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Every few years, the idea of a flat income tax — with a tax form you could fill out on a postcard — is floated, either in D.C. or in various state houses (though not in the states that are growing massively now because they have no income tax). It would seem to make sense and be fair. No (or very very few) deductions and simple rate (or maybe two or three at the most) for everyone. Do a simple math problem and done — easy-peasy. The concepts are even usually discussed as being cost-neutral — if you pay (net)...

WASHINGTON — Before Donald Trump became president and after, his exceedingly complex and voluminous tax returns came under regular scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one. After Trump left office, the IRS said it was beefing up the audit team, to three. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Trump’s finances and the resistance mounted by the former president and his sophisticated army of accountants and lawyers, which included a former IRS chief counsel and raised questions early last year about why even three...

Some remote workers are playing hooky from their company’s homebase these days, and bosses are catching on. The pandemic challenged the idea that the office was an important fixture of the workplace as people working from home were found to be just as productive. Some relished their newfound freedom away from their desks, giving rise to a growing crop of digital nomads life who worked from alternative living situations like a van on the road or from Airbnbs in countries offering digital nomad visas like Portugal. But such flexibility has been curtailed as companies increasingly push for a return to...

During my studies in tax accounting in college, I realized something that is seldom brought to the fore: the fact that the Social Security program entails a triple tax. Why, when so-called "fiscal conservatives" gain governmental power does this never get addressed? I'll lay out the thesis here and then recommend some actions that future "Republican" or actual conservatives can implement, by the grace of God. Social Security is a triple tax:1. The tax itself, which is 6.2% of earned income up to an inflation adjusted limit, which is well above most average salaries. (An ancillary tax, medicare, which is...

This Fourth of July, watching people fight over what the Constitution means, I ask people, if you could change the Constitution, what would you change?"The forefathers knew what they were doing," said one woman.But the Constitution originally accepted slavery. It's good that we can amend it.So what should we change?"Add a balanced budget amendment," suggests Glenn Beck.David Boaz of the Cato Institute recommends 18-year terms for the Supreme Court. "Maybe confirmation fights would be less bitter and partisan."Others suggest term limits for Congress. Stossel TV's Mike Ricci takes the idea further. "If your father, mother, siblings, uncle, cousins were elected...

For several years I have advocated a Shallow Exponent Flat Tax. Instead of 4 or 5 tiers, there would be only ONE tier that we all face. But the more money you make, your burden goes up slightly higher than as a flat percentage. The tax would look something like: Tax = 10% X {[Income]^1.05} The exponent could be set by congress every 10 years or during wartime. The flat exponent perhaps should be on a longer timeframe for revisiting, because 10% is very easy to do in your head. As you go up higher in income, your tax burden...

Politicians have exploited the pandemic to override the rights of the people, cast themselves as heroes, expand government, and justify vast amounts of spending. Long before the pandemic, mechanisms to justify the government expansion were already in place. Consider, for example, the practice of tax withholding. Before World War II, notes Robert Higgs (Crisis and Leviathan), those Americans who owed federal taxes paid the following year in quarterly installments. That changed as the government geared up for World War II. Milton Friedman, then an economist at the Treasury Department, came up with a system of withholding workers' money from their...

REAL PROPERTY PROTECTION AMENDMENT Governmental financial impositions of any year with respect to any residential property without water frontage shall not exceed 1/40,000 the average annual federal civilian salary as of the end of the penultimate calendar year times the sum of their square footage of finished living space and linear footage of public road frontage. EMPLOYMENT/INCOME PROTECTION AMENDMENT Federal/state employer/income taxation may be levied at no more than 24/20ths of the rates of January 1, 2019 on any person/entity having an annual income of less than the average annual federal civilian salary as of the end of the penultimate...

"Italy's insurgents defiant as bond spreads surge and EU threats build" Headline from "The Telegraph" in London May 21, 2018 "They have nothing to worry about. The government that we want to form wants to make Italy grow and create jobs, to bring companies to Italy that invest, to make work more stable" League leader Matteo Salvini as quoted by the Associated Press May 21, 2018 The two political parties who combined achieved 50 percent of the popular vote and solid majority of seats in Italy'a two houses of parliament (Five Star and League) have told the President of Italy...

A promise of a flat tax by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday sparked sharp reactions from opponents ahead of a general election and head-scratching among economists. Campaigning ahead of a general election on March 4th at the helm of the conservative Forza Italia movement, Berlusconi said on TV late on Thursday that such a tax would start at the current minimum rate of 23 percent, before being brought down to below 20 percent. The remarks by Berlusconi — who never sought to introduce a flat tax during his three terms as prime minister — immediately drew criticism from...

