How America was Tricked on Tax Policy. Bret N. Bogenschneider. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Bret N. Bogenschneider
Издательство: Ingram
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Бухучет, налогообложение, аудит
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781785274299
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      If taxes on workers and small business were reduced to more manageable levels, some workers would be clever enough to allocate small amounts of capital into productive activities like farms, restaurants or other small businesses that would generate an ongoing economic return and make society better off. I used to think that the diffusion of small amounts of capital among lots of Americans was a key aspect of the American dream and that capital diffusion helped to explain why the United States was such a successful and prosperous nation. The politicians who have designed the tax system, though, clearly don’t share these ideas about capital diffusion and economic policy. Tax policy more and more is meant to force workers to pay most of the taxes in order to concentrate capital into a few hands and thereby facilitate the accumulation of vast fortunes by the wealthy. As they have always done throughout history, the modern-day wealthy then continue to deploy the capital into building pleasure palaces of various sorts that do not yield any economic return.

      Tax proposals to reduce taxes for workers and small businesses, such as that developed later in this book, represent the opposite of current economic and moral theorizing on tax policy. Quite amazingly, however, nearly all the empirical evidence available on tax policy supports a reduction of taxes on work as a means of increasing economic growth. As will be explained further, it is fair to call this the scientific view on tax policy, as it is based on the available evidence. Economic theory is generally not based on evidence. It may surprise you that there is little or no data or other empirical evidence to support the various tax policies proposed by so-called economic experts who call for tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. But there isn’t. The deeper you dig into tax policy, the less substance you will find. The object of tax scholarship really is to keep the shovel out of your hands, and thus, to keep you quietly paying taxes through the direct withholding of funds out of your paycheck.

      The foremost object of tax policy is accordingly to convince working taxpayers that the tax system is smart, fair and efficient when it is obviously not. The goal of this book is to reveal many of the deceptions that currently exist within tax policy. The deceptions you will read about in these pages are not so different from magic tricks. However, in this case, instead of believing a rabbit came out of a hat, taxpayers are fooled into believing that the tax system is either fair or efficient—it is in reality neither, nor is it intended to be so. The many philosophers who wish to debate the relative fairness of the tax system have missed the important point, which is that only the powerful are interested in debating whether the current tax system may be considered “fair.” The working classes do not find this supposedly philosophical inquiry as to the “fairness” of wage and other types of taxation to be even a valid question and go about their lives under the assumption that the tax system is grossly and abjectly unfair. And, as will be explained, it turns out it is the workers and not the philosophers who are correct that relative fairness has little practical import or relevance to the design of tax policy.

      Professional philosophers have largely failed to recognize that a method of accounting, consistently applied, is strictly necessary to reach moral conclusions about the fairness of the tax system. Insofar as many workers are only aware of a cash-basis means of accounting for tax payments, they have, by necessity, consistently applied that accounting method and reached the cogent conclusion that the tax system is not “fair” to them since workers plainly remit most of the taxes measured on a cash basis. Of course, various philosophers have encouraged the wealthy to believe that the tax system should be considered “fair” by creating special accounting methods to be creatively applied on a noncash basis within their own moral frameworks. These special accounting methods make it possible to say that the wealthy should be assumed to have paid a proportionate share of taxes to then allow for a supposed “redistribution” for basic needs in the “welfare state,” as example. In any case, the results are thereby twisted to such a degree that some background in accrual accounting (or even forensic accounting) is helpful in attempting to apply the many special accounting methods of moral philosophy to tax policy. This will be explained further below.

      THE CLASSIC DECEPTIONS

      Now let us proceed to the analysis of the classic deceptions that are used to create tax policy. Please note that not a single one of the claims in this list is accurate or true:

      Deception #1. Tax cuts for the wealthy will cause economic growth.

      Deception #2. Large corporations are experiencing a cash shortfall that can be alleviated by cutting their taxes.

      Deception #3. Capital is like a delicate hummingbird: It is mobile and will leave if subjected to tax.

      Deception