February 2017, Alan Barber and Cherrie Bucknor

Alexander MainNocaute, 8 de fevereiro, 2017

Millionaires are getting a late valentine from Social Security in 2017. The taxes that support the program — which provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to millions of Americans —only apply to the first $127,200 that someone makes at thei

February 15, 2017 (Prices Byte)

Mark WeisbrotThe Nation, February 14, 2017

Last summer the Center for American Progress released a report on the problems with the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system in the United States. They cited, among other things, the historically low number of jobless workers who received UI benefits in 201

According to Vox and the Washington Post, the Trump Administration is considering an Executive Order that would have a profound impact on the current system of lawful, family-based immigration. To understand what’s at stake, it’s helpful to first know som

Dean Baker
Truthout, February 13, 2017

Jake Johnston
Jacobin, February 13, 2017

Robert Samuelson is unhappy that people continue to believe something that is true — that we bailed out the bankers — and happy that people still believe something that is not true — that we prevented a second Great Depression. In his column Samuelson complains:

"The real Dodd-Frank scandal is that this misinterpretation of events, widely embraced by both parties, has been allowed to stand. In many bailouts, banks’ shareholders suffered huge losses or were wiped out; similarly, top managers lost their jobs. The point was not to protect them but to prevent a collapse of the financial system."

Okay, let's imagine the counterfactual. We decide to take the free market seriously and let it work its magic on Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and the rest of the high rollers. These huge banks all go into bankruptcy with the commercial banking parts of the operations taken over by the FDIC. All insured deposits are fully protected, with the FDIC and Fed having the option to raise the limits to protect smaller savers.

The shareholders of these banks are out of luck. They have zero. Samuelson is right that share prices were depressed during the crisis, but that is different than going to zero. Furthermore, operating with the protection of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's promise of "no more Lehmans," the share prices soon bounced back.

This is really getting over the top. Republicans in Congress are debating an overhaul of the corporate income tax which would eliminate many of the opportunities for gaming the current tax code. To my mind this is great news, because the tax-gaming industry is where many of the richest people in the country, like private equity fund partners, make their money.

This means that the current corporate tax code is a mechanism for transferring money from the rest of us to the likes of Mitt Romney and Peter Peterson. It's understandable that these people would be very upset by a plan to end their tax-gaming windfalls, but why is Neil Irwin at NYT so upset?

The story he pushes is that border adjustability rules in the proposed reform would create enormous disruptions in the economy because it would lead to a sharp rise in the value of the dollar. Irwin tosses around a hypothetical 25 percent increase in the value of the dollar which he warns:

"...could shift trillions of dollars of wealth from Americans to foreigners; set off an emerging markets financial crisis; wreak havoc in global oil markets; and cause sustained harm to the American higher education and tourism industries (including, as it happens, luxury hotels with President Trump’s name on them)."

Okay, this is more than a little bit silly.

Mark WeisbrotPhiladelphia Inquirer, February 14, 2017

Febrero 2017, Mark Weisbrot, Jake Johnston y Lara Merling

February 2017, Mark Weisbrot, Jake Johnston, and Lara Merling

Dean Baker
Fortune, February 9, 2017

In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously commented that 47 percent of Americans were “dependent on government” because they didn’t pay any federal income taxes. He went on to explain that his job was “not to worry about those people.”

Journalists and other public figures often claim that only the rich pay taxes, supporting this with the argument that the rich pay the vast majority of federal income taxes. However, federal income taxes are just one part of the broader tax code. When we consider other types of federal taxes as well as state and local taxes, it becomes clear that the overall tax code isn’t extremely progressive – in other words, it doesn’t “soak the rich,” and it certainly doesn’t let the poor off the hook.

The aforementioned “47 percent” do pay substantial state and local taxes, but even ignoring these taxes, it’s worth noting that income taxes represent just half of all federal tax revenue:

In fiscal year 2013 – the last year for which we have full federal, state, and local data – the federal government raised over $2.6 trillion in total tax revenue. It also raised an additional $134 billion in funds from other sources, most notably customs duties, remittances from the Federal Reserve, and miscellaneous fees and fines. About $1.3 trillion of revenue came from the progressive federal income tax, while another $274 billion came from the progressive corporate profits tax. Estate and gift taxes, which are also progressive, accounted for $19 billion, equivalent to just 0.7 percent of federal tax revenue.