Voice For Liberty

Category: Taxation

  • The Obama tax cuts

    In the presidential debate last week, President Barack Obama spoke of his tax cuts: “So at the same time that my tax plan has already lowered taxes for 98 percent of families, I also lowered taxes for small businesses 18 times. And what I want to do is continue the tax rate — the tax cuts that we put into place for small businesses and families.”

    Are these Obama tax cuts “real” cuts that will lead to economic growth, or just government spending programs in disguise? For tax cuts to be productive in growing the economy, they have to be associated with something positive, namely with work, saving, or investment. What many people positively respond to is a reduction in marginal tax rates, that is, the tax that must be paid on the next dollar earned.

    Many of the Obama tax cuts were part of the stimulus bill passed in February 2009. Polls show that very people know of these tax cuts. Many were temporary.

    The largest item that benefited most people was the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, a two-year program that rebates $400 per year to individual taxpayers, or $800 per year for married couples. The program was effective for tax years 2009 and 2010 only. This is not a reduction in marginal tax rates, although the program will reduce the average tax rate that people pay. It is simply a reduction in the overall amount of tax someone must pay.

    This tax credit is not associated with any positive effort or activity by the recipients other than doing what they already do. The same criticism applies to the Bush tax rebate in 2008, too.

    Besides the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, the Obama tax cuts consisted of other tax credits that apply not to everyone, but only to people who qualify.

    For example, a child care tax credit pays up to $1,200 per year in child care expenses. Obviously, the only people who can claim this credit are working people with children who chose to place them in daycare. Beyond that, it is not a “tax cut” by any stretch of the imagination. Properly, it is a spending program implemented through the tax system. Sometimes called tax expenditures, these measures often escape the usual scrutiny and appropriations process that spending receives. Since they’re billed as a “tax cut,” they sound like a good thing to most people, as few like paying taxes.

    If we need any more evidence that these programs are really spending disguised as tax cuts, consider the description of the child care tax credit as provided by the Internal Revenue Service: “It is a refundable credit, which means taxpayers may receive refunds even when they do not owe any tax.” That’s right. Even if you have no income tax liability, you can still get a tax credit — that is, a payment from the government.

    As to the claim of 18 business tax cuts, a CNN analysis finds “If extensions or expansions aren’t double counted, the list comes out to 14 tax breaks — and only five are still around.”

    In its analysis of the business tax cuts, a New York Times article concluded “As you can see, some of these aren’t tax cuts in the way many people would define them. Rather, they’re tax incentives — you’ve got to spend money (on health insurance, a new employee or new equipment) to save money.”

    An example of one of the temporary business tax measures that were part of the ARRA stimulus bill was bonus depreciation. This measure allowed businesses to capture depreciation of assets more quickly than usual. This reduces taxable income, and therefore would act as an incentive for businesses to make capital investments.

    Ironically, when business jets received a similar accelerated depreciation benefit, President Obama denounces this as a harmful tax break.

    These measures, while reducing the amount of tax a business might pay, don’t change the marginal tax rate. Reducing marginal tax rates is what contributes to growth.

    There has been the temporary payroll tax cut, which is a reduction in tax rates that pay for Social Security and Medicare. This tax, however, applies only to income up to $110,100, so after that level, the reduction no longer applies. Further, this is an example of reducing taxes, but not making corresponding reductions in spending. This means that government has to borrow more, which is a negative factor for economic growth.

    Programs that reduce the average tax rate like Obama’s Making Work Pay Tax Credit and the Bush tax rebates of 2008 aren’t effective because they don’t affect the marginal rate — the rate paid on the next dollar earned. While anything that reduces the burden of taxes is welcome, we ought to implement the type of tax cuts that spur economic growth.

    Who responds most positively to reductions in marginal tax rates? As Jeffrey A. Miron explains, it is the most economically productive members of society:

    The Bush cuts provided lower taxes on ordinary income, especially for taxpayers at the high end of the income distribution. These are some of the most energetic and productive people in society; raising tax rates would discourage their effort and entrepreneurship. High-income taxpayers also have multiple ways of avoiding high tax rates, so any revenue gain from raising rates would be modest. The Bush cuts also lowered taxes on dividend and capital gains income; maintaining these lower rates is even more important for economic performance. Capital is mobile: when it is taxed heavily here, it flees somewhere else, meaning lower investment and employment in the United States. And because capital income taxes discourage investment or drive it overseas, they generate little if any tax revenue. (Jeffrey A. Miron, “Why the Bush Tax Cuts Worked”)

    It is these “energetic and productive” people that are responsible for a great deal of business activity and job creation. When these people take steps to avoid taxes it means less productive economic activity and more unproductive tax shelters.

