Taxation

Taxing Dividends: Once Is Not Enough?

by Sheldon Richman February 14, 2003

Why is it controversial to propose an end to double taxation? The centerpiece of President Bush’s economic package is elimination of the tax on dividends. No one disputes that this is a double tax. A corporation pays taxes on its profits. Then if it distributes the after-tax profits ...

Tax-Cut Alchemy

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 7, 2003

In the midst of massive increases in federal spending and an enormous budget deficit, President Bush has proposed a large reduction in federal taxes. How’s that for political magic — lower taxes and more benefits? Unfortunately, however, it’s not ...

Mr. Bush Neglects the Constitution

by Sheldon Richman February 7, 2003

It isn’t entirely encouraging that the top man of the political party theoretically dedicated to the Constitution, limited government, and individual liberty thinks the government he runs should cure AIDS in Africa, create a hydrogen-powered car, pay for retirees’ medicine, and provide mentors to troubled kids. Ominously, President Bush’s state ...

Sic the IRS on Saddam

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 23, 2002

President Bush made a grievous mistake by relying on a UN weapons report to go after Saddam Hussein. He should have instead required Saddam to file a federal income-tax return. It would have been a much more effective and less costly way to get rid of the man. Look at the ...

Corporate Inversions and the Tax State

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2002

Before I accepted my present position as a professor of economics at Hillsdale College in 1988, I negotiated my salary with the academic dean responsible for hiring new faculty. At that time I was teaching at the University of Dallas in Texas. Now, a move to Hillsdale was definitely attractive to me. They were offering me an endowed position ...

Repeal the Corporate Tax

by Sheldon Richman September 13, 2002

Why not repeal the corporate income tax? Everyone’s worried about falling stock values, so let’s remove one of the big burdens on corporate profits: the corporate income tax. We shouldn’t do this as a short-term quick fix. The repeal should be permanent. What? you’re saying. Let those dirty corporations get ...

Freedom, the Income Tax, and the Welfare State

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2002

Americans have come to believe that the IRS and the income tax are inevitable parts of our lives. After all, most everyone alive today has lived his entire life under federal income taxation. It wasn’t always that way. For some 125 years, the American people lived without having any tax imposed upon their income. The obvious question that arises is: Why ...

Fiscal Force

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2002

“I know ev’rybody’s income and what ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;” — W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida April is the cruelest month, for reasons other than what T.S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The ...

Wrong Rights

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2002

BRACE YOURSELF. We are about to witness the launch of a global movement to establish economic and social rights on a par with human rights. In other words, say the organizers of this movement, the right to food and health care is as legitimate as the right not to be tortured by ones government. (See The Economist, August 16.) A ...

Bad Tax Bill

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2001

We’ve been had. By a Bush. Again. The tax cut is a joke. After all the blather about how the surplus belongs to us, not the government, the resulting tax-cut bill is minuscule, ultra-gradual, and now scheduled to expire in 10 years! Republican and Democrat members of Congress, ...

Wrong Way to Go

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2001

We’ve been had. By a Bush. Again. The tax cut is a joke. After all the blather about how the surplus belongs to us, not the government, the resulting tax-cut bill is minuscule, ultra-gradual, and now scheduled to expire in 10 years! Republican and Democrat members of Congress, ...

Teens for Lower Taxes

by Ken Sturzenacker May 1, 2001

Adults in the executive and legislative branches of the nation's various governments may not want to pay attention, but they should. A Junior Achievement survey of middle school and high school students nationwide completed in March shows that six out of seven (83%) teens believe taxes in general are too high. ...