...crisis, could create enormous misery. Without the guarantees that stable government programs offer, some people will almost certainly be worse off under a privatized system, and chances are they will be the poorest Americans. Tax code reform was much less prominent than Social Security privatization during the campaign. But two days after securing reelection, the President acknowledged what many had suspected for months: that one of his second- t...
for CPR Just this week, the Tax Justice Network published a report claiming that between $21 and $31 trillion of global financial wealth is “invested” in tax-free havens. That’s more than the GDP of the United States, China, and Japan combined. The report concludes: wealth doesn’t trickle down — it just floods offshore as if there were a “black-hole.” Whether or not that is true, unrecorded capital outflows obviously result in a lack of domesti...
...led former employee of Julius Baer, a prominent Swiss financial institution. After the release of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, Mr. Assange and his source were now planning to expose the details of international tax evasion. The source himself voiced his desire to “let society know how [the offshore banking] system works.” Of course, the practice of massive international tax evasion by major multinational corporations is already mo...
On the back of Facebook’s upward revisions of their Friday-mega-IPO price estimates, Eduardo Saverin’s renunciation of his US citizenship has been big news. Saverin, mostly of The Social Network fame, was one of the four founders of Facebook and his 5 percent stake is now valued at more than $3 Billion. Ostensibly, he decamped to Singapore to avoid the 15 percent capital gains and 35 percent estate tax that would be levied on his sizable wealth....
...rvice-ratio (DSR) may more accurately assess sovereign debt risk. This index shows how much government revenue must be allocated to annual interest payments by dividing annual interest payments due on sovereign debt by annual tax revenue. Interest due on American debt was $383 billion in 2009 while tax revenue was $2,211 billion. At 17 percent, America’s DSR is actually higher than Japan’s (16.5 percent). Current interest rates can only increase,...
The preservation of most of Obamacare by the Supreme Court was originally seen as a monumental victory for the Obama administration and one that would surely help the incumbent president on the campaign trail. However, the way that the Court saved the law (they declared that the “individual mandate” was a tax rather than a penalty and therefore was within Congress’ constitutional authority) has caused Obama’s signature domestic achievement to b...
...ng every election in which he’s ever run). He may lack a typical politician’s resume, but he knows how to appeal to the conservative base and certainly knows how to make a sale. The comparisons of his now-famous ‘9-9-9’ tax plan to a pizza commercial are now a constant refrain for the political class, but they reflect something deeper. Herman Cain has the ability to take sophisticated policy ideas and make them accessible to a large audienc...
The president has been spending much time on the campaign trail advocating for the implementation of the “Buffett Rule,” a policy named after super-wealthy investor Warren Buffett. The premise of the Buffett Rule is simple: mandate a minimum tax rate on the very wealthiest individuals so they can never end up paying a lower effective tax rate than their employees, most notably that of their secretaries. The reason this is even a topic of discus...
from the Congressional Budget Office A threatening specter is looming over our national economy – the so-called “fiscal cliff”. The fiscal cliff, a widespread, automatic tax increase expected to hit 90% of Americans next year, will be triggered on January 2 of next year… unless Congress takes action to stop it. To avoid careening off the fiscal cliff, a different deficit reduction method will need to be passed into law. In all likelihood, the U....
...ery and attributing President Obama’s poor leadership for their cause. To address the structural issues plaguing the economy, Hubbard pointed to the Romney economic plan, which would carry out the following: 1) fix the broken tax code 2) address unsustainable fiscal policy 3) encourage free trade 4) rein in health care costs 5) establish an effective regulatory climate. Hubbard stressed how all these measures would be undertaken while ensuring th...
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