As the nation frets over slow growth and large budget deficits, much has been made over how much Americas are and should be paying in income tax. President Obama and Democrats have argued that the wealthiest among us are not paying their fair share. They say the spoils of the globalization and the internet revolution have gone almost exclusively to the very wealthy, and that, in times of crisis, more should be asked of those who can afford to give. Those on the right counter that the wealthy pay their fair share and, more, that the top one percent pay a huge percentage of federal income tax receipts. But there is another source of federal revenues that receives less attention: corporate income taxes. According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent study of Congressional Budget Office numbers, corporations are paying an effective rate of 12.1%, the lowest in at least 40 years. So why are some of the biggest and most powerful entities in our society getting away with paying so little? The story is complicated, but the biggest factor in the recent collapse in corporate tax receipts appears to be a set of tax breaks built into recent stimulus efforts.
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney would save $3.4 million a year — roughly 85 times the total pre-tax income of the average American citizen — if the tax plan he advocates were enacted in the year that he is seeking to be President. In fact, Romney’s policies would not only shrink what he pays to the [...]
There’s been a lot of rhetoric since Obama announced on Monday a plan to cut the debt by $3.1 trillion over the next decade, a good portion of which would come from raising taxes on the wealthly. The President’s speech itself contained a good bit of hyperbole. The President said that America’s millionaires pay a lower [...]
A government shut down could cause consumer spending to drop by just over $30 billion. It’s a lot of money. And certainly meaningful to the people who count on those checks. But the real question is this: Is that enough to derail the economic recovery, or at least delay it? The spending hit has to [...]
Sorry, it’s not the middle class (Joshua Roberts/REUTERS) There is something in the tax deal for everyone from the rich to the middle-class to the working poor to the unemployed to the retired. So who stands to benefit the most from the deal in 2011? It’s not the middle class. The problem is some of [...]
Hey inflation, I’m going to pump you up, maybe (Scott Audette/REUTERS) Sarah Palin is concerned that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may cause inflation to shoot up and stay there. But could the greatest potential culprit of wealth-destroying, Germany-1930s-type hyper-inflation be, not the central bank, but Palin and the Tea Party? That in part is [...]
One of the big reasons people argue against raising taxes for the richest Americans is that higher taxes make people less inclined to work. The result is that raising taxes at some point doesn’t raise any more tax income for the government. This is in effect the famous Laffer Curve. I’m not sure I believe [...]
What should be the top tax rate for America’s wealthiest citizens? I recently wrote a post arguing why we should think about raising tax rates for the super wealthy. This evoked a range of responses from commenters. tnnumbers wrote: As others have mentioned, the wealthy no longer limit their investments to America, so even taking [...]
Ever since Obama made his poorly received (by pundits at least) Punish BP/Energy Independence White House address last week there has been a lot of talk that a carbon tax, especially a cap-and-trade one, could be dead. Many read the fact that the President didn’t mention it in his speech as a sign that he [...]
