicity (1987-2011)
Health Care:
- 2000: “We must have universal healthcare… Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork… The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees. If the program were in place in Massachusetts in 1999 it would have reduced administrative costs by $2.5 million. We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing.
- 2011: “I will fight to get rid of Obamacare, which is a total disaster.”
The Budget:
- 1987: “The fact is we don’t need a tax increase. We should have a tax decrease. We should have Japan and we should have Saudi Arabia and we should have all of these countries who are literally ripping us off left and right… . They should pay for our $200-billion deficit.” [Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1987],
- 2000: “By imposing a one-time 14.25 percent net-worth tax on the richest individuals and trusts, we can put America on sound financial footing for the next century. … The plan would cost me $700 million personally in the short term, but it would be worth it.”
- 2011: “I think hundreds of millions of dollars of money, and let’s call it tax money, could come from other countries when we stop them from ripping us off… As an example, we are protecting South Korea from North Korea… Why aren’t they paying for this protection? … So, when you look at a hundred other items just like this, hundreds of millions of dollars could come in, so you wouldn’t have to play around with Medicaid and Medicare, and things that are really dear to people’s hearts.”
Read more at The Atlantic Wire
More evidence this country is better off without the Donald in charge.
(via antigovernmentextremist)
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