I recall executives whining about baby boomers in the 80s when I started working. No young generation ever works as hard as the prior generations.
The CEOs concerned about being ghosted have no problem dumping their staff with two weeks pay over e-mail with no prior warning when their revenue and margins look like they might suffer. That is just business.
They also have no issues with suddenly closing a plant or office in a city and sending the jobs to a place with lower pay and less regulation, frequently a different country.
The first indicator that it would be possible would be if they did a simplification of retirement account types so that they at least have the same or similar rules. SECURE and SECURE 2.0 were opportunities to do that and they didn't even try.
If they can't do that, then they don't have a prayer of even starting to rationalize the complexity of the tax code that gives massive tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations. In modern USA, the complexity of the US tax code is a feature, not a bug. That is why there has been so much pushback on additional IRS funding. The lobbyists do not want the IRS to have the manpower to actually review their clients' tax returns as that could be an increase in actual vs. gamed tax liabilities. The Trump tax trials will be an interesting test of what happens when somebody actually looks at these types of tax returns. Trump Corporation already lost Round 1 on a fairly minor tax fraud allegation compared to what is coming up.
VAT is a logical component of a rational tax policy.
One issue with VAT is that it applies at every step of production instead of point of sale. So, there can be challenges on having a robust manufacturing base with multiple steps in it inside the country. We saw some of that play out with the Trump tariffs where tariffs were applied on relatively raw materials (e.g. steel) but not on finished goods. So it increased the cost of materials to a US manufacturer without increasing the price of a competing finished good coming from overseas.
I recall executives whining about baby boomers in the 80s when I started working. No young generation ever works as hard as the prior generations.
The CEOs concerned about being ghosted have no problem dumping their staff with two weeks pay over e-mail with no prior warning when their revenue and margins look like they might suffer. That is just business.
They also have no issues with suddenly closing a plant or office in a city and sending the jobs to a place with lower pay and less regulation, frequently a different country.
Is a well reasoned tax policy possible in our short term political show?
No.
The first indicator that it would be possible would be if they did a simplification of retirement account types so that they at least have the same or similar rules. SECURE and SECURE 2.0 were opportunities to do that and they didn't even try.
If they can't do that, then they don't have a prayer of even starting to rationalize the complexity of the tax code that gives massive tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations. In modern USA, the complexity of the US tax code is a feature, not a bug. That is why there has been so much pushback on additional IRS funding. The lobbyists do not want the IRS to have the manpower to actually review their clients' tax returns as that could be an increase in actual vs. gamed tax liabilities. The Trump tax trials will be an interesting test of what happens when somebody actually looks at these types of tax returns. Trump Corporation already lost Round 1 on a fairly minor tax fraud allegation compared to what is coming up.
What’s your opinion on a VAT style tax instead? That should hit wealthier consumers more. Just have a rebate for the first X amount of consumption.
A progressive consumption tax would be much better, and easier to implement!
But only if all other taxation is eliminated. Of course that will never happen.
VAT is a logical component of a rational tax policy.
One issue with VAT is that it applies at every step of production instead of point of sale. So, there can be challenges on having a robust manufacturing base with multiple steps in it inside the country. We saw some of that play out with the Trump tariffs where tariffs were applied on relatively raw materials (e.g. steel) but not on finished goods. So it increased the cost of materials to a US manufacturer without increasing the price of a competing finished good coming from overseas.