The International Economy recently invited me to contribute to a forum on how best to fix America’s tax system. Here’s my piece; for eleven other views, check out the complete forum. America’s tax system is a mess. It’s needlessly complicated, economically harmful, and often unfair. And it doesn’t raise enough money to pay our bills. That’s why almost everyone agrees [...]
Archive for the ‘Taxes’ Category
Five Principles for Fixing America’s Tax System
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Politics, Taxes on February 17, 2012 | 7 Comments »
How Would the Buffett Rule Affect Marginal Tax Rates?
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Taxes, Warren Buffett on February 15, 2012 | 1 Comment »
President Obama’s latest budget endorses a “Buffett rule” – a new floor on taxes paid by folks with very high incomes. His rule would require that “those making over $1 million should pay no less than 30 percent of their income in taxes.” The president didn’t offer many specifics about how the rule would actually work. Up on Capitol [...]
The 102% Tax Rate and Other Perils Measuring Tax Rates
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Measurement, New York Times, Taxes on February 8, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Over at the Tax Policy Center’s blog, TaxVox, my colleague Roberton Williams examines the pitfalls that afflict some efforts to measure a person’s tax rate: Investment manager James Ross last week told New York Times columnist James Stewart that his combined federal, state, and local tax rate was 102 percent. No doubt, Ross did pay a lot [...]
Capital Gains Taxes Are Going Up
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Capital Gains, Taxes on January 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »
The top tax rate on long-term capital gains is currently 15%. That’s why Mitt Romney is spending so much time talking about his tax returns. That revelation has set off a familiar debate about whether that low rate is appropriate. Often overlooked in these discussions, however, is the fact that the days of the 15% [...]
A Great Introduction to Economic Inequality
Posted in Economy, Taxes, tagged Income, Inequality on December 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Over at the Browser, Sophie Roell interviews MIT economist Daron Acemoglu on the economics of inequality. In the course of discussing five books on the topic (one of which is actually a research paper), Acemoglu hits many of the high points — technology, skills, and education; the increase in income at the tippy-top of the [...]
Even More Expiring Provisions
Posted in Budget, Taxes on December 12, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Two follow ups on the nice Pew chart of many federal laws that expire at year-end. First, commenter rjs reminds us that “the whole [darn] [continuing resolution] expires Friday.” In short, almost all discretionary agencies of the federal government run out of money at the end of the week. The one exception? Agriculture, whose 2012 [...]
Time’s Almost Up for $152 Billion in Expiring Provisions
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Taxes on December 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »
America is increasingly governed by temporary policies. The 2001/2003/2010 tax cuts get most of the attention, but they are hardly the only ones. There are also a host of other semi-permanent provisions like patching the alternative minimum tax (AMT), avoiding big cuts to what Medicare pays doctors (the “doc fix”), and a plethora of miscellaneous [...]
Flat-tax Simplicity with a Progressive Twist
Posted in Budget, Politics, Taxes on November 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
My latest column for the Christian Science Monitor. One of the perils of writing a monthly column is the multi-week lag between writing and publication. Rick Perry and Herman Cain were near the top of GOP contenders when I wrote this. Today? Not so much. But the ideas are still worth analysis. And Newt Gingrich [...]
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Recent Posts
- The Miracle of Chained Kidney Transplants
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- How Would the Buffett Rule Affect Marginal Tax Rates?
- Financial Answers Made Simple
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- When Should You Stop Looking for a Possibly-Extinct Species?
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- The U.S. Economy is Uncertain, Fragile, and … Growing
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- Capital Gains Taxes Are Going Up
- The Natural Gas Glut is Reshaping Electricity Markets
- Oil and Natural Gas Prices Move Even Further Apart
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