Tag: tax

Taxation to What End?

Oregon, tax, taxes, corporate, corporation, illustration, Measure 97

Oregonians have quite a few ballot measures this year.

And only one of them seems obviously nutty: Measure 97.

It would raise taxes on the very biggest of companies. The richest — that is, those with $25 million in sales.

Among the reasons given for this excise hike, which is estimated to be the biggest in the state’s history, are a whole bunch of “ooh, look at what we can do with all that loot!” enticements. Yes, and then there is the tried-and-untrue staple of the left, the “make large and out-of-state corporations pay their fair share in taxes” ploy.

Admittedly, trying to get out-of-state entities to pay for your benefits is classic. What “Let somebody else pay” lacks in nobility and morality it makes up for in avarice’s perennial appeal.

But the practical problem? A tax hike is just a bid on a future expropriation. Tax targets can, in effect, counter-offer by moving, or threatening to move, out of taxing territory.

Imagine yourself a thief. Then imagine first announcing to your victims where, when and how much you intend to take.

Right now Oregon sports the tenth best business environment in the country and, maybe, the lowest business taxes*. Raise taxes to the “middle of the pack” and businesses begin to look at states with lower rates.

Objectionable? Doesn’t matter. Folks go into business to make profits, not pay taxes.

Against this reality? Measure 97’s many bigwig supporters: the progressive Democratic governor, Democratic legislators and big-spending public employee unions eager to expand their bottom lines.

But by seeking to maximize near-term tax rates, these greedy special interests risk losing revenue further off, after businesses flee the state.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The Oregon Center for Public Policy ranks Oregon as tied with Connecticut for the lowest in the nation.

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Tags corporate, corporation, illustration, Measure 97, Oregon, tax, tax policy

Accountability nannyism national politics & policies tax policy

The Year of Translucency

tax code, power, politicians, transparency, illustration

Barack Obama promised transparency in government. He didn’t deliver.

But others stepped up to the plate.

It’s now possible to see through a lot of political, elitist, and bureaucratic bunk courtesy of fugitives like Snowden, convicts like Manning, and citizens using FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) procedures.

And we are learning more about Hillary Clinton with each info dump from Julian Assange’s Wikileaks and every court-ordered disclosure thanks to lawsuits to enforce FOIA by organizations like Judicial Watch.

Some folks demand that Donald Trump release his tax returns. On the one hand, hooray for public demands for more information about candidates. But on the other hand, the richer you are, the longer and stranger your tax returns become. One shifts income around to avoid taxes — indeed, you take every “loophole” the law allows. As Justice Brandeis advised. Some folks may be shocked by Trump’s creative-but-legal accounting.

To avoid future confusion, we should demand simple tax returns from the rich. That would require jettisoning most of the tax code, simplifying the system. But ask your congressional representative why he or she will not support such a reform.

The reason we have an opaque and complicated tax code is … well, transparent. Under a simple tax system, there would be fewer favors to “trade” … and thus less power to accumulate, less oomph to parlay into pomp and splendor.

Which is why politicians rarely provide much transparency, and why it must often be wrested from them.

Merely by being merchants of opacity, our pols reveal, if inadvertently, the nature of our Too Big Government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Donald Trump, FOIA, snowden, tax, tax policy, transparency

folly free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard too much government

When Parasites Collide

Apple, EU, tax, Europe, Ireland, illustr

There are times I wish I were a tax accountant.

You know, just so I could better understand the news.

The European Commission has handed Apple, Inc., a $14.5 billion tax bill.

Owed to Ireland.

Apple, the tax commissioners said, had paid too little in taxes to Ireland, amounting to a mere 1 percent of the company’s European profits.

The Emerald Isle’s normal corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent.

On first read, this sounded like a tale of crony capitalism, with the EU’s tax authorities riding in, heroically, holding aloft the gonfalon of fair play, on the side of truth, justice, and an even playing field.

Well, the story gets complicated. The U.S. Treasury has protested the ruling as unfair. And Senator Chuck Schumer called it a “cheap money grab.”

The Wall Street Journal opinion page comes out on Apple’s side, too, but gives some specifics. Apple paid all the taxes it owed under Irish and EU law, but the ruling wasn’t about law, it was, we are told, about politics.

I can believe that.

So, as near as I can make out, what we have here are three sets of governmental interests, each intent on sucking the most out of a rich, innovative, and wildly successful multinational corporation.

It’s hard not to side with the target, Apple, and think of the other groups as mere parasites.

After all, my non-accountant’s spidey sense suspects that Schumer objects because the U.S. government isn’t going to get any of that $13 billion.

