Occupation: Reporter
In the United States, unlike any other advanced democracy, money really talks. Our Supreme Court has said that spending money on politicians is a for….
The Value-Added Tax, a sales tax that applies at every level of business transactions, is an easy tax for governments to collect, and a hard tax to e….
France, they're the world champion at soaking the rich on taxes. And at one point, they had what they called a hyper tax, 75 percent, and Gérard Depa….
Professor Eric Zolt of UCLA, said to me, "The VAT is such a good idea, mark my words, within five years, the U.S. will have a VAT." Then he said, "Of….
Mortgage is one of the most popular deductions. It costs the Treasury about $103 billion a year. Now that's money we could use to treat wounded veter….
Our tax code becomes so absurdly complex every 32 years that we have no choice but to scrap it and re-write. The 32-year period is up in 2018. So the….
We have the most expensive compliance system in the world. The IRS brags that they spend 35 cents for every $100 they collect. They're very efficient….
You also get a deduction in America for taking a night school course, growing sugarcane, moving to a new city for a job, replanting a forest, insulat….
Corporations use all sorts of complex stratagems to move their profits overseas, and thus escape the U.S. income tax..
If you get rid of all these giveaways and loopholes and deductions and credits, then you can sharply lower the rates..
It used to be that we taxed property - zapped farmers basically. And there were very rich people who didn't pay that much tax. So in 1913, they put i….
Relative to the world's other advance democracies, Americans get off easy on tax day. Of the 35 richest countries, the U.S. ranks 32nd in total tax b….
If your employer pays your health insurance, that's not counted as income to you. And any economist would say that's your income, because they'd pay ….
When it comes to taxation, Americans are still banging out letters on a typewriter and dropping them in the mail box while everybody else has moved o….
It was an easy thing to tax for a young country. And then gradually we moved to property taxes, manufacturing taxes, and the income tax was the answe….
We cut tax exemptions in 1986, it was the most admired tax reform in U.S. history. Congress and the president worked together then to eliminate score….
The higher the rate, the more interest there is in avoiding the tax. Either you move or you shift your profits overseas, as American corporations hav….
President Trump repeatedly says that "America is the highest-taxed country in the world." This is an alternative fact. We pay less in taxes, and our ….
Americans spend about 6 billion hours a year collecting the data and filling out the forms. We spend $10 billion to H&R Block and other preparers. An….
The income tax only taxed the Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. It was aimed at the top 4 percent, and the top rate then in 1913, was 7 ….
I really like the idea of consumption tax, and most countries have a pretty serious consumption tax. It's called a value-added tax or a goods and ser….