Self-serving Tax Day op-ed by Jeff Bezos-owned WaPo parrots a familiar line we hear from tax-dodging companies: "we're just following the law."
What they don't tell you: all too often, they ghostwrite the tax law.
Memo to @washingtonpost.com: less tax punditry and more smart tax reporting, please!
Political reality & such, we should be careful looking back.
Obama (ACA, CTC, EITC) and Biden (fighting pandemic, chasing billionaire inequality) did good fiscal stuff, but also did permanent budget buster (Obama 2013) and $500B of regressive, even if otherwise worthy, green credits (Biden 2022).
one day, when things are quieter, i'll write my version of "where do our tax dollars go?" there are lots of great pieces out there, but i want give my take not just on what we currently do, but also how and why that's changed over time – and what we still need to do
anyway, govt has improved
"This isn’t just about clever accounting — it's about power and impunity. When millionaires and billionaires stash trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens, they place themselves above the obligations that bind the rest of society."
Christian Hallum, @oxfaminternational.bsky.social
Commentary: It is time we put aside the fiction that we bear no responsibility for an immigration system that is broken or that we owe no debt of gratitude to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have put roofs over our heads and food on our plates. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/03/27/w...
From article attributing a lot of income inequality over the last 40 years to labor, business/capital, and retirement income of upper-income elderly, with Social Security not so much of the cause.
Adding table on right for details.
@taxnotes.com
A lot of the 40-year K-shaped distribution of economic growth was driven by upper-income elderly in the top quintile and particularly top 10%.
Perhaps surprisingly, this wasn't driven by Social Security as much as labor, business/capital, and especially retirement income. @taxnotes.com 2/2
"K-shaped" post-pandemic recovery? Maybe, but K shape that really matters is how growth, even after transfers and taxes, was regressive for 40 years across quintiles and within top quintile. And this is pre-OBBBA-pre-tariffs.
In that time, only Biden took big tax swing at this (tho missed) in 2021.
In our new paper, colleagues from @taxpolicycenter.bsky.social and I offer a preliminary assessment of OBBBA, covering what it changed and what its effects will be on the budget, the economy, distributional outcomes, and future fiscal policy.
taxpolicycenter.org/research-rep...
Tariffs are highly flawed as a general revenue source b/c of the economic distortions they create & the burden they place on families with low & moderate incomes. Policymakers should raise corp tax rates as an alternative to harmful & regressive tariffs: www.cbpp.org/research/fed...
I appreciate how much work went into this.
Focusing just on revenue side, FWIW I see entire 2013 fiscal cliff deal as a bipartisan baseline re-set, so mostly looking at one-party stuff after that (so too would roll, say, bipartisan ditching of ACA 'business' taxes into a continuing reset in 2020).
n.b. 2: a reason not to adjust below for taxes paid on transfers is if we put transfers in denominator or remove taxes paid on transfers from numerator, what do we then do with, say, consumption taxes paid on loan proceeds, etc.? Aren't loans like transfers?
So there are things still under review.
n.b.: An issue with chart below is taxes (esp. sales/VAT) on transfers show up in tax numerator but the denominators don't reflect transfers.
Taxes on transfers could be removed from numerator. Even with that change, U.S. with its low, esp. fed level, sales taxes would have a pretty flat line.
(3) Yes, the $75K standard deduction & some credits seem to eat up scarce fiscal capacity.
(4) Flaws aside, Senators Booker and Van Hollen earned the right to be in this conversation. They both voted against huge permanent-deficit bills, TCJA & OBBBA, and said no to a current policy baseline.
Four comments on tax proposals from Sens. Booker and Van Hollen:
(1) The proposals aren't the same.
(2) A good cross-national comparison shows US has a relatively flat, not progressive, tax system (including SALT, & treating refundable credits like the similar transfers provided by other nations).
Agreeing mostly, maybe a little less so at tails.
For variety, below includes SALT, also treats refundable tax credits as transfers so low-income progressivity doesn't turn so much on that definition. Further, denominator (national income) below also reflects higher proportion of capital income.
The little (OK, maybe mid-sized) incremental progressive tax train engine that could (while actually saving fuel):
A legally vetted corporate surtax that targets concentrated legacy ownership and retained earnings.
Btw, no intentional shade cast on bigger engines.
www.taxnotes.com/lr/resolve/t...
E.g., Sanders/Khanna statutory draft ⬇️, there's good recent good research on value of audits. So no surprise if a funded audit provision affected views of evasion.
And for any constitutional skeptics, look at the provision that packs the Supreme Court (that's a joke for law tax profs out there).2/2
OK, maybe the E.Saez/G.Zucman estimate letter for the Sanders wealth tax is a bit pithy for something that raises $4.4T, though have seen (and done) pithier. It's also possible they'll offer more details.
Yet I strongly encourage people considering the estimate to work thru the statutory draft.1/2
Moore blessed expansion of subpart F. The Mandatory Repatriation Tax was less (if at all) about tax avoidance or horizontal equity and more about Hill internals (incl. Byrd & use as a rev closer).
A flexible subpart F a good tool in a progressive toolbox, & also may be distributionally virtuous.1/2
The Moore SC decision encourages repurposing tax code parts to target avoidance by legacy types.
Subpart F and the accumulated earnings tax could be combined in a corporate surtax aimed at major individual shareholders of U.S. corps that retain lots of earnings. $ @taxnotes.com
OBBBA "No tax" rev losses, JCX-35-25, bils.$:
- 32 No tax on tips
- 89 " on overtime
- 31 " on car interest
-212 " on some estates
-705 " on normal income*
*Ch. 3, Subch. A, 1,2,3,7
[Excl. soc sec (not really no tax) & s179 (small biz)]
RE: DHS negotiations -
If ditch Trump admin actions, clawback DHS/ICE $$, and revert to Biden 2024 EO, CBO says that still would be big net drop in immigration from Jan 2024 baseline.
So less paramilitary stuff, & >$500B in deficit reduction.
Where are my fiscal/state-power conservative friends?
This guy, as usual, is a must-read-listen.
As a process matter, he also seems to be handling well the when-do-I-say-something-with-free-access versus the insular-substack thing. It seems like some other really important voices are now getting buried behind paywalls.
bsky.app/profile/pkru...
What is a balance-of-payments deficit? I should know, but I don't. Nobody does. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6d...
... the next (Biden 46) administrative effort to fix student loan mess created by prior Admins.
This encourages Admins to do stuff to create "major questions" that didn't exist.
That means (theoretical or not?) administrative mess made by Trump 47 will need 2029 legislation to fix. Really?"
2/2
Student loans, being dragged into, and defamed in, the SC tariff debate, can be imagined to say:
"If last 4 or 10 years (e.g., before 2021) of prior Administrations badly botched something like student loans, the SC said that mess can then turn into a "major question," thereby hamstringing ... 1/2
Speaking of British monarchy, the 250 anniversary also isn't likely to trigger the kind of happyfest the administration wants.
E.g., I for one am not glibly going to the Mall to hear The Beach Boys (who to their credit were a more 'serious' band than commonly thought) like happened in 1976.
Follow-on: am fan of CBO, innovation, good wages (US-born & not), & apple pie.
But struggle with CBO slicing up surge into STEM immigrants increasing TFP vs. non-STEMs dragging down TFP.
Instead, at least for that surge, see both groups increasing TFP by offering labor indefinitely at discount.
I'm leery of the arguments that "less educated" immigrants (e.g., CBO below) tend to lower US total factor productivity.
1st, the categories seem blunt if not classist. 2nd, why doesn't a non-STEM immigrant's willingness to work at lower wage than others increase TFP? Are employers being fooled?