Just Geithner? It’s so obvious that no one in the administration cares a whit about repairing the damage the government has done and is doing to our economy. It’s like Japan (and now Europe) never happened!
How can this be? All the academics said this economics stuff was easy! Just raise the tax rates and watch the revenues roll in! Except when it doesn’t:
Preliminary figures out this week show that Britain’s 50% top marginal income-tax rate may have reduced tax revenue from top earners by as much as 5%, compared to the old 40% top rate. Tax revenue from those filing self-assessments due January 31 was down some £500 million compared to last year.
So here’s a puzzle for David Cameron: Is this an example of fairness—or another predictable policy own-goal?
The U.K. tax year runs from April to April, and self-assessments, together with any tax due, must be turned in by the following January. So this January’s numbers are a first look at the effect of the 50% tax rate, put in place by the previous Labour government in its last days and kept there by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition headed by Mr. Cameron.
That tax hike was the first increase in the top marginal rate in Britain (which kicks in at £150,000 a year) since then-Chancellor Nigel Lawson cut it to 40% from 60% in the late 1980s. Now the argument for the higher tax is that “rich bankers” are responsible for the economic crisis and should pay for the clean up. Or, as Mr. Cameron likes to put it, those with the “broadest shoulders” should bear the heaviest burden.
What this week’s numbers tell us, however, is that Britain’s richest taxpayers are simply shifting their incomes, or themselves, offshore, or deferring income, or otherwise arranging their affairs to avoid the confiscatory new top tax rate. Maybe that’s unfair, too—the rich are usually better at protecting their assets—but it’s the entirely predictable consequence of a tax rate whose animating purposes appear to be envy and spite.
Imagine that, people with options deciding to exercise those options to lower their tax burden. Who could’ve predicted such a thing was possible? It’s a mystery.
I thought that Obama was supposed to be the smartest man in the room.
Perhaps it would improve growth prospects if corporate tax was not the same in all sectors of the economy.
10% tax on manufacturing and service industries, 80% on banks and 60% on lawyers sounds about right.
Yeah, let’s see ya get those lawyers to tax themselves 60%… you forgot 120% tax on those evil oil companies (any the democrats don’t heavily own.)
Just Geithner? It’s so obvious that no one in the administration cares a whit about repairing the damage the government has done and is doing to our economy. It’s like Japan (and now Europe) never happened!
How can this be? All the academics said this economics stuff was easy! Just raise the tax rates and watch the revenues roll in! Except when it doesn’t:
Preliminary figures out this week show that Britain’s 50% top marginal income-tax rate may have reduced tax revenue from top earners by as much as 5%, compared to the old 40% top rate. Tax revenue from those filing self-assessments due January 31 was down some £500 million compared to last year.
So here’s a puzzle for David Cameron: Is this an example of fairness—or another predictable policy own-goal?
The U.K. tax year runs from April to April, and self-assessments, together with any tax due, must be turned in by the following January. So this January’s numbers are a first look at the effect of the 50% tax rate, put in place by the previous Labour government in its last days and kept there by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition headed by Mr. Cameron.
That tax hike was the first increase in the top marginal rate in Britain (which kicks in at £150,000 a year) since then-Chancellor Nigel Lawson cut it to 40% from 60% in the late 1980s. Now the argument for the higher tax is that “rich bankers” are responsible for the economic crisis and should pay for the clean up. Or, as Mr. Cameron likes to put it, those with the “broadest shoulders” should bear the heaviest burden.
What this week’s numbers tell us, however, is that Britain’s richest taxpayers are simply shifting their incomes, or themselves, offshore, or deferring income, or otherwise arranging their affairs to avoid the confiscatory new top tax rate. Maybe that’s unfair, too—the rich are usually better at protecting their assets—but it’s the entirely predictable consequence of a tax rate whose animating purposes appear to be envy and spite.
Imagine that, people with options deciding to exercise those options to lower their tax burden. Who could’ve predicted such a thing was possible? It’s a mystery.
I thought that Obama was supposed to be the smartest man in the room.
Perhaps it would improve growth prospects if corporate tax was not the same in all sectors of the economy.
10% tax on manufacturing and service industries, 80% on banks and 60% on lawyers sounds about right.
Yeah, let’s see ya get those lawyers to tax themselves 60%… you forgot 120% tax on those evil oil companies (any the democrats don’t heavily own.)