If we are to be more like Europe, as some have argued, then perhaps we should learn from their mistakes when a highly progressive and unfair tax system is imposed on the “rich.” Evidently, a new 50 percent tax rate on the rich is not bringing in the anticipated revenue that the British Treasury expected. [...]
The president recently spoke to a group of UPS workers in Nevada, where he expressed his wants and desires for the economy. Referring to his SOTU speech, he told the crowd, “…where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere.” Last time I checked our [...]
I watched last night’s State of the Union address in hopeful anticipation that all taxpayers, from individuals to small business owners to multinational corporations, could look forward to a fairer, more simplified system. No such luck. Much of the speech was spent pointing out who or what is to blame for the sluggish economy, income [...]
President Obama finally said something that many tax reformers have long advocated for: millionaires should pay the same share of their income in taxes as the middle class. Sounds very akin to a flat tax, doesn’t it? Sadly, it is all talk, with no serious consideration for reform. Instead, the President has proposed a “surtax” [...]
The latest poverty numbers were released this week. According to a U.S. Census Bureau press release: “Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median. The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third [...]
I always find it interesting when people complain about the lack of fairness in income taxes, often referring to a general income group that is paying too much or too little: “The rich don’t pay their fair share…” “The poor pay nothing but receive all the government benefits…” “The middle class is [...]
According to President Obama, the Bush tax cuts, in particular the ones that went to the the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers, are to blame for the budget mess that we’re in. This statement comes as no surprise; in 2009, President Obama threatened to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent by allowing their lower tax [...]
Before closing shop, Washington politicians promised they would get around to working out America’s tax situation when they returned from their campaigns. According to Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics LLC, the straits couldn’t be more dire: just yesterday The Wall Street Journal put forward his predictions (See “The Trade and Tax Doomsday Clocks,”) Luskin seems to think [...]
There have been many facts, fiction, analyses and opinions circulating on the possibility of a European-style value-added tax (VAT) becoming a reality in the United States. Several online articles describe the VAT, how it works and the pros and cons. (See Wilkipedia, European Taxation and Customs Union, and of course, NCPA’s commentary and an additional editorial from the [...]