Why RINOs Are RINOs

Rachel Alexander Jan 09, 2023 

A lot of scrutiny is on Maricopa County’s RINO leadership due to the botched 2022 midterm election, where four Democrats strangely allegedly won Arizona’s top races despite three of them being well behind in the polls. The Maricopa County Supervisors and Recorder have adamantly defended the integrity of the electoral process, despite hundreds of thousands of misdemeanors and countless anomalies which all coincidentally happened to favor Democrats, violating the Law of Large Numbers. 

........Ever notice how RINOs are always well off, well networked and have been around a long time as GOP establishment? It comes down to follow the money and who they know, but they’re too dishonest to admit it. ..............Nonprofits and think tanks, media, even Republican Party operations are often funded by quirky billionaires with their own agendas, usually tied to protecting their money.  Businesses are so heavily regulated by the government now that they can no longer be considered purely private actors...............Kari Lake could not find election attorneys to represent her suing over the botched election because they were too terrified of the Bar. In contrast, the left was represented by the most powerful progressive election attorneys in the country like Marc Elias. He proudly champions opposing election integrity lawsuits around the country...........So the next time a RINO gets all high and mighty talking about principles, follow the money and connections. .............To Read More....

Another Guilt-Ridden Neurotic Leftist

October 23, 2022 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

At the risk of sounding like a “snowflake,” there are some things that “trigger” me.

It drives me crazy, for instance, when rich leftists support tax increases, particularly since many of them (Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) lower their tax bills by using expensive lawyers and accountants.

 

If they really think politicians in Washington should have more money, they can easily volunteer extra money via a website maintained by the Treasury Department.

But they never seem to do that. Instead, all their moral posturing is focused on raising other people’s taxes.

This is not just a problem in the United States.

Indeed, Emma Bubola of the New York Times recently reported on one of these neurotic people from Europe.

By the time her extraordinarily wealthy grandmother died last month, Marlene Engelhorn already knew who she wanted to be the ultimate beneficiary of the enormous inheritance coming her way: the tax man. “The dream scenario is I get taxed,” said Ms. Engelhorn, the co-founder of a group called Tax Me Now.

…For more than a year, Ms. Engelhorn has been campaigning for tax policies that would redistribute her eight-figure windfall — and anyone else’s. …she entered the orbit of groups of pro-tax millionaires, whose members meet in person or on video calls to discuss their privileges — and how to get the state to strip them away.

…members are expected to share how they are engaged in what they typically term “reparations” to society. …Its policy goal is to implement or to increase inheritance and wealth taxes (Austria, where Ms. Engelhorn lives, abolished its inheritance tax in 2008).\

…Ms. Engelhorn’s multiple radio and TV appearances have resulted in dozens of people reaching out to ask her directly for financial help. She said it wrecks her to say no, but she believes it should not be on her to decide who gets her money. “I would like tax justice to take this impossible decision off my hands,” she said.

This type of nonsense triggers three reactions from me.

• First, I’m sure European governments have provisions in their law to accept voluntary payments. Strange how Ms. Engelhorn is not taking advantage of the opportunity.
• Second, she seems completely oblivious to the research showing how rich entrepreneurs (like her ancestors) created wealth – most of which goes to other people.
• Third, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read how it “wrecks her” to say no to people suffering hardship. She must be a sad joke of a person.

Though there was one part of the story that produced a genuine smile on my face.

It seems one of Ms. Engelhorn’s ancestors cleverly (and appropriately) did the German version of a corporate inversion.

It is not the first time a member of Ms. Engelhorn’s family has made headlines with tax-related issues. When her great-uncle and archaeology donor Curt Engelhorn sold Boehringer Mannheim, German tax authorities didn’t collect a dime because he had previously moved the company’s legal seat abroad.

Let’s close by looking at a different perspective.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Rainer Zitelmann opined on the existence of guilt-ridden rich people.

I know hundreds of multimillionaires and plenty of billionaires and conducted in-depth interviews with 45 of them for my doctoral dissertation The Wealth Elite. But I have yet to meet anyone who felt they weren’t paying enough tax. The 100 millionaires and billionaires from nine countries who have signed the latest letter asking to pay more tax might sound like a lot, but there are 2,755 billionaires around the world. There are also more than 20 million millionaires in the world, so 100 is equivalent to 0.0005 percent.

