Friday, March 11, 2016

Which GOP Tax Plan Is Most PRO Growth?

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2016/03/11/which_gop_candidates_tax_plan_is_the_most_pro-growth_102058.html

8 comments:

  1. So the guy who basically shot himself in the foot and set himself up to lose has the best tax plan? Looks like more the same to me, supply side 101.

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  2. BTW, found this link on the same page and thought it was kinda interesting http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2016/03/01/a_new_theory_of_wealth_inequality_102036.html

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    1. Thanks, a very interesting article.

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    2. I mean, they are at the point of the restating the same information over and over. I feel like they are searching for a way to present it in a way that finally makes people give a damn. Quite honestly, even though Bernie is preaching this, I'm not sure I believe that the gobs of young people flocking to him fully understand this.

      Even S&P, the bastion of idiocy who slapped AAA on toilette paper mortgages before downgrading government debt, had a piece on this https://www.globalcreditportal.com/ratingsdirect/renderArticle.do?articleId=1351366&SctArtId=255732&from=CM&nsl_code=LIME&sourceObjectId=8741033&sourceRevId=1&fee_ind=N&exp_date=20240804-19:41:13 actually, I gotta post this on the other thread discussion I'm having with William. But, what's getting so frustrating to me is that even when people say, "Look, it doesnt matter how we got here, but the new reality is killing us" the response is that it's class warfare.

      I don't wan't to see it punitively correct through taxes and heavy handed government action, but I see a scenario where that eventually happens just like it did after the great depression.

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  3. Every day in Congress, it seems, a member who created a problem demands more power and money to “solve” the resulting crisis. So it is with “tax inversions,” by which companies change their tax domicile — their country of residence, for tax purposes — to escape Washington’s clutches. Doing so deprives Uncle Sam of money to waste, which naturally drives politicians into a frenzy.

    Left-wing activists tend to favor corporate taxation. They imagine a society divided between businesses and people. However, firms are owned by people, employ people, sell to people, and contract with people. Taxing companies means taxing people.

    It should surprise no one that companies seek to escape Washington’s grasp.

    Politicians like to target business in order to disguise the incidence of taxes. At least shareholders know they are paying government twice. Employees and consumers, in particular, usually don’t know that they are earning less and paying more, respectively, because of government. In effect, everyone is taxed twice, first at the corporate level and then at the personal level.

    America’s current corporate income tax rate is roughly 40 percent — it varies a bit by state and locality — and is second highest in the world. Only the United Arab Emirates is higher. Just six economic laggards — Argentina, Chad, Iraq, Malta, Sudan, and Zambia — match the federal government’s 35 percent rate. In fact, America is one of only three states in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) not to reduce rates over the last 15 years.

    The US tax code includes loopholes to lower the effective burden for many companies, but trading complexity for lower effective levies is dubious policy. Virtually every other nation on earth has a lower rate. According to tax firm KPMG, the global average is 23.87 percent. Asia’s is 22.59 percent. Europe averages 20.12 percent. The tax rate for OECD countries, America’s most obvious competitors, is 24.86 percent. Several states in Europe come in at 10 to 15 points lower. The rate in Czech Republic and Hungary is 19 percent, in Switzerland 17.92 percent, in Taiwan and Singapore 17 percent, and in Ireland 12.5 percent.

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    1. The United States makes the situation worse by taxing a company’s global earnings. Most countries claim only money earned within their boundaries. Although Americans can take a credit for foreign taxes paid, most firms owe extra. Only five other OECD countries also tax worldwide income.

      It should surprise no one, then, that companies seek to escape Washington’s grasp. As Judge Learned Hand, no radical libertarian, pointed out in 1934: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the Treasury.” Hand criticized the idea of “a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”

      Companies “avoid” taxes simply by conforming to the law as written by Congress and regulations as drafted by the IRS. A recent tool of choice has been inversions, whereby a merger moves a firm’s tax domicile overseas. Doing so actually makes it more cost-effective for companies to invest in the United States. About 50 major firms have “inverted,” more than half of those since 2008. Another 20 may be considering the idea. Among the recent controversial deals have been Liberty Global–Virgin Media, Burger King–Tim Hortons, Pfizer–Allergan, CF Industries–OCI, and Johnson Controls–Tyco Industries (British, Canadian, Irish, Dutch, and Irish partners, respectively).

      High tax rates help politicians, not the country. An old-fashioned highwayman grabbed your money and went on his way. Uncle Sam seizes your cash and then uses it to boss you around in the name of helping you and everyone else. Moreover, higher corporate rates directly reduce business investment and indirectly cut consumer spending, thereby slowing job creation and economic growth.

      High rates also put American enterprises at a competitive disadvantage. They can try to make do while bearing a greater burden — some simply keep their money abroad. The share of profits attributed to low-tax jurisdictions has more than doubled over the last three decades, and an estimated $2.1 billion in US multinational profits have not been repatriated. Some of that cash may be held overseas for business reasons, but avoiding high US tax rates is a powerful incentive.

      Even the White House has acknowledged the problem:

      Our system has one of the highest statutory tax rates among developed countries to generate about the same amount of corporate tax revenue as our developed country partners as a share of our economy; this, in turn, hurts our competitiveness in the world economy.

      It doesn’t matter how much governments collect from taxpayers; it never is enough.

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    2. "It doesn’t matter how much governments collect from taxpayers; it never is enough."

      And it doesn't matter how much a tax is lowered, any tax is too much tax and a chunk of people believe business should pay no tax at all.

      round and round it goes

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    3. What's missing is balance. The balance between reasonable spending and reasonable taxes.

      Lowering taxes today is a joke when your 19 trillion in the hole. A joke as it would have little effect as 45% of workers would see nothing as they pay nothing.





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