Teabaggers getting nastier.

[Akhlut]

I wonder if he needs a public defender, and, if so, if he'll have to dismiss him as a matter of prinicipal.

If not, then he's no better then those welfare queens sopping off the public teat and getting rich.

[Liberty]

Free speech, yes. However, that guy steps over the line. Any idea where the line is, though? I mean, I guess the progression goes like this:

1. "Senator X is a dingbat, he passed that awful health care law!"

2. "You know, it'd be nice if Senator X were to die...somehow."

3. "I'm going to kill Senator X!"

4. *Throws brick through Senator X's office windows.*

5. *Shoots Senator X."

So I get that 4 and 5 are illegal, and that 1 is fine. Where do 2 and 3 fall?

[Teebs]

Free speech, yes. However, that guy steps over the line. Any idea where the line is, though? I mean, I guess the progression goes like this:

1. "Senator X is a dingbat, he passed that awful health care law!"

2. "You know, it'd be nice if Senator X were to die...somehow."

3. "I'm going to kill Senator X!"

4. *Throws brick through Senator X's office windows.*

5. *Shoots Senator X."

So I get that 4 and 5 are illegal, and that 1 is fine. Where do 2 and 3 fall?

I'm sure I remember people like Anne Coulter coming out with comments about how nice it would be if various government figures were killed, so as a guess 2 would generally be legal while 3 wouldn't be.

[Wing Commander MAD]

My guess, 2 gets you watched closely by law enforcement (and you become a prime suspect if something does happen), so on the line and thus most likely a grey area. Number 3 definitely gets you in hot water, with the outcome probably being based on how serious an LEO or judge views your statement to be when it was delivered. I expect though that the out come of 3 will definitely be unpleasant no matter what happens, so nearly crossed the line to outright crossing it. Then again, it may also vary from state to state to some degree, as a believe murder/attempted murder is an offense that falls within state jursidictions. If a congressional representative is considered an employee of the federal government and not the state they represent, then it'd be federal and thus uniformly treated (at least in theory).

[ArmorPierce]

Actually, that's true. The US Corporate tax is structured in a highly anomalous way, from a global perspective. I am aware of no other country that taxes both corporate earnings and distributions in the same manner as the US. Virtually all experts agree that it's a disaster in both conception and implementation (although I would argue that it's not unusual for a country to tax earnings twice--it just depends on how "earnings" is defined). So it's objectively reasonable, IMO, for a textbook to criticize the US corporate tax.

Moreover, that the US individual income tax is "far lower than other developed countries" (not sure how you reached that conclusion, btw--we're not the highest but we're not the lowest, either), is almost certainly a red herring when discussing the corporate income tax, because the textbook is probably trying to discuss the effects of the corporate income tax (either the rate or the structure, but probably both) on behavior of individuals and companies--something that can be viewed in isolation of the rates on individual income taxes and that really has nothing to do with individual taxes. And, incidentally, it is inarguable that the US corporate tax rate is among the highest in the entire world (developed or not), although it's debatable whether its impact is that high because of different legal rules between countries.

This website states otherwise

For a family with one wage-earner and two children, only Iceland and Ireland have a lower income tax burden than the U.S., according to the most recent data for 2005.

At the top, Sweden, Turkey, France and Poland impose the biggest tax burdens on families, but in most of those countries families get added social services, such as secure pensions and health care.

Out of those 30 countries, only Iceland and Ireland have less of a burden. Do you disagree and please explain why.

[Broomstick]

Income tax is not the only tax people pay. When I say "people from XXX have a lower tax burden than Americans" I don't mean just the INCOME tax - I mean total burden of ALL taxes. Thus, you'd have to throw in sales taxes, value added taxes, property taxes... all the taxes a person pays.

[Broomstick]

Free speech, yes. However, that guy steps over the line. Any idea where the line is, though? I mean, I guess the progression goes like this:

1. "Senator X is a dingbat, he passed that awful health care law!"

2. "You know, it'd be nice if Senator X were to die...somehow."

3. "I'm going to kill Senator X!"

4. *Throws brick through Senator X's office windows.*

5. *Shoots Senator X."

So I get that 4 and 5 are illegal, and that 1 is fine. Where do 2 and 3 fall?

Number three is the fuzzy line - screaming "I WANT TO KILL YOU!" during, say, a debate, is not normally seen as a real threat in most circumstances. However, the person in question had made that statement repeatedly, he had stated a motive, and he has the means - that adds up to a credible threat.

Number 4 is a crime, of course, but #5 would be regarded as MUCH more serious.

[FSTargetDrone]

Yeah, hard to see how any of this could possibly be interpreted as anything other than threats of bodily harm:

"I do pack, and I will not blink when I'm confronted. ... It's not a threat, it's a guarantee."

