Adverse Consequences of California’s Class-Warfare Tax Policy
California is suffering a slow but steady decline. Bad economic policy has made the Golden State less attractive for entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners. Punitive tax laws deserve much of the...
View ArticleTaxes Will Be a Royal Pain for Meghan and Harry
I’m part of the small minority that thinks the big news from the United Kingdom is that “Brexit” will finally happen, thanks to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory last month. Most everyone else seems...
View ArticleEuropean Tax Greed and American Tech Companies
There are many boring topics in tax policy, such as the debate between expensing and depreciation for business investment. International tax rules also put most people to sleep, but they’re nonetheless...
View ArticleKudos to Trump and Biden for Aggressive Tax Avoidance
Washington is a cesspool of waste, fraud, and abuse. All taxpayers, to avoid having their income squandered in D.C., should go above and beyond the call of duty to minimize the amount they send to the...
View ArticleMilton Friedman on Taxation
Yesterday’s column featured some of Milton Friedman’s wisdom from 50 years ago on how a high level of societal capital (work ethic, spirit of self-reliance, etc) is needed if we want to limit...
View ArticleThe $1 Trillion “Tax Gap” Is a Self-Serving and Shoddy Make-Believe Number...
Whenever I’m asked about the “tax gap,” I point to the academic evidence, from multiple sources, and explain that lower tax rates and tax reform are the best way to get higher levels of tax compliance....
View ArticleThe “Pandora Papers”
Remember the supposedly breathtaking revelations from the “Panama Papers” back in 2016? We were told those stolen documents were an indictment against so-called tax havens, but the real lesson was that...
View ArticleAre High Taxes “Patriotic” and Low Taxes “Rotten”?
Remember back when Joe Biden said paying more tax is patriotic? He was being a hypocrite, of course, since he aggressively sought to lower his own tax burden. But he was also behaving exactly as...
View ArticleThe War against Cash, Part V
My friends sometimes tell me that libertarians are too extreme because we tend to make “slippery slope” arguments against government expansions. I respond by pointing out that many slopes are very...
View ArticleLatin America and Fiscal Suicide
The economic policy lessons from Latin America are very clear. There’s one unambiguous success story (at least until the past couple of years), one semi-decent success story, and then a bunch of utter...
View ArticleGreat Moments in Tax Avoidance
Since governments have a terrible tendency to waste money, I’m a big fan of tax avoidance. For instance, even though I don’t like itemized deductions for things like charitable contributions and home...
View ArticleAnother Reason to Defend Trump’s Tax Reform
Guided by the principles of good tax policy, I have mostly focused on two important provisions when writing about Trump’s 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA). Reducing the federal corporate tax rate from...
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