Free Republic

Members of the media are pushing the narrative that tax cuts are unpopular with voters. The truth is that they aren’t unpopular. American families like—and need—tax cuts. Taxes are unpopular because voters know they can spend their money better than Washington can. They can invest it, they can save it, and they can donate it to the causes they care deeply about. Taxes are also unpopular because Washington is bloated. It’s no secret that it wastes taxpayer money all the time. Last year, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., pointed out that the federal government was spending $1.7 million for a...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the GOP tax bill is working better than he thought it would and the evidence “seems to be that what the Trump people told us would happen is happening, that companies are reinvesting the money.” Brooks stated, “I was against the Trump tax cuts. But the early evidence is that they’re working better than I thought. And so, in the first quarter, among S&P companies, capital expenditures are up 39 percent. That’s a seven-year high. That’s far higher than a lot of us thought. Stock buybacks, which is...

President Trump travels to Cleveland, Ohio for a business roundtable on tax issues and reform.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsmkCNL1AR0  

That headline arrives via email from a money manager in northern New Jersey. The Garden State already has the third largest overall tax burden and the country’s highest property tax collections per capita. Now that federal reform has limited the deduction for state and local taxes, the price of government is surging again among high-income earners in New Jersey and other blue states. Taxpayers are searching for the exits. In the financial industry of course it’s not just the clients who are looking for greener pastures. One hedge fund manager moving his office to a southern state reports that his...

The company that's conquered the world of online retail is now taking on its hometown City Hall, with Amazon delivering an unprecedented public threat Wednesday against a proposal for a new tax on large employers in Seattle. The retail giant has paused construction planning on a new downtown Seattle tower until the City Council votes on the tax to fund homelessness programs, a spokesman said. Amazon also may sub-lease rather than occupy space in a skyscraper under construction downtown, said the spokesman, Drew Herdener

Last week, the OECD released the latest edition of its "Taxing Wages" report which focuses on the net personal average tax rate in different nations. It takes into account income tax and social security contributions paid by employees without family benefits as a share of gross wages. Last year, the average share of gross wages paid in tax across the OECD was 25.5 percent. There is a considerable difference in tax rates between countries and they are heavily dependent on earnings and family status. A single worker in Germany will face a high combination of income tax and social security...

Amazon is now under scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, as Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed President Donald Trump's criticism of the e-commerce giant in a tweet this week. "You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year? Zero," the 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful said in a tweet Monday evening. The Vermont senator linked to a Forbes article, which pointed to CEO Jeff Bezos' rise in net worth as Amazon's stock benefited from a huge earnings beat last week. Bezos, the world's richest man by Forbes' estimates, added $9 billion to his own value as the stock shot...

In a recent interview with The Economist, entitled “Marco’s makeover” in the U.S. print edition, senator Marco Rubio demonstrated that he doesn’t understand how tax cuts work. Here is one example from the interview: There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers. . . . In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker. Sorry, what? You expect this type of...

Over the past decade, more than 3.5 million Americans have left high-tax blue states like California, New York, and many others in the Northeast, for low-tax red states like Arizona, Florida, and Texas. While the migration has been happening for years, conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore are forecasting the next significant movement out of blue states could be right around the corner. Earlier this week, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “So Long, California. Sayonara, New York,” Laffer and Moore spoke about a provision within the brand-new tax bill that could create a mass migration...

City officials are trying to figure out if $33.3 million is missing from the city’s main bank account. The discrepancy is the amount the city reports having in its records vs. what bank statements show and was first flagged in the city’s 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), released in February. But the problem wasn’t widely known to the public until the current series of budget hearings — in which Councilman Allan Domb has peppered every city financial official about the unaccounted-for funds. “I’m flabbergasted,” Domb said as he questioned the city’s treasurer earlier this month. “There could be a...

Conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore are predicting a new mass exodus of wealth from New York and California because of the new tax law. But academics who have studied taxes and migration call the forecast "pure nonsense."In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined "So Long, California. Sayonara, New York," Laffer and Moore (who have both advised President Donald Trump) say the new tax bill will cause a net 800,000 people to move out of California and New York over the next three years.The tax changes limit the deduction of state and local taxes to $10,000, so...

