Taxation

Brace Yourself for Obamacare Taxes

by Sheldon Richman April 5, 2010

Now that President Obama’s health-insurance overhaul has become law, we can brace ourselves for the new taxes. What new taxes? Aren’t they only on the “rich” and on large companies? It’s true that the Obama plan includes new taxes on upper-income people. For example, the Medicare tax will now be applied to investment income. People making more than $200,000, will ...

The Root of All Evil, Part 2

by Gregory Bresiger May 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to ...

The Root of All Evil, Part 1

by Gregory Bresiger April 1, 2008

Part 1 | Part 2 He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance. — The Declaration of Independence   You may think you’re safe from ...

The Ultimate Tax Cut

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2007

Since it is presidential campaign season, we will inevitably be treated to the usual discourse about tax cuts. Some candidates will call for tax cuts, undoubtedly as a way to bribe voters into voting for them. Others will resist the call, undoubtedly in fear that their favorite government program might not receive desired funding. In actuality, all the tax-cut ...

Thank You, Congress, for Not Taking It All

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2007

If the government isn’t taking 100 percent of your income, you should be grateful for Congress’s generosity. Because in the eyes of the Bush administration, that’s exactly what it is, generosity. You have no right to what you earn or any other money you might get hold of. In principle it ...

Funding Leviathan, Part 2

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 When the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, broached the idea of a consumption tax to replace all or part of the income tax in his testimony before the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, he was not alone. There are three other voices that have of late been promoting a consumption ...

The Flimflam of Income-Tax Denial

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2007

My recent three-part series in Freedom Daily, “Beware Income-Tax Casuistry” (August–October 2006), provoked some vigorous objection. Unsurprisingly, members of what is known as the tax-protester movement, but which should be called the tax-denial movement, took issue with every aspect of the articles — and more. The movement doesn’t merely object to the income tax on moral, or natural-rights, ...

Funding Leviathan, Part 1

by Laurence M. Vance March 1, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 The federal leviathan is fed by taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, during the federal government’s most recent fiscal year (FY 2006), which ended on September 30, 2006, total revenues were approximately $2.403 trillion. Most of this revenue was, of course, raised as a result of taxes confiscated from the American ...

Ripping Off the Taxpayers

by Thomas E. Woods Jr. February 1, 2007

The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006); 285 pages; $24.95. Frédéric Bastiat called it legal plunder when the state expropriated one set of property owners for the benefit of another. Whether it loots the workers to benefit the farmers, the farmers to benefit the workers, ...

Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 3

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In 1895, when the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out an income-tax law in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., the champions of income taxation in America suffered a big setback. To reiterate what I said in part two of this series, the Court, contrary to what many ...

Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 2

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The United States got its first income tax during the War Between the States, again demonstrating that war harms ordinary people in more ways than militarily. During any war government becomes an especially voracious consumer of the people’s resources and dissent is stifled or suppressed. So it is ...

Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 For many opponents of the income tax the name Brushaber is magical. It comes from Frank R. Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the 1916 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the 1913 income-tax law passed under the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That income-tax opponents would ...