"There's a target on your back now," said one message on March 22. "It only takes one piece of lead. Kill the (expletive) senator! ... Now that you've passed your health-care bill, let the violence begin."

"I hope somebody puts a (expletive) bullet between your (expletive) eyes," and "I do believe that every one of you (expletive) socialist democratic progressive (expletives) need to be taken out."

"I want to (expletive) kill you."

[Master of Ossus]

This website states otherwise

For a family with one wage-earner and two children, only Iceland and Ireland have a lower income tax burden than the U.S., according to the most recent data for 2005.

At the top, Sweden, Turkey, France and Poland impose the biggest tax burdens on families, but in most of those countries families get added social services, such as secure pensions and health care.

Out of those 30 countries, only Iceland and Ireland have less of a burden. Do you disagree and please explain why.

That appears to just deal with income tax rates for an individual with a mean income tax (even though it talks about incidence). It ignores payroll taxes that virtually all Americans pay for Social Security and Medicare, and which collectively constitute an additional 17+% on top of what most Americans pay for income taxes on the lion's share of income. A few other countries have comparably structured payroll taxes, but except for the UK and Eastern European countries (that have very low overall income taxes) the US has the highest overall payroll taxes of any country in the developed world.

The chart at the top of this page derives from the same study cited by your site, so its central flaw is the same in that it covers only income tax (excluding payroll and corporate and transfer taxes and other relevant taxes), but even this suffices to put the lie to the theory that only Ireland and Iceland have lower taxes than the US for more realistic families (average income for families of the same size). Moreover, for the US it covers only Federal income tax, whereas in most other countries (Switzerland being one obvious exception) states (or the equivalent) generally levy comparatively small taxes compared to the US. So in other words, it ignores US payroll taxes and state income taxes, and it ignores sales or VAT (or similar) taxes and transfer taxes and property taxes and excise taxes and tariffs and about 10 million other taxes that different countries have cooked up. Only on a ridiculously superficial level can you conclude from this study that US income taxes are relatively low, and even then it's bullshit to say that only Iceland and Ireland are lower, unless you unrealistically constrain your examination to a particular type of family that is more realistic in some countries than others. Regardless, it is highly disingenuous to view income tax, alone, as an adequate measure of the tax burden of a country.

Fundamentally, doing a longitudinal study of overall tax incidence across countries is very difficult because tax codes are uniformly complex and it is almost impossible to capture and summarize all of the variation in them. You have to be much more careful than just pointing to a rate and presuming that this is indicative of the populace's overall tax burden. Even taxes as a percentage of GDP is questionable as a metric, as Mankiw rather airily suggests. In short, there's no accepted standard by which to measure the tax burden, because the impact of taxes doesn't relate purely to the tax themselves: there's also a behavioral effect that you have to account for, even if you could reasonably estimate the actual tax burden.

[ArmorPierce]

This website states otherwise

For a family with one wage-earner and two children, only Iceland and Ireland have a lower income tax burden than the U.S., according to the most recent data for 2005.

At the top, Sweden, Turkey, France and Poland impose the biggest tax burdens on families, but in most of those countries families get added social services, such as secure pensions and health care.

Out of those 30 countries, only Iceland and Ireland have less of a burden. Do you disagree and please explain why.

That appears to just deal with income tax rates for an individual with a mean income tax (even though it talks about incidence). It ignores payroll taxes that virtually all Americans pay for Social Security and Medicare, and which collectively constitute an additional 17+% on top of what most Americans pay for income taxes on the lion's share of income. A few other countries have comparably structured payroll taxes, but except for the UK and Eastern European countries (that have very low overall income taxes) the US has the highest overall payroll taxes of any country in the developed world.

The chart at the top of this page derives from the same study cited by your site, so its central flaw is the same in that it covers only income tax (excluding payroll and corporate and transfer taxes and other relevant taxes), but even this suffices to put the lie to the theory that only Ireland and Iceland have lower taxes than the US for more realistic families (average income for families of the same size). Moreover, for the US it covers only Federal income tax, whereas in most other countries (Switzerland being one obvious exception) states (or the equivalent) generally levy comparatively small taxes compared to the US. So in other words, it ignores US payroll taxes and state income taxes, and it ignores sales or VAT (or similar) taxes and transfer taxes and property taxes and excise taxes and tariffs and about 10 million other taxes that different countries have cooked up. Only on a ridiculously superficial level can you conclude from this study that US income taxes are relatively low, and even then it's bullshit to say that only Iceland and Ireland are lower, unless you unrealistically constrain your examination to a particular type of family that is more realistic in some countries than others. Regardless, it is highly disingenuous to view income tax, alone, as an adequate measure of the tax burden of a country.