Austin will celebrate Earth Day on April 29 with a festival on the beautiful grounds of Huston-Tillotson University. They will pay tribute to the unique ecosystems of Texas and the Hill Country, the animals and plants that make our region so spectacular. Earth Day is also a potent call to action. So, it is extremely gratifying that Austin’s leadership has heeded the intent of Earth Day with bold action. On Thursday, the City Council signed a resolution endorsing a powerful climate change solution called carbon fee and dividend, making Austin the first city in Texas to do so. Carbon fee...

Tax Fairness: The most frequently repeated complaint about the Republican tax cuts is that they are a massive "giveaway" to the rich. New evidence shows that this claim, like almost every other attack on the tax bill, is false. In the run-up to the passage of the tax reform plan, which President Trump signed into law on Dec. 22, critics attacked it on several fronts. They said there was no way the tax cuts would spur extra economic or job growth. But after the tax cuts went into effect, several economists sharply increased their growth forecasts for 2018. They said...

There has been a vast, largely unheralded migration in the U.S. over the past decade. Not because of weather, or amenities. But because of taxes. Recently, Wallet Hub published a list of states ranked by their tax burden, based on property taxes, income taxes and sales taxes as a share of personal income. The five states that impose the biggest tax burden on their residents are, in order: New York, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont and Minnesota. The five states with the lowest tax rates: Alaska, Delaware, Tennessee, Florida and New Hampshire. Right away there are some obvious similarities between the groups....

The top executive of a Southern California private charter airline says the Golden State’s hostile business environment propelled his company’s decision to relocate to Texas. “Not being viewed as an enemy, but being viewed as an asset is so refreshing,” said Alex Wilcox, Chief Executive Officer of JetSuite Inc. He described the air carrier’s decision to move to North Texas this summer as a “welcome change.” He shared a glaring example of one difference between California and business-friendly Texas. “I tried to start flying out of Santa Monica, California. And they sued me because I was trying to bring a...

The man stood right in front of Gov. Phil Murphy and was blunt. "This state is too expensive, and you're making it worse," Greg from Freehold told the Democratic governor during a town hall in Newark on Thursday night. Three months into his tenure, Murphy had come to Newark Tech High School to sell his first state budget proposal -- a $37.4 billion plan that includes more than $1.5 billion in new taxes and moves to close loopholes. The governor argued those hikes are needed because he "inherited a mess" from his predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, and that the state...

Lots of people just talk about soaking the rich, but Donald Trump and the GOP actually did it — in California, anyway, although they won’t be alone. The controversial phase-out of the state and local tax deduction (SALT) will drop like a bombshell on high-tax-rate blue states, which is one reason why Democrats so staunchly opposed it. According to an analysis from California’s Franchise Tax Board, the Golden State will be Ground Zero: President Donald Trump’s tax cuts will be anything but for about 1 million California taxpayers who will owe Uncle Sam more money a year from now.They’re...

Soaking the rich is good politics but bad economics. Millions of Americans are beginning to see the fruits of the federal tax overhaul passed in December, with higher take-home pay, bonuses, and a stronger job market. However, these good times could soon end in some left-leaning states that are considering raising their income taxes. New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maine may soon place surtaxes on “millionaires,” via legislation in the Garden State and ballot measures in the others. To proponents of larger government and greater state-level redistribution, raising rates on “fat cats” is a perfect way to fund more Medicaid and...

Yesterday, as most Americans are painfully aware, was “Tax Day,” the last day for filing individual income taxes this year. When the smoke clears, Americans will have paid $1.6 trillion in individual income taxes. And contrary to the populist rhetoric of both the Left and the Right, the vast majority of those taxes will have been paid by the rich. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, who earn 16 percent of U.S. income, will pay roughly 43 percent of federal income taxes this year. Of course, income taxes are only one component of federal taxes, and for most Americans, it’s...

Asia needs more transport infrastructure. More than the state, which finances the lion's share, can fund. So what more can be done to bring in increased private capital, when investors have so far been mostly disappointed by the returns? Is there a way of breathing new life into the public private partnership (PPP), the most common vehicle for private infrastructure investment? We think so. Governments need to offer private sector investors more than they can hope to earn from ticket sales on railways or motorway tolls. They should consider sharing the extra tax revenues generated from the increased economic activity...