It's simple. End the "Bush Tax Cuts" for the top quintile.
via CBPP
Showing posts with label deficit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deficit. Show all posts
Monday, August 27, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Big Tax Dodge
Jan 10th, 2012
An astounding report was released last week by the I.R.S. showing hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected tax revenue annually.
AP reports:
"People and businesses underpaid their taxes by an estimated 17 percent in the most recent year studied, meaning they failed to send the government $450 billion it was owed, according to an Internal Revenue Service report released Friday.
The study covered 2006, the most recent for which the IRS said it had data available. The amount of underpaid taxes far exceeded the size of the entire federal budget deficit at the time." EMPHASIS OURS
There is no excuse for the extreme austerity measures and budget slashing that so many of our leaders are attempting to impose upon our struggling nation. The money is there. The problem isn't spending. It's not even necessarily the obscenely low tax rates our richest citizens enjoy. The crisis lies in enforcement.
Bruce Bartlett notes:
"There is more noncompliance in areas like pensions and investment income, where there is reporting but generally no withholding. Noncompliance rises as reporting requirements weaken for things like alimony and capital gains and rises sharply where reporting requirements are nonexistent, such as for proprietors’ income, rents and royalties." EMPHASIS OURS
Get it? The wealthiest among us, whose tax rates are ludicrously low as it is, aren't even paying what they owe.
Linda Douglas reports for ABC:
"The number of audits has gone down," says Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., of the House IRS Oversight Subcommittee. "I think that as much as anything is giving fuel to this notion that 'I can cheat, no one will ever know ' "
Experts say the number of audits has dropped as Congress has demanded the IRS be more consumer-friendly: The agency has been pressured to devote more resources to answering questions and to use less aggressive tactics to enforce the law."
An astounding report was released last week by the I.R.S. showing hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected tax revenue annually.
AP reports:
"People and businesses underpaid their taxes by an estimated 17 percent in the most recent year studied, meaning they failed to send the government $450 billion it was owed, according to an Internal Revenue Service report released Friday.
The study covered 2006, the most recent for which the IRS said it had data available. The amount of underpaid taxes far exceeded the size of the entire federal budget deficit at the time." EMPHASIS OURS
There is no excuse for the extreme austerity measures and budget slashing that so many of our leaders are attempting to impose upon our struggling nation. The money is there. The problem isn't spending. It's not even necessarily the obscenely low tax rates our richest citizens enjoy. The crisis lies in enforcement.
Bruce Bartlett notes:
"There is more noncompliance in areas like pensions and investment income, where there is reporting but generally no withholding. Noncompliance rises as reporting requirements weaken for things like alimony and capital gains and rises sharply where reporting requirements are nonexistent, such as for proprietors’ income, rents and royalties." EMPHASIS OURS
Get it? The wealthiest among us, whose tax rates are ludicrously low as it is, aren't even paying what they owe.
Linda Douglas reports for ABC:
"The number of audits has gone down," says Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., of the House IRS Oversight Subcommittee. "I think that as much as anything is giving fuel to this notion that 'I can cheat, no one will ever know ' "
Experts say the number of audits has dropped as Congress has demanded the IRS be more consumer-friendly: The agency has been pressured to devote more resources to answering questions and to use less aggressive tactics to enforce the law."
What we are dealing with here is nothing short of an institutionalized incentive for fraud.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
And You Thought The Bush Tax Cuts Were Bad?
Jun 16th, 2011
You may have heard about Republican Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty's recent tax proposals. Most analysts have focused their attention on Pawlenty's insistence that his plan would spur an annual growth rate of 5%. Such a claim is, as economist Michael Ettlinger of the Center For American Progress put it, "patently ridiculous."
As TPM reported, withering criticism is coming from the right as well:
"The trend growth rate is not going to be 5% in the United States," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the CBO under President Bush and a top GOP advisor, told TPM. "The market just doesn't support that. It just doesn't."
While a brief spurt of high growth is not uncommon coming out of a deep recession, sustained 5% growth appears a bridge too far. Pawlenty cited expansion periods under Reagan and Clinton as models, but neither president achieved comparable numbers -- in fact from 1980-2000 there was only one time in which growth surpassed 5% at all, a 7.2% boom in 1984 that immediately leveled off the next year.
"It's impossible" Robert Reischauer, former CBO director under Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton and current president of the Urban Institute, told TPM. "You get growth because of investment, an increased labor force, a rise in human capital, and innovation. Add all those components together and they don't sum up to 5% given what the labor force is going to be and the investment possibilities are."
