Tag: Tax policy

How Do You Like VAT?

[A]s globalization increases demand for a more competitive tax system, the United States must consider shifting from a system that primarily relies on income taxation to one that relies primarily on consumption taxation. Most other major economies around the world depend more heavily on consumption taxation than does the United States. And all indications are reliance on consumption taxes is increasing. [Martin Sullivan]

Senator Tom Coburn Would Like ATR to Back Off a Bit

“Rather than demanding that Senate conservatives violate their consciences and support distortions in the tax code that increase spending and maintain Washington’s power over taxpayer’s lives, your organization should assist our efforts. Calling for the elimination of tax earmarks without qualifications would be a good start,” Coburn wrote. “Continuing to issue blanket defenses of all tax expenditures is a profoundly misguided embrace of progressive, activist government and a strategy for tax complexity, tax deferment, excessive spending and unsustainable deficits.” [The Hill]

Eric Cantor Prefers a Friendly Crowd When Speaking About the Mortgage Interest Deduction

Speaking to a crowd of real estate professionals in his hometown, Cantor said the tax would be considered as part of the larger tax reform discussion. But he suggested a change is probably not in the cards. “Honestly, there’s not a lot of support for getting rid of the mortgage deduction on Capitol Hill,” Cantor said to loud applause from the audience. Cantor was speaking to nearly 200 members of the Richmond Association of REALTORs. [The Hill]

BREAKING: Tax Reform Will Be a Long Process

Yesterday in a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) said that he would like a “weekly set of get-togethers” to address reforming our tax code. You see, Baucus was having similar weekly hearings for two years leading up to the healthcare reform bill that was passed last year. And since those were such a hoot, he figures attacking a equally polarizing issue like tax reform will demand a similar strategy. However, witnesses before the committee – all former assistant Treasury secretaries for tax policy – warned that this debate will likely haunt our dreams and news cycles for a long time:

Fred Goldberg, Jonathan Talisman, Mark Weinberger, Pamela Olson and Eric Solomon discussed, among other issues, the difficulties in crafting a revenue-neutral tax reform plan; problems with the alternative minimum tax and the tax exclusion for employer-provided healthcare; and issues with double taxation in the corporate code.

The former Treasury officials also declared that any successful overhaul of the tax code could take several years and would require leadership from the Oval Office.

Now for the older crowd, the long arduous process of tax reform harkens you back to days of when Charlie Sheen was winning by dodging…er, Charlie in Platoon. For many of the Millennials, well, you were all a lot cuter back then.

“We saw that in 1986,” Weinberger said. “President Reagan at the time made it his No. 1 domestic policy initiative and it still took over two years and failed three times before it was ultimately enacted into law.”

Baucus wants weekly tax reform hearings [On the Money/The Hill]

It’s Being Suggested That Higher Taxes on Alcohol Will Reduce Crime

It’s ironic that I read this this blog post today (rather than on Friday) since A) approximately a third of the country is in a some stage of a hangover B) I’m listening to “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse as I write this and C) there was a murder at a fraternity in Youngstown, Ohio over the weekend (I realize it’s a stretch to assume that anyone would have been drinking at a frat party) but this is pie-in-the-sky postulating that just begs to be mocked.


Janet Novack’s post at Forbes discusses a recent article written by two professors who are crime fighters in the economic persuasion:

Would raising the tax on beer reduce the number of young folks who get caught up in crime and the high budget and social costs of locking up so many people?

In a provocative article, The Economist’s Guide To Crime Busting, in the new issue of The Wilson Quarterly, Duke University’s Philip J. Cook and the University of Chicago’s Jens Ludwig suggest that it would. (The article is here, but isn’t free.) The profs argue that crime policy (from an economist’s point of view) should focus “both on making criminal opportunities less tempting and the law-abiding life more rewarding” and offer three strategies which they say have been shown to do just that: raising the mandatory age through which kids must attend school; creating business improvement districts with private security guards (a tactic Los Angeles has used with great success); and yes, raising taxes on alcohol.

