Category Archives: income tax

Trump Tax Plan

tax plan

NYT headline April 27: Trump Tax Plan Would Shift Trillions From U.S. Coffers to the Richest

NPR April 17: “…around 45% pay no federal income tax”

Trump Income Tax Short Form

trump income tax

Two pages of the 2005 Donald Trump income tax return fell in to the hands of Rachel Maddow last week. On her show she played it for all it was worth. It turns out it was worth about $38 million to Uncle Sam in taxes paid on an income of $150 million. That’s an effective rate of about 25%. The revelation made The Donald look good compared to accusations that he doesn’t pay any income taxes at all.

It also made him look good compared to Barack Obama’s 2015 effective rate of 18.5%, Bernie Sanders 2014 effective rate of 13.5%, and Mitt Romney’s 2011 rate of 14.1%

Even Van Jones called it a good night for Donald Trump.

The purloined returns showed up in the mailbox of journalist David Cay Johnston. He says he knows nothing. Revealing private income tax information is a felony.

Trump denies that he had anything to do with it.

Yellen Takes Off Training Wheels

151218-YellenJanet Yellen took the training wheels off the economy on Wednesday. After seven years of near zero percent interest rates, the Fed hiked rates a quarter percent.

Meanwhile, Congress passed a 2,000 page, 1.2 trillion dollar budget. That tacked another 157 billion onto the 18.5 trillion dollar national debt.

Yellen

On Friday the Dow dropped 370 points.

David Stockman says, “sell the bonds, sell the stocks, sell the house”. IBD wonders if the markets know something the Fed doesn’t.

The Donald Evolves

 

150807-trump-ballDavid Harsanyi at the Federalist thinks the first Republican debate was awesome. I agree. The field looked strong all the way down to Carly Fiorina on the JV team.

Then there’s The Donald. He refused a pledge not to pull a Ross Perot if doesn’t win the nomination. Why give up the leverage, he reasoned. Makes sense I guess. And he said he made Hillary attend his wedding by giving her money. Also believable.

When asked how he came to change his views on taxes and abortion he said he evolved.

Greek Austerity

150506-greek-austerityLast week Greece defaulted on its debt to the IMF. On Sunday Greek voters said “no” to more austerity from the IMF.

Surging socialist candidate Bernie Sanders applauds the Greeks for rejecting austerity from the Euro ruling class. Economics writer Stephen Moore says Greece needs less socialism and more privitization. The banks are shutting down and withdrawals are restricted. He says what’s happening in Greece is the usual outcome of socialism – economic collapse.

Roger Cohen in the NYT says the euro zone isn’t all that much into democracy anyway: “A vote cannot undo a debt or obscure colossal Greek irresponsibility.”

The IMF had demanded more taxes on Greek businesses. Moore says the country is already overtaxed. His solution is a Detroit style bankruptcy where pensioners and Wall Street investors all take a “haircut”.

Robert Samuelson says the Greek economy accounts for only 1.8% of the euro zone and its collapse might not have much effect on the rest of us. Greece only has a population of 11 million. Hell, we have 94 million out of work.

But this WSJ analysis says if Greece does leave the Eurozone the risk of contagion to more important economies is high.