    In Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, author Leslie Carbone explains the harm of high marginal taxes, especially progressive taxes, where rates become higher as more income is earned:

    The discouragement of earning money by working, saving, or investing inherent in any income tax is exacerbated by progressivity. While any high tax rates are economically destructive, high marginal rates are even worse, because high marginal rates particularly discourage productivity and inhibit economic growth. … By lowering potential pay off, high investment taxes especially discourage risky investment. Discouragement of risky investment squelches technological advancement, because new technologies are the most risky. This means our progressive tax system actually reduces progress and inhibits improve quality of life.

    If the goal of the Obama Administration is to create private sector economic growth instead of growth in government, it needs to keep the Bush tax cuts in place and avoid increases in marginal tax rates for everyone, especially the most productive members of society. A better strategy would be to reduce these tax rates farther to create even more economic growth.

  • Pompeo: Impending tax increases threaten economic growth and jobs

    Following is an article from U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, which includes the Wichita metropolitan area.

    This week the House of Representatives will vote to stop the largest tax hike in American history, which, absent legislative action, is set to occur on January 1, 2013. I hope the Senate and President Obama will join us. Last week’s report of the economy growing at an anemic 1.5 percent is further evidence that tax increases are not what our nation needs.

    Don’t be fooled into thinking this impending tax hike is “on the other guy” or “only on the rich.” President Obama is demanding that federal taxes go up on nearly every single American and nearly every single business. Whether you make more or less than $250,000, whether you own a business or work at one, whether you are retired and receiving dividend income or whether you are a Kansas school teacher who is provided health care under your employer’s plan — your taxes will go up. It will even become far more expensive for many people to die, with a major increase in the estate tax taking effect. All of this will occur as a direct result of the President’s deep and open desire to raise taxes and spread the wealth.

    This pending federal tax increase would be on top of several tax increases the Democrats have already given each of us. President Obama’s health care takeover increases taxes by $800 billion over the next ten years alone. More than a dozen of those tax increases — including the individual mandate — hit the middle class squarely. These increases violate his oft-repeated promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000. They also lower incomes as the threat of tax increases has caused the economy to remain stagnant with unemployment above 8 percent for 41 consecutive months.

    The anticipated economic consequence of such an enormous tax hike is so devastating that the media has coined the term “Taxmageddon” to describe it and suggested that a failure to stop it would be equivalent to driving our economic car off a “fiscal cliff.”

    How big is the impending tax increase? In 2013, every taxpayer in Kansas will be charged with paying an additional $2,984 in federal income taxes. The increased tax payments of all the families in Kansas’ Fourth District put together totals a staggering $1 billion, $4.2 billion from all Kansans, and $494 billion nationwide. The tax increase would target Kansas families, low-income workers, and retirees — and it would be the largest tax hike our state has ever had to endure.

    The President has it backwards. We don’t have a problem with too few taxes. Our problem, rather, is that we have too much federal spending. The federal government is already 20% bigger than when President Obama took over. We have more people on food stamps and more people drawing federal disability benefits than ever before in our nation’s history. A tax increase will just make these problems worse by further stunting economic growth.

    I firmly believe that the first thing Congress must do to provide economic certainty is to stop the tax hike now. Until American families and job creators are certain their federal taxes will not be increased, we cannot get the economy back on track. This week I will vote in the House of Representatives to approve a bill that would provide that certainty by halting Taxmageddon in its tracks. If President Obama and Senate Democrats follow suit, the result will be relief and certainty for small businesses and families that would propel economic growth and create a job for every American who wants one.

  • Brownback on wind, again

    This week Kansas Governor Sam Brownback again made the case for government spending on a particular industry. The industry is wind power, and the governor made his remarks at a national conference of the wind industry.

    The wind industry, with Brownback’s support, wants to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for the production of electrical power by wind. In March Brownback and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas wrote an op-ed making the case for extending the PTC. At the conference this week, Brownback called for extending the PTC, although he did support a four-year phaseout.