Our favorite passage being the “making criminal opportunities less tempting and the law-abiding life more rewarding” because this what someone walking into the liquor store is thinking, “Jeepers, the cost of binge drinking on the weekend has gone up significantly and no longer fits my monthly budget. I guess I’ll stay sober and won’t break the law today.”

It continues:

The average state excise tax on beer, they note, is now only about 10 cents per 12 ounce bottle. Raising it to 55 cents they write, would persuade some teenagers “not to pick up that second six-pack on Thursday night” and would produce such extra benefits such as “fewer auto accidents and more money for state treasuries.” Data from Cook’s 2007 book, Paying The Tab, suggests a 55 cent per bottle levy would reduce beer consumption perhaps 10% and crime maybe 6%, they note.

Never mind how the neo-con scamps over at American for Tax Reform would react; this assumes that the demand for alcohol is elastic. You could easily argue that most people with the necessary means will pick their potent potable of choice regardless of price and even if they did decided to tighten the booze budget, they’d just go for a cheaper alternative, they wouldn’t actually buy or drink less.

I’m no economist but this kind of reasoning simply defies logic. People will drink regardless of the cost and they will continue to act like idiots and commit crimes when doing so. If you want to discuss that from a tax/fiscal policy standpoint raising taxes on booze (or taxing other sins) is a good idea then a discussion can be had. But let’s not get all crazy and start claiming that our country will become a bunch of law-abiding teetotalers the second a sixer of suds goes up $6.

Super Bowl Question:Would Higher Beer Tax Reduce Crime? [Forbes]

The Tax Policy Debate Just a Got a Tad Less Sophisticated

Tax policy is one of the most complex issues in the political discourse, regardless of the simplicity behind the rhetoric used by our public officials. And thanks to this “straight talk,” it has become one of the most polarizing topics in politics. But now that a man has been arrested for trying to engage Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) in debate (after drinking of course) on the issue using colorful language (or you might call it “expletive-laced threats”), the discussion has hit a new intellectual low.


Here’s the voicemail Charles Turner Habermann of Palm Springs, CA left for Congressman McDermott, From the National Law Journal by way of Above the Law:

“Uh, I, I, I’d like to remind you McDermott that if you read the constitution all the money belongs to the people. None of it belongs to Government Okay! So, if Jim McDermott says they’re spending money on a tax cut, he’s a piece of human dog shit, okay. He’s a piece of human filth. He’s a liar, he’s a communist, he’s a piece of fucking garbage. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met uh, uh Jim McDermott, they would blow his brains out. They’d shoot him, in the head. They’d kill him because he’s a piece of, of, of disgusting garbage.”He later says: “And you let that fucking scum bag know, that if he ever fucks around with my money, ever the fuck again, I’ll fucking kill him, okay. I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he fucking knows.”

In the second message, he says, “Your congressman, Jim McDermott is a piece of garbage. And I’ll tell you something right now, garbage belongs in the trash that’s exactly where he’s gonna end up.”

Then there’s this:

“As for his motivation for leaving the voicemail message, Habermann said he was calling politicians to let them know that what they were doing and saying regarding spending taxpayer’s money was wrong,” the complaint says. “He said he was trying to scare them before they spent money that didn’t belong to them.”

He also said he never intended to hurt anyone and that he was too afraid of losing his $3 million trust fund to commit a crime.

Yep, this guy’s a tax policy wonk, all right.

Arrest in California in death threats against congressman [National Law Journal via ATL]

IRS Commish Reminds Congress That If They Blow Off Tax Policy, We’ll Have a Giant Mess on Our Hands

There’s a small part of us that hopes the lame-o Congress just throws their hands up and lets all the outstanding tax policy issues expire, just to see what the fallout would be.

While we wish no harm to our practitioner friends like Joe Kristan, watching the pols in Congress squirm from the wrath of the American populace would be rather enjoyable.

Doug Shulman, on the other hand, does not share our impish impulses and wrote a letter to Congressional members on the Senate Finance and House Ways & Mean Committees, reminding them that if they let this one get away, his agency will have one hell of a mess on their hands.


