Dems won big last week, but wealth tax advocates suffered a stunning defeat in CA. Voters rejected a wealth tax and backed new restrictions on future levies.
A warning for DC as the next tax debate takes shape.
Our latest:
https://t.co/QyxPrCX7i0
Congress explicitly gave Treasury the authority to exempt businesses from the CTA. Now the law's supporters are suing because they don't like how Treasury used that authority.
(Pro tip: disliking an outcome isn't a sound legal argument)
Read more:
https://t.co/jdv4iMfmIa
Great conversation on “Found, Borrow, Die” with Brian Reardon and @George_A_Callas
I’m with Brian on this one: if a home equity loan to buy a boat is ok, so is a loan against founder stock to buy a yacht. It’s just more zeroes.
Each are loans, not free money. They have to be paid back at a market rate of interest. And if you die, the loan is paid back with estate assets.
“Buy, Borrow, Die” makes for a catchy slogan. But what about earning, saving, investing, paying interest, repaying the loan, and paying estate taxes?
Our latest takes a closer look at the $5 trillion headline and the misleading narrative behind it:
https://t.co/9zOo03L3aG
Is taxing business income once a loophole?
Of course not. The real departure from sound tax policy is the corporate double tax, not pass-through taxation.
Another thing to understand about Zucman: engaging him is like trying to kick a football through a constantly-moving goalpost that also arbitrarily changes its height and width mid-kick.
He and his team at UC-Berkeley churn out a stream of working papers on inequality measurement that bake dozens of dubious assumptions into their data files, all of which "coincidentally" reinforce the headline figures that align with their political narrative. But finding and weeding out those assumptions is an extremely tedious and time-consuming task.
Zucman and coauthors Piketty and Saez do most of their work in Excel, and it's seldom ever straightforward. Instead you'll find some extremely questionable and undisclosed multiplier that's just guesstimated out of thin air...but it's buried 10 layers deep in a formula from a convoluted Excel spreadsheet, which changes the an input for another Excel spreadsheet that's used to create a ratio, which in turn goes into a formula on another Excel spreadsheet that's used to estimate a decade of missing data, which in turn alters the trend of their entire series. @VincentGeloso and I know this well because we've been scrutinizing their work for over a decade and have found dozens of examples of this sort of stuff.
But there's another twist to the PSZ universe: once you've done the work and found a problem in their data files that alters their main results in significant ways, they've already moved on to a "new" approach that conveniently hard-bakes all the faulty assumptions of the old approach into its source data while refusing to revisit them, and then layers them over with new paint, consisting of even more of the same style of Excel spreadsheet labyrinths that you now have to navigate to even figure out what they are doing. And what they do in their data files often diverges in substantial ways from how they describe it in their papers and descriptive appendixes.
While you're toiling away to figure out what they did in their last peer reviewed paper, they call up a friendly reporter at the NY Times and get him to publish a new non-peer reviewed statistical claim that grabs headlines and aligns with whatever wealth tax initiative they happen to be activisting for at the moment.
By the end, the goalpost has hopped around the field, changed its size and height multiple times, and been replaced by a new goalpost on the other end of the field that announces itself not through the referees of the field but via some sportscaster up in the broadcast booth who also happens to be openly cheering for their team.
The key reason is this:
People who did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday know the truth about "one time" taxes. Especially this one that spends the money on recurring programs instead of one time expenses.
My source for CA prop 40 leading to a permanent tax? Prof. Zucman:
This Hoover Institution study, which has fueled the deluge of ads (more than $200 million spent by billionaires so far) to defeat the California billionaire tax, is spectacularly misleading.
Let me explain its crucial flaw. 🧵
A recent piece from Oren Cass caught our eye, citing a familiar claim that the US taxes business income less than other countries.
The problem? That comparison ignores the taxes paid by millions of pass-throughs.
Our latest:
https://t.co/HkViTBnjDa
Is pass-through taxation a giant loophole?
We invited @George_A_Callas back on the pod for his take on the flawed assumptions, outdated data, and misleading narratives driving the latest attacks on Main Street businesses.
https://t.co/nSXMCQ4CtD
America’s wealth creators are everywhere.
New research shows how Main Street businesses generate jobs and wealth in communities across the country.
Two maps tell the story of an economy powered by private businesses:
https://t.co/Z7sdQXmY19
A decade ago, we challenged a Treasury study blaming pass-through businesses for rising inequality and lost tax revenue. That study is back in the news, so we're revisiting our original response.
Turns out, some myths never die:
https://t.co/ra4JkL6pUn
Forcing Main Street businesses into the corporate double tax would punish family businesses while giving their publicly traded competitors another advantage.
A new Tax Notes piece highlights the flaws in this approach.
Wrong way, tax reformers:
https://t.co/vRLy74wpmY
SCOTUS declined to hear a CTA challenge today, but the fight isn't over.
Thanks to @USTreasury Main Street is protected for now. Now it's time for Congress to make that relief permanent.
Our latest:
https://t.co/bnQB0foSjn
Good news on Section 68: Treasury’s latest Priority Guidance Plan addresses deductions for trusts and estates.
S-Corp and other groups have urged Treasury to fix this potential double-tax trap for Main Street businesses. Now there’s a path forward.
https://t.co/WziYgdDF02