Preferring an “expensive money grab,” I suppose.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Apple, Apple Inc., corporate taxes, EU, European Union, Ireland, tax

folly free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Whose Side Are They On?

Uber, Lyft, Taxi, protection, tax, crony, cronyism, illustration

Excuse me if I drive over familiar roadways. But we are witnessing one of the great revolutions in human cooperation.

And our governments and politicians are working mightily to block traffic.

I refer, of course, to Uber and Lyft and the like.

The innovation that these companies bring to market? Enabling everyday drivers to leverage their personal investment in a capital good — a car or SUV — to make extra bucks (or even a living) while efficiently serving people who want rides.

Ride-hailing apps on smart-phones provide more security and consumer guidance than the old taxi services ever bothered to even try. The elaborate online rating system, where drivers rate riders and vice versa, provides a new market in information that outstrips government “regulation” as a consumer defense system.

And consumers get better rides, cheaper.

The Uberization of ride sharing competes directly with taxis, of course, and that’s a problem … for taxi companies. And the politicians who have regulated them for years. This regulation never was about consumer protection, but politicians just feathered their own nests with campaign contributions through crony capitalism, helping some taxi services at the expense of others.

And customers.

The latest idiocy hails from Massachusetts, which has enacted a 20¢ per trip tax on all ride-sharing apps, with 5¢ of each charge slated for subsidizing the old, established taxi services.

Taxachusetts’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, has been sucked in to the government racket, choosing to support old cronies rather than customers.

Still, it could have been worse. The advocates of the tax had initially demanded Uber be banned.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration based on original cc photo by GörlitzPhotography on Flickr

Tags crony capitalism, Lyft, tax, tax policy, taxi, taxicab, taxicabs, Uber

folly general freedom national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Procrastinators’ Weekend

Usually, April 15 is the deadline date, in these United States, to file taxes or apply for an extension. This year it is April 18.

Why? Many of us think of the Fifteenth of April as Tax Day. It seems strange and arbitrary when it is jiggered with. And kind of annoying.

But a postponement of taxes could be a postponement we might all appreciate as a tiny (ever so slight) reprieve.

So, again, why this year’s three-day extra leeway?

First off, it is regularly postponed when the day falls on a Saturday or Sunday.

Could it be that the “Nothing Gets Done on Friday” Rule has been acknowledged by the fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service?

No.

People in Maine and Massachusetts celebrate Patriots Day on April 18, so their tax day is set another day later, April 19.

Which begs the question. Why the 18th in the first place?

Well, because of Emancipation Day, usually celebrated in Washington, DC, on April 16.

Because the 16th settles on a Saturday this year, and because the day is a traditional day off for federal workers, the holiday shifts a day in advance, to this Friday, the 15th. So, Emancipation Day — commemorating the signing of the Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln — trumps Tax Filing Day.

Apt, since it might seem cruel to Americans to have Tax Day, marking the subservience of a whole population to its government, fall on something called Emancipation Day.

After all, consider: holding them on the same day? Hmmm. Might get people thinking.

Bigwigs in DC don’t want that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Fed Up With Taxes, slavery, tax, Tax Day

folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy

Rebranding the Odious?

tax, taxes, charity, IRS, I.R.S., Alain de Botton, branding, rebranding, illustration, folly, Common Sense

Being a clever person is hard work. Many of the truly clever things about everyday life have already been said. New and innovative cleverness? A rare thing indeed.

But if you are in the business of being clever, that puts you in a pickle, if “being relevant” and “worth our attention” is part of your cachet.

Take Alain de Botton, a very clever man who has written at least one brilliant book … and several not-so-brilliant ones. He has tackled Proust, Epicureanism, and is now deeply into religion.

Well, maybe not so deeply.

He wants politicians to follow the lead of religious leaders, who, he asserts, are masters of rebranding. (I had thought that was for marketing specialists.)

Recognizing that the word “tax” is an odious one — few people really like paying their taxes — de Botton says that politicians should follow what “religions do” and “rebrand ‘tax’ as ‘charity.’”

Charity, he notes, is a “much more appealing word.”

Well, yeah. That’s because charity is a word for love. It is all about deep concern, sympathy, etc., and “acts of charity” are expressions of love and concern.

And the only way that acts of charity can be determined to be expressions of concern is that they are voluntary. Taxes, on the other hand, are not voluntary. They are taken by force (try not paying them — force will find you).

Forcing people to “be charitable” will automatically scuttle that very purpose.

Trying to rescue politics from the stench of compulsion should not be done with rebranding, but by limiting government.

The less government, the less force.

And more scope for charity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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