Reuters has some excerpts:

“Of course, if legislation has not passed by the end of this year, our computers will have been programed incorrectly and we will need to delay filing for these individuals,” he said in a letter to the top lawmakers on the congressional committees charged with tax policy.

Realizing that the members might not quite understand what all this crazy-talk means, the Commish gave some details:

“It would be an unprecedented and daunting operational challenge to open the tax filing season under one set of tax laws with respect to AMT and extenders, begin accepting tax returns, and then have the law change,” Shulman wrote.

So essentially, re-doing a bunch of work. Nobody wants that. Luckily for everyone involved, Shulman appears to understand that while dysfunction is standard operating procedure on the Hill, most CPAs prefer providing above average client service.

Chris Van Hollen Isn’t Buying the “Tax Cuts Create Jobs” Story

In case you needed another sign that we are heading full speed towards a stalemate on tax policy, the Representative from Maryland would like to be recognized for calling BS on the popular Republican rhetoric:

“It’s clear that the tax cuts for the folks at the very top have not created any jobs. After all, we’ve had them in place now for more than eight years, and we know what the jobs situation is,” Van Hollen said during an interview Monday on MSNBC.

“The notion that you’ve got to continue them in order to somehow boost the economy, when those are in place right now and we have a lot of people unemployed, is a clear indication that they are not a big job creator.”

Eric Cantor’s rebuttal will sound similar to this:

“Taxes shouldn’t be going up on anybody right now.”

[…]

“This election … was really the American people saying they are tired of the lack of results in Washington,” he said. “They want to see more jobs for more Americans. They want to see us … cut government spending, rein in the size of government so we can get this economy growing again. That was the prescription, that was the mandate that came from the people.”

So there’s no middle ground to be found here, guys? No chance you can put down the ideological rhetoric for the sake of, ya know, screwing the American people?

Van Hollen: Tax cuts for wealthy ‘not a big job creator’ [The Hill]

Eric Cantor Will Not Be Entertaining Any of This Talk of Compromise on Tax Cuts

The presumed next Majority Leader in the House has gone on the record (with Fox News no less) that any pragmatism on the President’s part will be slapped away like a homeless vet’s outstretched hand:

The Obama administration’s hopes of reaching a tax deal with Republicans that would decouple rates on the rich from the middle class appear dead.

House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) threw cold water on the proposed plan, which would temporarily extend tax cuts for the wealthy while permanently extending tax cuts for the middle class. “Taxes shouldn’t be going up on anybody right now,” Cantor said.

So, in other words President Obama, you can take any of this “compromise” talk and stick it in your tea because that’s what was mandated by the people:

“This election … was really the American people saying they are tired of the lack of results in Washington,” he said. “They want to see more jobs for more Americans. They want to see us … cut government spending, rein in the size of government so we can get this economy growing again. That was the prescription, that was the mandate that came from the people.”

So a fair amount of ellipsises there, so maybe he’s not exactly sure what he’s saying but Cantor is a fool if he thinks that “cutting government spending” and” reining in the size of government” is not part of the GOP agenda despite what Paul Ryan writes in the Financial Times.

Security Agency spending seems to be a pretty big piece of the shopping spree; doesn’t it make sense to start there? If not, are we going to continue buying predator drones on the credit card and cut education again since raising taxes is absolutely out of the question?

Cantor, Republicans signal Obama tax proposal is dead in the water [The Briefing Room/The Hill]

Keyshawn Johnson Successfully Withstands the Fox Business Tax Policy Rhetoric

Dare we say, Keyshawn is being pragmatic here?


A few favorite moments:

Keyshawn: That’s what I’m being told. I don’t know any better. [Every Fox employee is laughing hysterically]

Charles Payne: If there was only 30% of what you made there. When do you say, “You know what? Who’s the Republican running for office?”

Keyshawn: Let’s not always make it about money. [If you listen carefully you can hear Charles Payne soiling himself.]

Payne: Even the guy that is 3rd string?

Keyshawn: Some of those New York Jets guys, as we know, are that responsible when they drink? [Sanchez?]

Any other takeaways? Discuss.

[via TaxProf]