    The PTC pays generators of wind power 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour produced. To place that in context, a typical Westar customer in Kansas that uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours in the summer pays $95.22 (before local sales tax), for a rate of 9.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. (This is the total cost including energy charge, fuel charge, transmission charge, environment cost recovery rider, property tax surcharge, and franchise fee, according to a March 2010 illustration provided by Westar.) So 2.2 cents is a high rate of subsidy for a product that sells for 9.5 cents.

    Brownback and Moran contend that the PTC is necessary to let the wind power industry “complete its transformation from being a high tech startup to becoming cost competitive in the energy marketplace.” The problem with this line of argument is that wind is not an industry in its infancy. The PTC has been in place since 1992, a period of twenty years. If an industry can’t get established in that period, when will it be ready to stand in its own?

    The authors also contend that canceling the PTC is, in effect, a “tax hike on wind energy companies.” To some extent this is true — but only because the industry has enjoyed preferential tax treatment that it should never have received, coupled with a misunderstanding of the tax credit mechanism.

    The proper way to view the PTC is as a government spending program. That’s the true economic effect of tax credits. Only recently are Americans coming to realize this, and as a result, the term “tax expenditures” is coming into use to accurately characterize the mechanism of tax credits.

    Amazingly, Brownback and Moran do not realize this, at least if we take them at their written word when they write: “But the wind PTC is a winning solution because it allows companies to keep more of their own dollars in exchange for the production of energy. These are not cash handouts; they are reductions in taxes that help cover the cost of doing business.” (Emphasis added.)

    It is the mixing of spending programs with taxation that leads these politicians to wrongly claim that tax credits are not cash handouts. Fortunately, not everyone falls for this seductive trap. In an excellent article on the topic that appeared in Cato Institute’s Regulation magazine, Edward D. Kleinbard explains:

    Specialists term these synthetic government spending programs “tax expenditures.” Tax expenditures are really spending programs, not tax rollbacks, because the missing tax revenues must be financed by more taxes on somebody else. Like any other form of deficit spending, a targeted tax break without a revenue offset simply means more deficits (and ultimately more taxes); a targeted tax break coupled with a specific revenue “payfor” means that one group of Americans is required to pay (in the form of higher taxes) for a subsidy to be delivered to others through the mechanism of the tax system. … Tax expenditures dissolve the boundaries between government revenues and government spending. They reduce both the coherence of the tax law and our ability to conceptualize the very size and activities of our government. (The Hidden Hand of Government Spending, Fall 2010)

    U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita recognized the cost of paying for tax credit expenditures when he recently wrote: “Moreover, what about the jobs lost because everyone else’s taxes went up to pay for the subsidy and to pay for the high utility bills from wind-powered energy? There will be no ribbon-cuttings for those out-of-work families.” See Mike Pompeo: We need capitalism, not cronyism.

    So when Brownback and Moran write of the loss of income to those who profit from wind power, we should remember that these profits do not arise from transactions between willing partners. Instead, they result from politicians like these who are willing to override the judgment of free people and free markets with their own political preferences — along with looking out for the parochial interests of the home state. We need less of this type of wind power.

  • Corporations are people, too

    “As it turns out, if we tax corporations, we’re not just taxing the rich. We’re taxing everybody.” That’s the conclusion of Steven Horwitz in the following video. He explains that a tax on corporations is not the equivalent of a tax on the wealthy; instead individual people will pay these taxes, regardless of wealth. Working people bear the costs of the corporate income tax.

    In summarizing the findings of economists, Horwitz says: “So yes, corporations are indeed comprised of people in the sense that it is individuals who ultimately bear the burden of increased corporate taxation. There is an ongoing debate about who bears that burden and how much. But anyone who thinks that taxing corporations means taxing the rich is fooling themselves. It’s us, actual people, who bear the burden of corporate taxation, not the abstract entity called the corporation.”

  • Pompeo: Ending tax credits for energy doesn’t violate pledge

    In a news conference last week, U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita and two others criticized President Barack Obama for misunderstanding of the meaning of a taxpayer protection pledge that Pompeo has signed.

    The pledge is the famous pledge advanced by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, where signers pledge not to increase taxes. The “tax increase” the president refers to are various tax credits that benefit some forms of energy production, particularly wind and solar power. Norquist, along with Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, participated in the conference.

