Taxation

Is There a VAT in Our Future?

by Laurence M. Vance August 1, 2021

President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan is expensive, really expensive. According to a White House “Fact Sheet,” this $1.8 trillion plan to “grow the middle class, expand the benefits of economic growth to all Americans, and leave the United States more competitive” includes “an additional four years of free, public education for our nation’s children” in the form of “free ...

The UBI, CTC, EITC, and the GOP

by Laurence M. Vance April 5, 2021

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Doar and Matt Weidinger, two scholars at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, are lamenting the passage of the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. They see it as the “Democrats’ stealth plan to enact universal basic income” because the “Covid stimulus would give checks ...

Millionaires for Insanity

by Michael Tennant August 17, 2020

A coterie of guilt-ridden rich folks calling themselves Millionaires for Humanity has signed an open letter begging the governments of the world to raise their taxes in order to undo the devastation wreaked by COVID-19. “As Covid-19 strikes the world, millionaires like us have a critical role to play in healing our world,” they write. That role, it seems, ...

Right Policy, Wrong Reason

by Laurence M. Vance April 6, 2020

Before Donald Trump indicated his support for the current coronavirus-relief program, he broached the idea of a payroll-tax cut. In addition to the money withheld from paychecks for income tax, there are, thanks to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), two payroll taxes: Social Security and Medicare. The Social Security tax rate is 12.4 percent (split equally between employer and employee) ...

What All the Democratic Presidential Candidates Have in Common

by Laurence M. Vance March 6, 2020

And then there were three. The Democratic National Convention will be held July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A record twenty-nine Democrats formally announced that they were seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Fourteen of them withdrew in 2019. Four of them withdrew in 2020 before the Iowa Democratic caucuses on February 3 (Cory Booker, Julian Castro, John Delaney, Marianne Williamson). Three ...

So Much for Living the American Dream

by John W. Whitehead March 3, 2020

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” ― Frédéric Bastiat, French economist Let’s talk numbers, shall we? The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed ...

Are Americans Undertaxed?

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2020

According to the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day “is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year.” Tax Freedom Day “takes all federal, state, and local taxes and divides them by the nation’s income”; that is, “every dollar that is officially part of net national income ...

Americans Certainly Do Need a Payroll Tax Cut

by Laurence M. Vance September 6, 2019

For most employees in the United States there are three different federal taxes taken out of their paychecks by their employers: income tax withholding, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax. Social Security and Medicare taxes are known together as payroll taxes. Unlike the amount withheld for income tax, over which employees have some control, depending on how many allowances ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Income Tax: Root of Evil (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation April 19, 2019

Taxation is theft, there is no getting around it. But the income tax in particular has had a particularly galling effect on the liberty of all Americans. FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger and Citadel professor Richard M. Ebeling discuss. Go to the podcast.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2019

We have all seen the signs. They might be referring to a road-widening project, a new city or county park, sidewalks being repaired, new airport terminals being constructed, potholes being filled in, additional trees being planted, or some sort of downtown development. But regardless of the project, the signs are usually the same: Your Tax Dollars at Work. Now, it ...

The Libertarian Angle: Trump’s Tax Bill and American Serfdom (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation December 5, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss recent tax legislation. Go to the podcast.

What Is the Optimal Top Marginal Income Tax Rate?

by Laurence M. Vance November 3, 2017

It’s not just American bureaucracies that are headquartered in Washington, D.C. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), with its staff of approximately 2,700, has been headquartered in Washington, D.C., since its inception in 1945. The IMF “is an organization of 189 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and ...