Though I’m not sure I fully embrace Rainer’s optimistic numbers.

After all, there’s strong evidence that rich people are now a reliable leftist voting bloc. At least in the United States.

P.S. You can see me debate guilt-ridden neurotic leftists by clicking here and here.

The Death Tax and British Royalty

September 19, 2022 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Every American school kid presumably learns about the Boston Tea Party and other events that culminated with the United States gaining independence from from the rule of King George III.

Think of it as America’s first tax revolt.

But that’s not the only interesting story regarding taxes and English royalty.

I wrote in both 2017 and 2020 that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) were going to suffer some adverse tax consequences by residing in the United States.

The recent death of Queen Elizabeth II gives us another opportunity to comment about tax policy. It seems the royal family has some very nice tax preferences.

For some background, Jyoti Mann reported on the topic for Business Insider.

King Charles III..spent half a century turning his royal estate into a billion-dollar portfolio and one of the most lucrative moneymakers in the royal family business. …Over the past decade, he has assembled a large team of professional managers who increased his portfolio’s value and profits by about 50 percent. …The conglomerate’s holdings are valued at roughly $1.4 billion, compared with around $949 million in the late queen’s private portfolio. These two estates represent a small fraction of the royal family’s estimated $28 billion fortune. …The growth in the royal family’s coffers and King Charles’s personal wealth over the past decade came at a time when Britain faced deep austerity budget cuts. …the Duchy of Cornwall…has funded his private and official spending, and has bankrolled William, the heir to the throne, and Kate, William’s wife. It has done so without paying corporation taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to, and without publishing details about where the estate invests its money. …leaked financial documents known as the Paradise Papers revealed that Charles’s duchy estate had invested millions in offshore companies, including a Bermuda-registered business.

Before continuing, I can’t resist making two comments.

First, the United Kingdom has not “faced deep austerity” or “budget cuts.” The most that can be said is that spending “only” grew at the rate of inflation when David Cameron and Theresa May were in charge.

Second, it is not newsworthy that the royal family uses so-called offshore companies. It’s probably safe to say that 99 percent of people with cross-border investments (including people like you and me with IRAs and 401(k)s) benefit from some form of financial interaction with tax-neutral jurisdictions such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Now let’s peruse a story for the New York Times by Jane Bradley and Euan Ward about tax preferences.

King Charles will not have to pay inheritance tax on the Duchy of Lancaster estate he inherited from the Queen due to a rule allowing assets to be passed from one sovereign to another. Charles automatically inherited the estate, the monarch’s primary source of income… The new king will avoid inheritance tax on the estate worth more than $750 million due to a rule introduced by the UK government in 1993 to guard against the royal family’s assets being wiped out if two monarchs were to die in a short period of time… The clause means that, to help protect its assets, members of the royal family do not have to pay the 40% levy on property valued at more than £325,000 ($377,000) that non-royal UK residents do. …The Queen began voluntarily paying income and capital gains tax on the estate in 1993 and Charles may decide to follow suit.

Let’s focus specifically on the death tax.

Is it unfair for the royal family to benefit from good tax policy (such as no death tax) when other residents of the United Kingdom don’t get the same treatment? The answer is yes, of course.

But the right way to deal with that inequity is for the U.K. to eliminate its death tax, not to extend it to Kings, Queens, and Princes.

 

Let’s focus, though, on a passage from the article that deserves a lot of attention. We are told that the exemption from the death tax was designed to “guard against the royal family’s assets being wiped out if two monarchs were to die in a short period of time.”

Technically, the assets wouldn’t be wiped out. But that scenario would result in a loss of nearly 65 percent of the family’s wealth.

I’m not expecting anyone to shed many tears about the plight of British royalty.

Instead, I want everyone to think about investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners in the United Kingdom. Is it okay for them to lose 65 percent of their money simply because there are two deaths “in a short period of time”?

The answer is no. The death tax is an evil and destructive tax. That’s true for royalty.

And, notwithstanding predictably bad analysis from the OECD,  it’s true for us peasants as well.