    Pompeo said the president “called out” those who signed the ATR pledge, specifically arguing that allowing the wind production tax credit (PTC) to expire would be a violation of the pledge. The ATR taxpayer protection pledge is to “One, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and two, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

    Pompeo has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would end tax credits on all forms of energy production. By itself, that might be a violation of the pledge. The bill, however, specifies that the savings from the elimination of the spending on tax credits would be used to lower the corporate income tax rate. The use of the savings to reduce tax rates is in agreement with the second plank of the ATR pledge.

    Pompeo’s bill is H.R. 3308: Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act. This bill is currently in committee. Sen. DeMint introduced an amendment to a Senate bill that would have accomplished the same, but the amendment received only 26 votes. Pompeo characterized this as an advance, as just a few years ago, he said such a bill or amendment would have received only a few votes. But this received the votes of a majority of Republican members of the Senate, including that of minority leader Mitch McConnell.

    In his remarks, DeMint said that while the president talks about eliminating corporate loopholes, he is hypocritical in his criticism of this legislation. If Congress could eliminate the tax credits — loopholes — for big oil and all energy and lower tax rates for all, it would be “a model for what we could do across our whole tax code.”

    Norquist emphasized the temporary nature of many loopholes or tax advantaged treatment added to the tax code. These are usually pitched as temporary measures, needed because the policy goal is good, the industry is in its infancy, and it needs temporary help. But as in the case of the wind PTC, these special advantages are often extended or made permanent.

    The issue of special tax treatment for the oil and gas industry arose. Norquist said that these tax considerations almost always fall into the categories of depreciation and expensing, which are available to all industries. He said if these are available to General Electric and Wal-Mart, they should also be available to all industries, including oil and gas.

    Not everyone, including all conservatives, agree that tax credits are a form of spending implemented through the tax code. Recently Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas made the case for extending the production tax credit for the production of electrical power by wind. See Wind tax credits are government spending in disguise.

    In their op-ed, the Kansans argued the PTC is necessary to let the wind power industry “complete its transformation from being a high tech startup to becoming cost competitive in the energy marketplace.” As the PTC has been in effect is 1992, a period of 20 years, Norquist’s warning about the temporary nature of these programs is relevant.

    The proper way to view the PTC is as a government spending program, recognizing the true economic effect of tax credits. Only recently are Americans coming to realize this, and as a result, the term “tax expenditures” is coming into use to accurately characterize the mechanism of tax credits. Canceling this spending is what would let tax rates be reduced, according to Pompeo’s proposed legislation.

    Amazingly, Brownback and Moran do not realize this, at least if we take them at their written word when they write: “But the wind PTC is a winning solution because it allows companies to keep more of their own dollars in exchange for the production of energy. These are not cash handouts; they are reductions in taxes that help cover the cost of doing business.” (Emphasis added.)

  • Does government have a revenue or spending problem?

    “People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too much spending, or too little tax revenue? Economics professor Antony Davies examines the data and concludes that the root cause of the debt is too much government spending.” This is a video from from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies.

  • Tax costs block progress in Kansas

    If we in Kansas and Wichita wonder why our economic growth is slow and our economic development programs don’t seem to be producing results, there is now data to answer the question why: Our tax costs are high — way too high.

    Recently the Tax Foundation released a report that examines the tax costs on business in the states and in selected cities in each state. The news for Kansas is worse than merely bad, as our state couldn’t have performed much worse: Kansas ranks 47th among the states for tax costs for mature business firms, and 48th for new firms.

    The report is Location Matters: A Comparative Analysis of State Tax Costs on Business.

    The study is unusual in that it looks at the impact of states’ tax burden on mature and new firms. This, according to report authors, “allows us to understand the effects of state tax incentives compared to a state’s core tax system.” In further explanation, the authors write: “The second measure is for the tax burden faced by newly established operations, those that have been in operation less than three years. This represents a state’s competitiveness after we have taken into account the various tax incentive programs it makes available to new investments.”

    The report also looks at the tax costs for specific types of business firms. For Kansas, some individual results are better than overall, but still not good. For a mature corporate headquarters, Kansas ranks 30th. For locating a new corporate headquarters — one that would benefit from tax incentive programs — Kansas ranked 42nd. For a mature research and development facility, 46th; while new is ranked 49th. For a mature retail store, 38th, while new is ranked 45th.

    There are more categories. Kansas ranks well in none.

    The report also looked at two cities in each state, a major city and a mid-size city. For Kansas, the two cities are Wichita and Topeka.

    Among the 50 cities chosen, Wichita ranks 30th for a mature corporate headquarters, but 42nd for a new corporate headquarters.