Fundamentally, doing a longitudinal study of overall tax incidence across countries is very difficult because tax codes are uniformly complex and it is almost impossible to capture and summarize all of the variation in them. You have to be much more careful than just pointing to a rate and presuming that this is indicative of the populace's overall tax burden. Even taxes as a percentage of GDP is questionable as a metric, as Mankiw rather airily suggests. In short, there's no accepted standard by which to measure the tax burden, because the impact of taxes doesn't relate purely to the tax themselves: there's also a behavioral effect that you have to account for, even if you could reasonably estimate the actual tax burden.

the MSN website says

The OECD collects data on 30 member countries and annually calculates what it calls the tax "wedge" for each -- the combined effects of personal income tax, employee and employer social security contributions, payroll taxes and cash benefits.

But it doesn't state if it took that into account for the making of that chart they have. Regardless, even if you take the the wiki graph, it only bumps the American tax burden a couple spots up but it is still towards the bottom.

Yes it is true that it is difficult to draw a accurate comparisons across multiple countries.

[Darth Wong]

Isn't the easiest method for estimating mean tax rates to simply look at total government revenue and divide by taxpayer base?

[Master of Ossus]

Isn't the easiest method for estimating mean tax rates to simply look at total government revenue and divide by taxpayer base?

That's similar to what Mankiw did, except he divided by the total population. It's easy, but it's dependent on a country's definition of the taxpayer base, which is also complicated. For instance, if you only taxed 50% of heads of household, would your tax base be half of the heads of household? What would you do with people in the US who pay payroll taxes and sales tax, but not income tax or any other form of tax? Are they part of the tax base?

[Master of Ossus]

the MSN website says

The OECD collects data
on 30 member countries and annually calculates what it calls the tax "wedge" for each -- the combined effects of personal income tax, employee and employer social security contributions, payroll taxes and cash benefits.

But it doesn't state if it took that into account for the making of that chart they have. Regardless, even if you take the the wiki graph, it only bumps the American tax burden a couple spots up but it is still towards the bottom.

Yes it is true that it is difficult to draw a accurate comparisons across multiple countries.

Conceded, but it's still ridiculous to ignore the corporate tax for individuals, since wage-earners appear to bear the entire incidence of that tax and the US has extraordinarily high rates of corporate taxation.

[Darth Wong]

Isn't the easiest method for estimating mean tax rates to simply look at total government revenue and divide by taxpayer base?

That's similar to what Mankiw did, except he divided by the total population. It's easy, but it's dependent on a country's definition of the taxpayer base, which is also complicated. For instance, if you only taxed 50% of heads of household, would your tax base be half of the heads of household? What would you do with people in the US who pay payroll taxes and sales tax, but not income tax or any other form of tax? Are they part of the tax base?

Yes, total population would be much easier. However, I don't see why different kinds of taxes would not all factor into total government revenue.

[Master of Ossus]

Yes, total population would be much easier. However, I don't see why different kinds of taxes would not all factor into total government revenue.

That's what Mankiw did--total taxes/capita, but it's unclear how to define the "tax base" across various countries.

[Alphawolf55]

Isn't the easiest method for estimating mean tax rates to simply look at total government revenue and divide by taxpayer base?

That's similar to what Mankiw did, except he divided by the total population. It's easy, but it's dependent on a country's definition of the taxpayer base, which is also complicated. For instance, if you only taxed 50% of heads of household, would your tax base be half of the heads of household? What would you do with people in the US who pay payroll taxes and sales tax, but not income tax or any other form of tax? Are they part of the tax base?

Yes, total population would be much easier. However, I don't see why different kinds of taxes would not all factor into total government revenue.

Well that wouldn't exactly work. For example, you'd have to take corporate taxes and part of the SS tax. But you'd also have to figure out which part of corporate taxes are come out of the average person's pocket. Like for example I think I heard once that out of the nearly 400 billion Corporations paid in one year, a third of that cost was passed onto customers.

[Master of Ossus]

Well that wouldn't exactly work. For example, you'd have to take corporate taxes and part of the SS tax. But you'd also have to figure out which part of corporate taxes are come out of the average person's pocket.

It is on the order of 100%. I just linked to an article that details the theoretical mechanisms behind this result and summarizing extensive empirical research confirming it. Moreover, who do you think would ultimately get the money taxed away from corporations, if not shareholders? Are shareholders not "average people" for purposes of your analysis?

Like for example I think I heard once that out of the nearly 400 billion Corporations paid in one year, a third of that cost was passed onto customers.

And the rest is passed on to wage-earners, which is actually the bulk of the theoretical underpinnings.

[Alphawolf55]

I'm slightly skeptical of that. I mean wouldn't that only apply in the assumption that if the corporations weren't paying taxes they'd give their workers higher salaries?

