Littered throughout the President’s proposed budget and health care plan are over $2 trillion in new taxes. In the budget we see tax hikes on businesses including the death tax; new detrimental restrictions on a tax provision called “deferral” that is vital for U.S. companies operating abroad; and potential new taxes to raise revenue for health care reform. We also see in the proposed health care plan a new Medicare tax on investment income. Heritage experts have pointed out that tax increases have a negative effect on the economy and …
Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York and other House Democrats propose to pay for their $1.3 trillion bill to create government-run health care with a 5.4 percent surtax on 2.04 million high-income Americans — about half of them small business owners. Americans would face European-style taxes, paying top rates that – combined with local and state taxes – exceed those of economic competitors such as Germany and Japan. Taxpayers in Italy, Spain, and even France pay lower rates. And that’s not all: President Obama would have the power to increase …
On June 15, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a study suggesting national tax policies contributed to, but did not cause, the credit boom and bust that caused the global recession. The IMF noted that countries with income taxes tend to impose heavier tax burdens on equity than debt, thereby tilting the playing field toward greater leverage: “Tax distortions have caused leverage to be substantially higher than it would be under a neutral tax system.” In the United States, this distortion is especially apparent in the double-taxation of corporate income …
Question: How do we create jobs, increase economic growth, rebuild the nest egg of households, strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. economy and increase tax revenues? A. Borrow trillions of dollars and hire workers and specify that these workers must be from the United States. B. Create a new industry by making carbon emissions a scarce good so that new “green” jobs can displace jobs in polluting industries. Create a complicated trading system and allowance allocation to create “administrative” jobs, jobs for lobbyists and jobs for lawyers. C. Raise taxes …
“Overseas investments,” writes Steven Malanga, “rarely cost jobs in a corporation’s home country,” but instead bring substantial benefits for the home country. President Obama has proposed eliminating what he sees as an unfair incentive in the tax code for U.S. companies to move jobs overseas. In fact, as explained in an earlier post, the provision he is targeting—which allows U.S. firms to defer tax liability on the profits they earn abroad—was designed to mitigate the disadvantages of the U.S. tax code for U.S. companies competing globally. But what about this …
For 15 years, The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation have been measuring countries’ commitment to free-market capitalism in the “Index of Economic Freedom.” The 2009 Index, published this week, provides strong evidence that the countries that maintain the freest economies do the best job of promoting prosperity for all citizens. The positive correlation between economic freedom and national income is confirmed yet again by this year’s data. The freest countries enjoy per capita incomes over 10 times higher than those in countries ranked as “repressed.” This year, for …
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), champion of a federal tax holiday, faced skeptical questions today about his idea to give the economy a boost. Gohmert wants to stop collecting taxes for two months — using the unspent $350 billion from the Wall Street bailout to pay for the plan. Although his idea has gained momentum on Capitol Hill with Republican lawmakers and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, conservative and libertarian bloggers who met with Gohmert at Heritage asked tough questions of the Texas congressman. (Listen to the briefing on BlogTalkRadio.) Most wanted …
According to the Tax Policy Center, Barack Obama plans raise the tax burden on all Americans by $627.1 billion over the next 10 years. Defending this policy on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Joe Biden told Americans they should enjoy paying higher taxes because “it’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”Apparently, the rest of the world does not view higher taxes as “patriotic” as Biden does. Over the last decade almost every …
Every year the international accounting and consulting firm KPMG issues a Corporate Tax Survey to “help our member firm clients and other organizations consider developments across borders.” In other words, to better inform their clients about which countries offer the most competitive environments for business. This year KPMG reports: [T]the most remarkable result of our 2008 survey is that we have found no country anywhere that has raised its rate since last year. The global average is, once again, down nearly a full point to 25.9 percent with the EU …
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 …