Tell President Trump to ask Congress to end the federal income tax so that you and I can reach our full potential for wealth.This weekend, President Trump tweeted that a: “Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION will be announced [on] Wednesday.” This is great news. However, as we go through the process of improving the tax code, we must encourage our politicians to do two things:1.) Eliminate the unconstitutional federal income tax.2.) Reduce hidden taxes that politicians eternally use to offset tax “cuts”—namely increases in federal spending.America turns 241 years old in July. We’re still a “baby” nation in contrast...

Many Americans are campaigning for a raise in the minimum wage. Even more Americans are struggling just to find jobs at any wage.Yup -- those two news items are related.While trying to present a case for the Massachusetts state legislature to approve a program that provides summer jobs to teens at non-profits and government agencies, an editorial at the Boston Globe accidentally explained why artificially imposed minimum wages kill job opportunities.I don’t think the Globe even realized it, either: The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits...

It's the stuff of libertarian dreams. The IRS admits that it wrongfully took money from innocent citizens, and it gives the money back. This is actually happening to victims of a little-known form of civil asset forfeiture carried out by the IRS on the premise of "structuring" violations. In case you didn't know, depositing or withdrawing just under $10,000 from your bank account multiple times is viewed as suspicious and possibly criminal activity. In a victory for lawmakers working to make it harder for the government to take property from innocent Americans, the Internal Revenue Service plans to give people...

Republican candidate Donald Trump focused this weekend on his economic platform: Cut taxes and regulations across the board while also saving Social Security, Medicare, and other government safety-net programs. Trump’s platform is nearly invincible in the general election if he stresses it enough, polling shows. Trump’s plan will also have a transformational effect on how people view his party. But he still needs to make the accounting work to ensure that his Third Way platform is feasible.

For the next 12 months, a man from Sarasota, Florida will receive $1,250 a month for doing absolutely nothing, and the people footing the bill couldn't be happier about it. The recipient, a man named Edwin who declined to speak to the press, won the $15,000 in a raffle held in San Francisco on May 31. The giveaway was organized by the nonprofit advocacy group My Basic Income, which wants to set up a slew of lotteries to see how basic income might work around the world.

It's been a while since I've written about the idea of a universal basic income. So I figure an update is in order. The typical UBI proposal you see picks a certain dollar amount and then declares that it should go equally to all adults. I disagree with this in two ways. First, I think that children should also receive a basic income (paid to their parents). Second, I think that UBI payments should vary based on age. Neither of these additions negates the chief administrative advantages of the UBI because they don't introduce means-testing. It's trivially easy to vary...

Scott Santens has been thinking a lot about fish lately. Specifically, he’s been reflecting on the aphorism, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.” What Santens wants to know is this: “If you build a robot to fish, do all men starve, or do all men eat?” Santens is 37 years old, and he’s a leader in the basic income movement—a worldwide network of thousands of advocates (26,000 on Reddit alone) who believe that governments should provide every citizen with a monthly stipend big...

The federal government can easily afford a job guarantee program, becoming our employer of last resort.Involuntary unemployment is barbaric. In the wealthiest country in history, almost 30 million people wish they had full-time work. But, as always, there aren’t enough jobs. And because economic security requires decent work, it’s unsurprising that 50 million people are poverty-stricken and 16 million children are hungry. This is a disgrace and an economic error: the US government can easily afford a Job guarantee (JG) program, becoming our employer of last resort. A right to a job may sound outlandish, but it’s common sense. You...

With government intervention now becoming the only viable solution being touted for everything from individual health care and the economy to our personal safety and how we educate our children, it would only make sense that officials in Washington also figure out a way to use their power of confiscation and redistribution to equalize the income playing field. It’s no secret that 48 million Americans require nutritional assistance just to put food on the table, or that over 100 million of us are living in or at the very edge of poverty, or that nearly one in three of us...

WHITEHORSE, YK—Try to imagine a town where the government paid each of the residents a living income, regardless of who they were and what they did, and a Soviet hamlet in the early 1980s may come to mind. But this experiment happened much closer to home. For a four-year period in the '70s, the poorest families in Dauphin, Manitoba, were granted a guaranteed minimum income by the federal and provincial governments. Thirty-five years later all that remains of the experiment are 2,000 boxes of documents that have gathered dust in the Canadian archives building in Winnipeg. Until now little has...