[Alphawolf55]

Sorry meant to add, some corporations save their profit you know. So the research suggest that no profit saving or no purchases would be made and that all of it would go to the workers or investors.

[Master of Ossus]

I'm slightly skeptical of that. I mean wouldn't that only apply in the assumption that if the corporations weren't paying taxes they'd give their workers higher salaries?

I don't know what you're talking about. The empirical research cited by the paper I linked to uses three separate methods that each show that the incidence of a corporate tax falls entirely on workers. The reasons for this are myriad (e.g., capital is more mobile than labor--it's much easier for me to invest my $100 in a company in a jurisdiction that has a low corporate tax than it is for a worker to move to that country and begin working for that company, so any negotiation will have to treat capital mobility as being virtually costless while labor mobility can be quite costly). I can't be sure from your single sentence, but you appear to be confusing the issue by arguing that this is a purely an issue of negotiating for higher wages (which, actually, one of the empirical papers assumes and still evaluates the incidence as I have stated), rather than approaching this as a supply-demand problem for labor such that a firm could employ more workers if the corporate tax were reduced.

Sorry meant to add, some corporations save their profit you know.

I am fully aware of the existence of retained earnings.

So the research suggest that no profit saving or no purchases would be made and that all of it would go to the workers or investors.

That is not at all what the research suggests. I'm not sure where to begin to correct this misconception, but perhaps I can ask you to envision two hypothetical companies, each of which has issued 100 shares of stock, and both of which have identical businesses. The only difference between them of any substance is that one company has $100mm in retained earnings. Which of these companies' stock would you expect to see trading for more, and by how much? Absent tax rules, the fact that one company retains earnings and another issues dividends (or, more realistically, that companies do this in different ratios) does not materially affect the liquidity of their earnings if shares in these companies are publicly and competitively traded. A shareholder is still entitled to the retained earnings of a company--they are, in fact, a fractional owner of the entire company, including all of its assets. That the firm is holding these earnings in trust for its shareholders does not alter this relationship.

Edit: I mean, it would be like saying that my savings account "retains interest" and that this is materially different from me having the interest that accrues on the principle balance. It's completely tautological to say that a dollar extracted from a corporation as a corporate earnings tax would otherwise be a dollar that went to an investor or a worker, whether or not at that corporation. The only substantive question (and the one examined by the paper I linked to and the associated research) is whether the corporate earnings tax is borne by holders of capital or labor, and the answer is that it is entirely borne by labor.

Note that, because of the US elimination of corporate pyramids, you don't even have to extend this beyond the initial layer of stock ownership. However, it could easily be extended even in the case of corporate pyramidship, because at some level some combination of natural persons own and can make legal claims to all corporations and all corporate assets.

And, moreover, the incidence of a tax is measured by a change in behavior as a result of the tax. Companies retain some earnings regardless of being taxed or not, so the question should naturally reach, "Do they retain more earnings, less earnings, or the same amount of earnings because of the influence of the tax?" It doesn't have anything to do with the existence of retained earnings--they'll likely exist either way. Rather, you have to measure the magnitude. Just theoretically, a distributions or corporate tax that is constant (and expected to be so) across time should have no effect on corporate distributions since the choice is only between being taxed X% now and being able to reinvest that in some other venture (which will also be subject to the tax, or else subject to the discount rate) and being taxed X% in the future on a (presumably) larger sum.

[Spoonist]

Yes, total population would be much easier. However, I don't see why different kinds of taxes would not all factor into total government revenue.

That's what Mankiw did--total taxes/capita, but it's unclear how to define the "tax base" across various countries.

I didn't check out the link, but as you put it there it would not necessarily give a good comparison because a poor country (BNP-wise) with high taxes would get a lower ranking than a rich country with low taxes.
Also in some countries its damned hard to seperate earnings of the state from taxes of the state. Like the norwegian and venezuelan state owned oil revenue or like the joint ventures in China where the state owns part of the companies.
Etc.
So I see lots of more problems arising from such a "fix".

[Master of Ossus]

I didn't check out the link, but as you put it there it would not necessarily give a good comparison because a poor country (BNP-wise) with high taxes would get a lower ranking than a rich country with low taxes.
Also in some countries its damned hard to seperate earnings of the state from taxes of the state. Like the norwegian and venezuelan state owned oil revenue or like the joint ventures in China where the state owns part of the companies.
Etc.
So I see lots of more problems arising from such a "fix".

True--the example given is that the metric suggests that North Korea imposes a very light tax burden on its populace. I don't think Mankiw's proposing the measure as a be-all, end-all measure. I think he's merely highlighting a weakness in the most widely-accepted measure (taxes/GDP--although most believe that taxes/GNP is a better metric). Indeed, the actual blog post in which he presented his (very terse) argument gratefully links to another economist's defense of the metric with a post entitled "Defending the Indefensible."