Posted on 08/22/2009 5:44:48 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The actual economic costs of the proposed health care surtax and the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will be twice the amount of revenue the government intends to collect. According to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation, the higher tax rates are estimated to raise $88 billion in 2011, but the economy will incur an additional burden of $76 billion—or "deadweight loss"—as a result, which raises the total cost of the tax increases to $164 billion, roughly double what lawmakers intend to raise.
Tax Foundation Special Report No. 170, "The Excess Burden of Taxes and the Economic Cost of High Tax Rates," attempts to put a price tag on the cost of pending rollbacks of the Bush tax cuts (which would raise the top tax rate to 39.6%) as well as the proposed health care surtax (ranging from 1% to 5.4%). This loss in economic efficiency is also known as the "excess burden" or "deadweight loss" of taxes—the income that would need to be given to people to compensate them for the resources that are lost due to the distorting effect of taxes. The Special Report is available online at http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/25003.html.
"The notion that the total burden is nearly twice the revenue collected should give lawmakers some pause when considering these higher tax rates," said Tax Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Carroll, Ph.D., who authored the paper.
"Lawmakers need to understand that the current income tax system already costs the economy between $110 billion and $150 billion above and beyond the $1 trillion the government actually collects in taxes," Carroll said. "This means the actual economic cost of our income tax system is at least $1.10 for every dollar the government collects."
(Excerpt) Read more at taxfoundation.org ...
I’m speechless at the stultifying stupidity of all of this!
And I’m rarely speechless...
Never going to happen......
:-)
LOL! Don’t you have confiscatory taxes to pay or something? ;)
Hey, stop sending us your cold weather!
I want summer back.
A very careful study showed that every 1% of GDP increase in taxes causes the total GDP to drop 3%. I think that's equivalent to every $1 the government collects does $3 in economic damage. It's amazing how leftists think the sky will fall if CO2 increases from 0.03% to .04% of the atmosphere yet think tax increases have little effect.
The libtard commie congress critters do not care how much tax revenue they collect, they just want to take as much money as possible away from the ones who earn it.
It was FIFTY ONE when I walked the dogs at 6am this morning! Today feels like a Fall Day, doesn’t it?
I would like more sun, but the lack-o-humidity this summer has been wonderful. Ran the A/C two times; it’s usually on from May 31st to October 1st.
I’m making fresh salsa today; the garden has finally exploded! :)
:-)
High of 65 today? Brrrrrrrrrrrr..........not ready for fall, yet.
Dang, don't talk like that, I miss our garden.
That is a very telling statistic. I have long believed that every time the taxes go up, everything else goes down - economically and citywide speaking - our roads get worse, the quality of service in our stores and in, say, the airlines gets worse...it is like this massive sucking sound happens every time taxes go up up up!
Thanks for quantifying that “sense” of loss.
Just cutting taxes = will have the opposite effect.
Oh dear God when will we ever have a Congress and a President who will UNDERSTAND AND DO JUST THAT!
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