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Economy, Taxes and Free Markets
85 posts, newest first (page 4 of 4).
A century of top income tax rates, from 7 percent in 1913 to the 2018 lawTwelve dated entries on the top federal income tax rate, from 7 percent in 1913 to 94 percent in 1944 to 37 percent in 2018, and what each swing says. A flat tax, a national sales tax and a VAT, compared for one familyThe current code, a flat tax, the FairTax and a VAT compared for one family, and why a VAT stacked on an income tax is the worst outcome for limited government. Where tax cuts pay for themselves and where they honestly do notSome tax cuts recover most of their cost and some do not. Conservatives should say which is which, and defend lower rates on freedom and growth either way. The EITC began as a conservative idea and now pays out billions in errorThe Earned Income Tax Credit rewards work, which is why conservatives backed it, but its design yields one of the highest improper-payment rates in government. Capital gains taxes and the lock-in effect that keeps money frozen in placeGains are taxed only on sale, so high rates freeze capital in old holdings, and because gains are not indexed, part of the tax falls on inflation. Withholding began as a wartime emergency in 1943 and simply never leftWithholding was sold as a wartime measure and made the tax bill vanish before the money arrives. A tax you never see is a tax that grows. Tax complexity is a subsidy for lobbyists, and the code shows how it worksEvery deduction and credit in the tax code was won by someone who asked for it, so complexity is a business model that costs ordinary filers hours and money. The death tax, the family farm and the case for ending a tax on dyingThe estate tax raises a sliver of federal revenue while families spend heavily on lawyers and planning to avoid it, and it taxes money already taxed once. Why the corporate income tax is paid by people, and the only question is whoA corporation is a legal form, not a taxpayer, so every dollar of corporate tax lands on shareholders, workers or customers. The only question is which of them. The Sixteenth Amendment and the 1913 bargain that built the income taxThe Court struck down the first peacetime income tax, the people amended the Constitution, and the promise that only the rich would pay did not last. Benefit cliffs can make a raise cost a single mother real moneyWhen means-tested benefits phase out together, a low-wage worker can face a higher effective rate than a millionaire. A labelled example, CBO, and fixes. The marginal rate is the one that decides whether you work the extra shiftYour average tax rate is a statistic; your marginal rate is a decision. How brackets really work, and why the next dollar's rate shapes work, saving and risk. Who actually pays the federal income tax, read straight from the IRS tablesThe IRS's own tables show a small share of filers carry the income tax while tens of millions owe nothing, the reverse of the claim that the rich pay nothing.
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