While a critique of so stunning a claim is necessary, it is perhaps more valuable to look at T-Paw's numbers next to the disastrous Bush cuts of 2001 and 2003. The crippling expansion of the deficit that would result from these policies is not hard to estimate... merely to fathom. If we are ever going to grapple with the U.S. debt in an adult manner, we have to reject this devotion to the provably false supply-side mantra of the tax-cut as "cure-all."
Kevin Drum sums it up perfectly:
"As usual, a bone is thrown to us schmoes making 50 grand or so: our after-tax incomes would go up about 5%. Let's all go to Disneyland! But the real action is at the high end: income increases of 15-20% for the wealthy. Party time! And the super-rich millionaire class? It's Katy bar the door: they'll see their after-tax income go up by a walloping 33%. Time to buy that second yacht!
Say what you want about how boring Pawlenty is, but he knows his audience: scraps for the middle class who aren't in on the con while the wealthy who understand exactly what's going on rake in billions. Is that cynical behavior from this son of a milk truck driver? Sure. But hardly a surprise from anyone who knows the Republican Party's real power base. Pawlenty obviously knows it better than most."
Indeed. This proposal seems to have a lot less to do with organizing the country's finances than expanding the former Governor's campaign chest. But there are plenty of reasons to believe that the rest of the Republican field will embrace the plan generally. And this is dangerous.
You may have heard about Republican Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty's recent tax proposals. Most analysts have focused their attention on Pawlenty's insistence that his plan would spur an annual growth rate of 5%. Such a claim is, as economist Michael Ettlinger of the Center For American Progress put it, "patently ridiculous."
As TPM reported, withering criticism is coming from the right as well:
"The trend growth rate is not going to be 5% in the United States," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the CBO under President Bush and a top GOP advisor, told TPM. "The market just doesn't support that. It just doesn't."
While a brief spurt of high growth is not uncommon coming out of a deep recession, sustained 5% growth appears a bridge too far. Pawlenty cited expansion periods under Reagan and Clinton as models, but neither president achieved comparable numbers -- in fact from 1980-2000 there was only one time in which growth surpassed 5% at all, a 7.2% boom in 1984 that immediately leveled off the next year.
"It's impossible" Robert Reischauer, former CBO director under Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton and current president of the Urban Institute, told TPM. "You get growth because of investment, an increased labor force, a rise in human capital, and innovation. Add all those components together and they don't sum up to 5% given what the labor force is going to be and the investment possibilities are."
While a critique of so stunning a claim is necessary, it is perhaps more valuable to look at T-Paw's numbers next to the disastrous Bush cuts of 2001 and 2003. The crippling expansion of the deficit that would result from these policies is not hard to estimate... merely to fathom. If we are ever going to grapple with the U.S. debt in an adult manner, we have to reject this devotion to the provably false supply-side mantra of the tax-cut as "cure-all."
 |
| From Chuck Marr at The Center For Budget and Policy Priorities |
Kevin Drum sums it up perfectly:
"As usual, a bone is thrown to us schmoes making 50 grand or so: our after-tax incomes would go up about 5%. Let's all go to Disneyland! But the real action is at the high end: income increases of 15-20% for the wealthy. Party time! And the super-rich millionaire class? It's Katy bar the door: they'll see their after-tax income go up by a walloping 33%. Time to buy that second yacht!
Say what you want about how boring Pawlenty is, but he knows his audience: scraps for the middle class who aren't in on the con while the wealthy who understand exactly what's going on rake in billions. Is that cynical behavior from this son of a milk truck driver? Sure. But hardly a surprise from anyone who knows the Republican Party's real power base. Pawlenty obviously knows it better than most."
Indeed. This proposal seems to have a lot less to do with organizing the country's finances than expanding the former Governor's campaign chest. But there are plenty of reasons to believe that the rest of the Republican field will embrace the plan generally. And this is dangerous.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Another Chart
May 19th, 2011
As I grow increasingly tired of writing in detail about American monetary policy in my attempts to counter the "it's all Obama's fault" idiots, I must occasionally resort to simple charts. Hey, idiots, this one even has pictures. Suck it up.
As I grow increasingly tired of writing in detail about American monetary policy in my attempts to counter the "it's all Obama's fault" idiots, I must occasionally resort to simple charts. Hey, idiots, this one even has pictures. Suck it up.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition
April18th, 2011
"It doesn't address in any serious or courageous way the issue of the near and medium-term deficit. I think the biggest problem is revenues. It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn't part of the solution.
It's a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes." -- David Stockman, former director of Ronald Reagan's office of Management and Budget critiquing the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Path To Poverty
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