    For a mature research and development facility, Wichita ranks 46th, and 49th for a new facility.

    For a mature and new retail store, Wichita ranks 38th and 45th, respectively.

    For a mature and new call center, Wichita ranks 43rd and 47th, respectively.

    In its summary for Kansas, the authors note the fecklessness of Kansas economic development incentives: “Kansas offers among the most generous property tax abatements and investment tax credits across most firm types, yet these incentives seem to have little impact on the state’s rankings for new operations.”

    Kansas tax cost compared to neighbors. Click here for a larger version.

    It’s also useful to compare Kansas to our neighbors. The comparison is not favorable for Kansas.

    More evidence of failure

    Recently the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition issued its annual report on its economic development activities for the year. This report shows us that power of government to influence economic development is weak. In its recent press release, the organization claimed to have created 1,509 jobs in Sedgwick County during 2011. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force in Sedgwick County in 2011 was 253,940 persons. So the jobs created by GWEDC’s actions amounted to 0.59 percent of the labor force. This is a very small fraction, and other economic events are likely to overwhelm these efforts.

    In his 2012 State of the City address, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer took credit for creating a similar percentage of jobs in Wichita.

    The report by the Tax Foundation helps us understand why the economic development efforts of GWEDC, Sedgwick County, and Wichita are not working well: Our tax costs are too high.

    While economic development incentives can help reduce the cost of taxes for selected firms, incentives don’t help the many firms that don’t receive them. In fact, the cost of these incentives is harmful to other firms. The Tax Foundation report points to this harm: “While many state officials view tax incentives as a necessary tool in their state’s ability to be competitive, others are beginning to question the cost-benefit of incentives and whether they are fair to mature firms that are paying full freight. Indeed, there is growing animosity among many business owners and executives to the generous tax incentives enjoyed by some of their direct competitors.”

    But there is one incentive that can be offered to all firms: Reduce tax costs for everyone. The policy of reducing tax costs for the selected few is not working. This “active investor” approach to economic development is what has led companies in Wichita and Kansas escaping hundreds of millions in taxes — taxes that others have to pay. That has a harmful effect on other business, both existing and those that wish to form.

    Professor Art Hall of the Center for Applied Economics at the Kansas University School of Business is critical of this approach to economic development. In his paper Embracing Dynamism: The Next Phase in Kansas Economic Development Policy, Hall quotes Alan Peters and Peter Fisher: “The most fundamental problem is that many public officials appear to believe that they can influence the course of their state and local economies through incentives and subsidies to a degree far beyond anything supported by even the most optimistic evidence. We need to begin by lowering expectations about their ability to micro-manage economic growth and making the case for a more sensible view of the role of government — providing foundations for growth through sound fiscal practices, quality public infrastructure, and good education systems — and then letting the economy take care of itself.”

    In the same paper, Hall writes this regarding “benchmarking” — the bidding wars for large employers that Wichita and Kansas has been pursuing and which Wichita’s Brewer wants to step up: “Kansas can break out of the benchmarking race by developing a strategy built on embracing dynamism. Such a strategy, far from losing opportunity, can distinguish itself by building unique capabilities that create a different mix of value that can enhance the probability of long-term economic success through enhanced opportunity. Embracing dynamism can change how Kansas plays the game.”

    In making his argument, Hall cites research on the futility of chasing large employers as an economic development strategy: “Large-employer businesses have no measurable net economic effect on local economies when properly measured. To quote from the most comprehensive study: ‘The primary finding is that the location of a large firm has no measurable net economic effect on local economies when the entire dynamic of location effects is taken into account. Thus, the siting of large firms that are the target of aggressive recruitment efforts fails to create positive private sector gains and likely does not generate significant public revenue gains either.’”

    There is also substantial research that is it young firms — distinguished from small business in general — that are the engine of economic growth for the future. We can’t detect which of the young firms will blossom into major success — or even small-scale successes. The only way to nurture them is through economic policies that all companies can benefit from. Reducing tax rates is an example of such a policy. Abating taxes for specific companies through programs like IRBs is an example of precisely the wrong policy.

    We need to move away from economic development based on this active investor approach. We need to advocate for policies — at Wichita City Hall, at the Sedgwick County Commission, and at the Kansas Statehouse — that lead to sustainable economic development. We need political leaders who have the wisdom to realize this, and the courage to act appropriately. Which is to say, to not act in most circumstances, except to reduce the cost of government for everyone.

