Posts tagged tax policy

Open the door to the top executives’ suite and you will hear howls of rage over the backlash these revelations have provoked. There is, from the corporate point of view, something a little disingenuous happening here. After all, countries, states and cities have spent the past several decades openly competing to set the lowest corporate tax rates in an effort to attract business. The fact that multinationals would respond to these incentives and turbocharge them with some international tax arbitrage is about as shocking as the discovery of gambling in Casablanca.
Chrystia Freeland: Business, taxes and responsibility

Bruce Bartlett: Who Pays the Corporate Income Tax?

[F]our Treasury Department economists detail the method the Treasury uses to allocate the corporate tax in distribution tables. They have the advantage of access to actual corporate tax returns and far greater detail on corporate finances than available to private researchers.

The Treasury economists conclude that 82 percent of the corporate tax falls on capital [shareholders] and 18 percent on labor. This is very close to the methodology of the private Tax Policy Center, whose analyses are frequently cited in policy debates. It assumes that 80 percent of the corporate tax is borne by capital and 20 percent by labor.

The Romney camp has a statement about their candidate’s 2011 tax returns. I had a free 15 minutes, so I wrote them a better one: Mitt and Ann Romney have made available an estimate of their 2011 tax returns. If you’re reading this yourself, as opposed to having the help dictate it to you while you roll around in piles of money, it’s safe to assume they paid a lower tax rate than you did. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent. The Romneys (Romnii?) have paid taxes in the full amount that they owe. Additionally, they give money — lots of it! — to “charities.” If you speak IRS, this means they give money to organizations recognized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. If you speak human, this means they give money to organizations that may or may not be using it to do meaningful things that benefit the needy and less privileged. In any event — and we can’t stress this point enough — they don’t own the government anything under current law. If you have a problem with this, perhaps you should direct your anger towards Congress, which can change the laws that keep Mr. Romney’s tax rate so profoundly low relative to everyone else’s whenever they feel like it. Mitt Romney is running for president, a position of awesome power and responsibility. However, the president does not write tax policy. If he/she did… oh boy, think of how much easier this would all be. As for the notion that a President Romney would bully Congress into passing tax reform that disproportionately benefits the rich: Have you honestly seen our guy? He’s rigid as a totem pole and as intimidating as cat’s mew. As president, he’d sign anything — literally anything at all — you threw in front of him. His 2011 returns aren’t really newsworthy. Move along…

The Romney camp has a statement about their candidate’s 2011 tax returns. I had a free 15 minutes, so I wrote them a better one:

Mitt and Ann Romney have made available an estimate of their 2011 tax returns. If you’re reading this yourself, as opposed to having the help dictate it to you while you roll around in piles of money, it’s safe to assume they paid a lower tax rate than you did. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 percent.

The Romneys (Romnii?) have paid taxes in the full amount that they owe. Additionally, they give money — lots of it! — to “charities.” If you speak IRS, this means they give money to organizations recognized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. If you speak human, this means they give money to organizations that may or may not be using it to do meaningful things that benefit the needy and less privileged.

In any event — and we can’t stress this point enough — they don’t own the government anything under current law. If you have a problem with this, perhaps you should direct your anger towards Congress, which can change the laws that keep Mr. Romney’s tax rate so profoundly low relative to everyone else’s whenever they feel like it.

Mitt Romney is running for president, a position of awesome power and responsibility. However, the president does not write tax policy. If he/she did… oh boy, think of how much easier this would all be.

As for the notion that a President Romney would bully Congress into passing tax reform that disproportionately benefits the rich: Have you honestly seen our guy? He’s rigid as a totem pole and as intimidating as cat’s mew. As president, he’d sign anything — literally anything at all — you threw in front of him. His 2011 returns aren’t really newsworthy. Move along…

Full text: Letter from Ralph Nader to President Obama regarding Elizabeth Warren and financial regulation.

kateoplis

Though I’m nothing less than absolutely livid about this fuckery, I’ll quietly drink my Blend 44 coffee out of my Obama mug anyways.

Though I’m nothing less than absolutely livid about this fuckery, I’ll quietly drink my Blend 44 coffee out of my Obama mug anyways.