People falsely believe that cutting taxes prevents governments from having healthy revenue growth to do the things it alone can do. There is a way to lower the tax burden without reducing government services. This means is GITaR, Gradual Income Tax Reduction.
Taxation
A Simple and Effective GST
In 1984, a reforming Labour Government came to power in New Zealand. One of their first acts was to announce their intention to introduce a goods and services tax. I was invited to chair the three person committee to seek submissions from the public on the proposed tax, and make recommendations to the government on its optimal design.
The Answer Is a Longer Yellow: Red-light cameras have become a lucrative but corrupt form of taxation.
In Chicago, voters are familiar with human nature. This may explain why no one believes Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he says concern for children is the motive for his promotion of anti-speeding cameras to milk money from the city’s motorists.
With Budget Crunch Coming, Should Province Spin Off ATB?
A recent study published by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a right-leaning think-tank, asserts that potential proceeds from a sale of ATB could be as high as $3 billion. The 16-page study, prepared by Surrey, British Columbia-based financial analyst Ian Madsen, assesses ATB’s value by using two different methodologies.
Featured News
No Evidence of Climate Crisis
In his annual State of the Climate report published on April 14, 2022, Dr. Ole Humlum, Emeritus Professor at the University of Oslo, examined detailed patterns in temperature changes in the atmosphere and oceans together with trends in climate impacts. Many of these...
It Is Time to Move On
I wrote an opinion column immediately following the May 27, 2021 announcement of the “shocking discovery of 215 bodies found in a mass grave at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.” In that column, I correctly stressed the need to wait for real...
The Trouble with Taxing Top Earners: Postwar economic growth does not demonstrate high top rates are harmless
Drastically higher taxes on the rich are not the right response to growing income inequality in Canada.
Political Diversity: Money Talks and its Language is Incumbency (Part 5 of 8): Current model limits political competition
Manitoba’s supplicant society allows the government to maintain its incumbency through the use of public monies to buy promotional advertising, as well as secure union and corporate support.
Workers of the World, You’re Each for Yourself
Raising Potash royalties amounts to selfishness by an arbitrary group of people.
New Column on Upper-Income Tax Rates
My most recent column is posted at Troy Media's website. Here, I oppose proposals to introduce very high taxes on high-income earners in the 70-80% range. I think the introduction of these kinds of stratospheric tax rates would be a disaster, and would wind up...
How Big Government Killed Britain’s Regions: State spending has driven jobs out of England’s former industrial heartland..
“The question of how to revitalize Britain’s economically moribund regions has bedevilled successive governments for at least three decades. The fact is, all the taxpayer money that has been poured into Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England in the name of reviving the local economies there is doing active harm to the emergence of a private-sector, post-industrial economy.”
Jon Chait Explains Why Reform Is Hard
This is helpful in understanding why it is often difficult to eliminate quirks in tax codes, government programs and policies that seem to irrationally benefit particular individuals, groups or organizations.
Small Disagreement Over Corporate Taxes Isn’t Worth An Election
I think that we'd be better off with a corporate income tax rate of 15% rather than 16.5%, but is this really worth an election?. Both sides seem to be exaggerating the importance of this relatively small policy dispute. Cutting the rate, as planned, won't add that...
Proof is in the Numbers for Flaherty’s Corporate Tax Cuts
“In four years, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has cut federal corporate income tax rates, bit by incremental bit, by one-fifth, to 16.5 per cent from 21 per cent. Given tough times, given a vulnerable minority government, given an official Opposition hostile to corporate tax cuts and given a generally tax-tolerant populace, Mr. Flaherty has demonstrated remarkable perseverance. In these circumstances, the Finance Minister emerges as an authentic profile in courage.”
Confessions of a State Stimulus Czar: I’d like to think Vermont did better than many states, but much of the money ended up continuing bloated programs, sustaining government jobs or building solar cells in China.
“I’d like to think Vermont did better than many states, but much of the money ended up continuing bloated programs, sustaining government jobs or building solar cells in China.”