All Posts Tagged With: "income tax"
FDR’s Lucky Timing
It’s not clear how any of FDR’s 1933 policies could have accounted for a 17 percent increase in GDP, even if they promoted expansion, because they wouldn’t have had time to ripple through the economy. It seems more likely that FDR had the good fortune to come into office near the bottom of the Depression, and enough adjustments in wages, prices, and other factors had occurred that the economy was ready to recover.
10Jun2009 | Jim Powell | 5 comments | Continued
Andrew Mellon: The Entrepreneur as Politician
Rarely do spectacular entrepreneurs leave their realm of business for the political arena. One exception is Andrew Mellon, the third-wealthiest American of his era, who left a dazzling career in American industry to become secretary of treasury under Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
Mellon established his career in Pittsburgh as a successful banker—always [...]
Alcohol, Prohibition, and the Revenuers
The standard account of America’s experience with alcohol Prohibition centers on ideology. This account states that citizens were so infused with Progressive hubris that they set forth in 1919 on a futile quest to mandate morality by banning the manufacture and sale of liquor. But when they recognized that Prohibition was failing, Americans abandoned the [...]
1Jan2008 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedWartime Origins of Modern Income-Tax Withholding
Wars have always been the most important occasions for the introduction of new forms of taxation. At the outset of a war the state suddenly needs greatly increased revenues to pay for personnel and matériel to prosecute the war. Although governments typically increase the rates of existing explicit taxes and raise the rate of the [...]
1Nov2007 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedMurray Rothbard’s Philosophy of Freedom
Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) based his political philosophy on a simple insight: slavery is wrong. Few, if any, would dare to challenge this obvious truth; but its implications are far reaching. It is Rothbard’s singular merit to show that rejecting slavery leads inexorably to laissez-faire capitalism, unrestricted by the slightest government interference.
If we reject slavery, then [...]
Fiscal Force
“I know ev’rybody’s income and what ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns.”
—W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida
April is the cruelest month, for reasons other than what T.S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The authorities, having relieved you of a [...]
Congressional Generosity
Every now and then we get a glimpse into what government officials really think about our rights to life, liberty, and property. The U.S. Justice Department recently provided such a glimpse in a controversial tax case, Murphy v. IRS.
How revealing it is! Did you know that if the government abstains from taxing all your income, [...]
Tolls on the Road to Serfdom
D.W. MacKenzie is an assistant professor of economics and finance at SUNY Plattsburgh.
Many people think their taxes are too high and that the tax system is unfair. While those who favor individual liberty might find this encouraging, the specific reasons for discontent are not entirely positive. Many Americans think the current system is unfair because [...]
Book Reviews – December 2006
- The Ethics of the Market
by John Meadowcroft Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
- Peddling Panaceas: Popular Economists _in the New Deal Era
by Gary Dean Best Reviewed by Burton Folsom, Jr
- Philosophers of Capitalism: _Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond
by Edward W. Younkins Reviewed by Aeon J. Skoble
- Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in _Black America
by John McWhorter Reviewed by George C. Leef
Your Money and Your Life: The Price of Universal Health Care
Although often recognized as sacred, human life has not been considered the top priority in the hierarchy of values. Human beings have willingly sacrificed life to preserve honor or virtue, to defend the faith or the nation, or to protect family or the family’s livelihood (property). Civilized nations have, however, generally recognized the right to [...]
1Dec2006 | Jane M. Orient | 0 comments | ContinuedSales, Flat, or Spherical, Tax Reform Isn’t the Answer
Lately there has been a flurry of interest in tax reform, typically aimed at making compliance less onerous, removing the incentive for special-interest lobbying, and reducing the size and intrusiveness of the tax-collection agency. While few people will reject those ends, that does not imply that the attempt to achieve them is the optimal use [...]
1Nov2006 | Gene Callahan | 10 comments | ContinuedIs the Income Tax Unconstitutional?
Wishful thinking, always a temptation, is hazardous. Example: An awful lot of people think the income tax as it applies to private-sector wage earners is illegal—even unconstitutional—and they assume that if they can only come up with the right legal arguments, judges will strike down the tax and make America a free society once more. [...]
1Sep2006 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedOur Presidents and the National Debt
Burton Folsom, Jr. is the Charles Kline Professor in History and Management at Hillsdale College. His book The Myth of the Robber Barons is in its fourth edition.
During the last 75 years the United States has failed to balance its annual budget over 90 percent of the time. What’s worse, the government has spent money so [...]
Democracy Versus Liberty
If a foreign power took over the United States and dictated that American citizens surrender 40 percent of their income, required them to submit to tens of thousands of different commands (many of which were effectively kept secret from them), prohibited many of them from using their land, and denied many the chance to find [...]
1Aug2006 | James Bovard | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Progressive Income Tax in U.S. History
America’s founders rejected the income tax entirely, but when they spoke of taxes they recognized the need for uniformity and equal protection to all citizens. “[A]ll duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States,” reads the U.S. Constitution. And 80 years later, in the same spirit, the Fourteenth Amendment promised “equal protection [...]
1May2003 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 5 comments | ContinuedHow Government Disables Private Disability Insurance
Robert Wright is author of the newly published Wealth of Nations Rediscovered (Cambridge) and Hamilton Unbound (Greenwood), coauthor of Mutually Beneficial (NYU Press, 2003), and co-editor of History of Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance in Historical Perspective (both Pickering and Chatto, 2003).
Taxed Social Security earnings determine the level of three major types of Social Security [...]
They Take More than Half
Daniel Klein teaches economics at Santa Clara University. Allan Raish is a tax consultant and CPA living in Santa Clara, California.
*Rates are incremental and apply to taxable income (income after deductions and exemptions).
**California taxes may be deductible on next year’s federal tax calculation.
If a college teacher living in California who earns $75,000 per year publishes [...]
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Book Reviews
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