  • Hauser’s law, or raising taxes won’t work

    There are many who call for raising taxes, especially on the rich, as a way to generate more revenue and balance the budget. But try as we might, raising tax rates won’t generate higher revenues (as a percentage of gross domestic product), due to Hauser’s law. W. Kurt Hauser explains in The Wall Street Journal: “Even amoebas learn by trial and error, but some economists and politicians do not. The Obama administration’s budget projections claim that raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers, those individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning $250,000 or more, will increase revenues to the U.S. Treasury. The empirical evidence suggests otherwise. None of the personal income tax or capital gains tax increases enacted in the post-World War II period has raised the projected tax revenues. Over the past six decades, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have averaged just under 19% regardless of the top marginal personal income tax rate. The top marginal rate has been as high as 92% (1952-53) and as low as 28% (1988-90). This observation was first reported in an op-ed I wrote for this newspaper in March 1993. A wit later dubbed this ‘Hauser’s Law.’”

    People react to changes in tax law. As tax rates rise, people seek to reduce their taxable income, and make investments in unproductive tax shelters. There is less incentive to work and invest. These are some of the reasons why tax hikes usually don’t generate the promised revenue.

    The subtitle to Hauser’s article is “Tax revenues as a share of GDP have averaged just under 19%, whether tax rates are cut or raised. Better to cut rates and get 19% of a larger pie.”

    Hauser's LawHauser’s Law illustrated. No matter what the top marginal tax rate, taxes collected remain an almost constant percentage of GDP.

  • Taxes are expensive

    The IRS estimates that the amount of time spent complying with the federal tax code is 7 billion hours per year. That’s 3,500,000 people working full-time on taxes.

    Not to pay the taxes, mind you. This is the effort required just to figure out who owes how much tax — in other words, complying.

    A few years ago the Tax Foundation looked at the cost of tax compliance and found this: “In 2005 individuals, businesses and nonprofits will spend an estimated 6 billion hours complying with the federal income tax code, with an estimated compliance cost of over $265.1 billion. This amounts to imposing a 22-cent tax compliance surcharge for every dollar the income tax system collects.”

    In Kansas for 2005, compliance costs for the income tax were estimated at 27.1 percent of the tax collected. That’s almost $2.5 billion in total costs, or $877 per person. To place this number in context, Kansas spends about $2.9 billion on public schools each year.

    It’s expensive to collect income taxes. We also have evidence that it’s expensive for governments to spend the taxes they’ve collected.

    A curiosity is that the cost of complying with the federal tax code is highly regressive. Those earning less than $20,000 spent nearly 6 percent of their income on compliance. Those with incomes of over $200,000 spent just 0.45 percent of their income on compliance. Those earning less than $20,000 will generally pay no income tax, yet they still pay to comply. (Many of these low earners will qualify for various spending programs that are implemented through the income tax system.)

    By simplifying our tax code, we could eliminate much of this cost, and return that effort to productive use. As Paul Jacob wrote in a commentary: “This complexity has costs. And not just to my sanity. A whole industry has risen to ease the burden of figuring out our taxes. One hates to begrudge anyone an honest living, but really, most of today’s tax accountants would better serve humanity in some other job.”

    For those who do pay taxes, they often aren’t aware, on a continual basis, of just how much tax they pay. That’s because for wage earners federal and state taxes are conveniently withheld from their paychecks. Many people, I suspect, look at the bottom line — the amount they receive as a check or automatic bank deposit — and don’t really take notice of the taxes that were withheld. This makes paying taxes almost painless.

    For property taxes, anyone who has a mortgage probably has these taxes incorporated into their monthly mortgage payment, so they’re not aware of the taxes on a monthly basis. Renters pay them as part of their rent. Everyone who trades with a business pays them, as taxes such as the sales tax are part of what people have to pay to buy something.

    To increase tax awareness, we should eliminate the withholding of taxes from paychecks and from monthly mortgage payments. Instead, each month or year the various taxing governments should send a bill to each taxpayer, and they would pay it just like the rest of their periodic bills. In this way, we would all be acutely aware of just how much tax we pay.

    Since tax withholding from paychecks and mortgage payments reduces our awareness of just how much tax we pay, it’s unlikely that governments will stop the withholding of taxes and submit a bill to taxpayers. Instead, it’s left to ourselves to remain aware of how much we are paying. Politicians just hope we don’t notice.