How many times should your money be taxed? One time? Two times? Three times? Four? Sounds like a ridiculous proposition, but that’s the true story of capital gains taxes in America, and it’s one that’s not being told in the continuing debate over Governor Mitt Romney’s taxes. For more than a week, the media has focused on the subject of just how much Romney pays in taxes. On Tuesday, the governor released his tax returns indicating that he paid about 15 percent in taxes last year. At first blush, that …
With all the damaging bills coming out of Congress today, and promises of more to come, it is easy to lose sight of necessary positive policy changes that Congress should be making to improve the tax code and increase economic growth. Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) look to fix that by proposing a series of changes to the tax code that will finally make those long-needed advancements. Their bill, H.R. 5029, proposes the following: 1) Eliminate the tax on capital gains. The current tax code taxes capital …
Throughout his 1992 campaign, then-candidate Bill Clinton promised tax cuts for the middle class. By the time he was sworn into office in 1993, though, Clinton said he would have to “revisit” his tax-cut plan and was “absolutely mystified” that the media had perceived it as a major pledge. A year later Americans punished Clinton by electing the first Republican Congress in more than 40 years. President-elect Barack Obama also campaigned on a middle class tax cut, but so far, he seems intent on not repeating Clinton’s mistake. Yesterday on …
Today the Wall Street Journal published a letter from Barack Obama economic adviser Jeffrey Liebman responding to an op-ed by McCain advisers Martin Feldstein and John Taylor. Feldstein and Taylor are savvy enough to respond to Liebman’s arguments on their own, but Liebman did materially misrepresent the position of The Heritage Foundation in his letter. Heritage senior analyst Rea Hederman has written to the WSJ: How ironic that Jeffrey Liebman (“Tax Plan No Help to Middle Class,” Letters, Sept. 4) should charge Martin Feldstein and John Taylor with misrepresenting the …
The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle looks over Barack Obama’s economic plans and doesn’t like what she sees. Focusing on taxes she writes: As if those things [trade and labor law] weren’t enough, he wants to raise the capital gains tax. There is a reason that most [countries] tax capital lightly–actually several reasons. The first is that capital is mobile, and the second is that capital means new investment, which gives us shiny new things we like, such as fMRI machines and electric cars and yes, iPhones. Savings represents a tradeoff between …
The New York Sun pokes fun at the Treasury Department, which this week released two reports assessing the impact of the 2003 tax cuts: We confess we stumbled a few times in making our way through the language, which seems at times to buy into left-wing assumptions. “Capital gains income, which is not captured in GDP, more than quadrupled between 1994 and 2000,” says one of the papers. “Tax receipts from capital gains realizations more than tripled during this period, even though the tax rate on capital gains was reduced …
“ObamaNation” was apoplectic over ABC News’ decision to question Barack Obama over his associations with a Louis Farrakhan-sympathetic preacher and a college professor up from the Weather Underground. But the Illinois senator’s answers on questions that dealt with policy were even more illuminating. A segment on the economy included this exchange: CHARLES GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, “I certainly would not go above what existed under …
