When Death Is Preferable To Taxes
Wall Street Journal op-ed: Lessons for Politicians at Passover, by William A. Galston (Brookings Institution):
In the middle of the Passover celebration comes a well-known song that traces the journey’s steps, starting with the Exodus from Egypt and ending with the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. After each stage comes the refrain “dayenu,” which means: It would have been enough if God’s grace had ended there.
This is good theology: Every blessing from God is more than we deserve, and the correct response is gratitude. But from a practical standpoint, the premise is incorrect. Liberation is a precondition of freedom, but no guarantee of it. Revolutions can go awry, and usually do. Throwing off the shackles of tyranny often ends in new forms of bondage.
In Western versions, the blame has been placed upon women – Pandora opening the box and Eve taking the apple. Golden Age
Writing HTML in HTML (2019)
John Guyton (IRS), Patrick Langetieg (IRS), Daniel Reck (London School of Economics), Max Risch (Carnegie Mellon) & Gabriel Zucman (UC-Berkeley), Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence:
This paper studies tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution using IRS micro-data from (i) random audits, (ii) targeted enforcement activities, and (iii) operational audits. Drawing on this unique combination of data, we demonstrate empirically that random audits underestimate tax evasion at the top of the income distribution. Specifically, random audits do not capture most tax evasion through offshore accounts and pass-through businesses, both of which are quantitatively important at the top. We provide a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon, and we construct new estimates of the size and distribution of tax noncompliance in the United States. In our model, individuals can adopt a technology that would better conceal evasion at some fixed cost. Risk preferences and relatively high audit rates at the top drive the adoption of such sophisticated evasion technologies by high-income individuals. Consequently, random audits, which do not detect most sophisticated evasion, underestimate top tax evasion. After correcting for this bias, we find that unreported income as a fraction of true income rises from 7% in the bottom 50% to more than 20% in the top 1%, of which 6 percentage points correspond to undetected sophisticated evasion. Accounting for tax evasion increases the top 1% fiscal income share significantly.
- Bloomberg, Richest 1% of Americans Hide a Fifth of Their Income From the IRS
- Forbes, New Biden Tax Hike Details Are Out—Here’s What We Know Now
- Heritage Foundation, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: 12 Myths Debunked
- Los Angeles Times, Who Are the Biggest Tax Cheats? The 1% — And Here’s How They Get Away With It
- New York Times editorial, How to Collect $1.4 Trillion in Unpaid Taxes
- Salon, Top 1% Fails to Report Over 20% of Income Using Potentially "Criminal" Tactics
- TaxVox, Are The American Rescue Plan’s Tax Cliffs Really Such A Big Deal?
- Wall Street Journal, Democrats Weigh Increases in Corporate, Personal Income-Tax Rates
- Wall Street Journal, High-Income Tax Avoidance Far Larger Than Thought, New Paper Estimates
