Posts By Dan Mitchell

Tax Witholding: A Prerequisite for Bigger Government
August 1, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

 

 

The internal revenue code is a reprehensible mess that torments taxpayers and undermines American competitiveness.  The good news is that Americans don’t like the tax system.  The bad news is that they don’t dislike it nearly as much as they should. At least in my humble opinion.  There are two reasons for the inadequate level of disdain...........To Read More.....

Capitalist Reforms Boosting Baltic Prosperity
August 4, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

I’m a fan of the Baltic nations in part because they were among the first to adopt flat tax systems after the collapse of the Soviet empire. But tax reform was just the beginning. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have liberalized across the board as part of their efforts to become prosperous.  Economic Freedom of the World is always the first place to check when you want to understand whether countries have good policy. And the dataset for the Baltic nations does show that all three nations are in the top quartile, with Lithuania and Estonia cracking the top 20........To Read More....

France, Yachts, and the REal Victims of Class-Warfard and Taxation
August 5, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

 

Remember John Kerry, the former Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator, the guy who routinely advocated higher taxes but then made sure to protect his own wealth? Not only did he protect much of his fortune in so-called tax havens,  he even went through the trouble of domiciling his yacht outside of his home state to minimize his tax burden.  I didn’t object to Kerry’s tax avoidance, but I was irked by his hypocrisy. If taxes are supposed to be so wonderful, shouldn’t he have led by example?  At the risk of understatement, folks on the left are not very good about practicing what they preach.  But let’s not dwell on John Kerry. Instead, let’s focus on other yacht owners so we can learn an important lesson about tax policy.  And, as is so often the case, France is an example of the policies to avoid........To Read More....

Egregious Media Dishonesty Overshadows Importand Econimic observation
August 6, 2017 by Dan Mitchell
 

 

While it’s quite clear that the establishment media leans to the left, I don’t get too agitated about bias. Though every so often I can’t resist the temptation to comment when I come across egregious examples on issues such as poverty, guns, Greece, jobs, taxes, and education.  The bias extends to politics, of course, though the only time I felt compelled to comment was when ABC News rushed to imply that the Tea Party somehow was connected to a mass shooting in Colorado.  Well, I now feel compelled to comment again. But this example goes beyond bias and should be characterized as blatant and disgusting dishonesty. The hacks at Time took a quote from Charles Koch and then used selective editing to completely misrepresent what he actually said..........To Read More.......

The European Welfare State Means a Stifling Burden for Middle-Class Taxpayers
August 7, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

According to leftists like Bernie Sanders, European nations have wonderfully generous welfare states financed by high tax rates on the rich.  They’re partly right. There are very large welfare states in Europe (though I wouldn’t use “wonderfully” and “generous” to describe systems that have caused economic stagnation and high levels of unemployment).  But they’re wrong about how those welfare states are financed. Yes, tax rates on the rich are onerous, but not that much higher than in the United States. Instead, the big difference between America and Europe is that ordinary people pay much higher taxes on the other side of the Atlantic.....To Read More......

Does Trump Deserve Credit for Surging Stock Prices?
August 8, 2017 by Dan Mitchell

 

I’m rather frustrated about the lack of real results from the Republicans in Washington.

• They haven’t repealed some or all of Obamacare despite seven years of promises.
• They haven’t lowered taxes or reformed the tax code.
• They did a business-as-usual budget deal earlier this year.

Yet Trump and some GOPers want to take credit for a rising stock market, as if that is some sort of positive reaction to their non-accomplishments.  As you can see from this interview, I don’t completely reject this hypothesis. After all, stock values are a reflection of the market’s expectations of future after-tax profits. So if investors think that good reforms – such as a lower corporate tax rate – are going to happen, then it makes sense that the value of financial assets will increase...........To Read More....