Free Republic

Income inequality has leapt in Germany since 2000, a new study shows, with the lowest earners having less money in their pockets than 15 years ago despite sustained economic growth. The study by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a government-owned development bank, shows how unevenly the fruits of prosperity have been divided over the past decade and a half. Whereas in 2000 Germany had arguably the lowest income inequality in the world, it has now fallen behind the Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark. The report does however emphasize that Germany is still one of the most equal countries in the world...

Law of Unintended Consequences: New EU Tax Laws Force Thousands of Businesses to Close in Just Six Months { Full title ]. New European Union tax rules introduced in January have already driven thousands of small companies out of business, with thousands more set to follow as awareness of the change in the VAT law grows. Research has shown that incompetence on the part of collecting agencies has further added misery to the situation. After an eight-year consultation which excluded the voices of micro-businesses, the EU introduced new rules on VAT returns at the beginning of this year, which required...

Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, secured an unlikely victory when the conservative state Legislature approved a huge tax increase at his urging as part of a plan to boost education spending. The $1.1 billion package raises taxes on businesses and cigarettes, and it makes permanent a $500 million bundle of temporary payroll and sales taxes. Sandoval’s win on Monday came on the last day of the legislative session, and the proposal’s fate had been in doubt until late Sunday when several skeptical Republicans in the state Assembly pledged support. The plan had faced vocal resistance for months, led by anti-tax...

So much has been made of wealthier citizens paying their "fair share." Much of the argument against this sort of rhetoric has focused on why we shouldn't raise taxes on the highest tax bracket, or why we shouldn't create another tax bracket. But one argument that is missing is whether or not such a system of taxation is legal at all. I don't intend to go into a history of progressive taxation (the colonial Puritans used one, too) or of the income tax and the 16th Amendment. These are irrelevant to the question: Is it just for the government to...

Is the U.S. graduated income tax — a tax that ties both the amount of taxes paid and the rate of taxation to wealth — "socialistic," as certain politicians have been arguing lately? It's hardly likely, since the U.S. graduated income tax in its present form has been around since 1916. The Sixteenth Amendment authorizing a federal income tax had been ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1913. It has been vetted by economists great and small, and endorsed by none others than Teddy Roosevelt, Adam Smith and, yes, Karl Marx. Maybe the problem is the term "progressive," which...

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand! Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this. The first four men-the poorest-would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The tenth man-the richest-would pay $59. That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement-until one...