The Greek city-states in the fourth-century BC, fifth-century AD Rome, and the Western European democracies after World War I all knew they could not continue as usual with their fiscal, social, political, and economic behavior. But all these states and societies feared far more the self-imposed sacrifices that might have saved them. Mid-fifteenth-century Byzantium was […]
Last Thursday in New York, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump released a tax reform plan. The plan would reform the individual income tax code by lowering marginal tax rates on wages, investment, and business income. Furthermore, it would broaden the individual income tax base. The plan would also lower the corporate income tax rate […]
The Trump campaign today released details of their tax plan–again. This version has a lot more meat on the bone than previous iterations. First, the good. The plan reduces the number of individual tax brackets from seven to three, in the process cutting the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. […]
If you get into the weeds of tax policy and had a contest for parts of the internal revenue code that are “boring but important,” depreciation would be at the top of the list. After all, how many people want to learn about America’s Byzantine system that imposes a discriminatory tax penalty on new investment? […]
Donald Trump made himself infamous to critics for saying he wanted to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. But Hillary Clinton deserves equal scorn for wanting to build a wall around American companies and make middle-class workers pay for it. Earlier this month, Trump announced he would cut […]