Time for some IRS Bashing

Being a lazy procrastinator, I filed an extension April 15 and then waited until this weekend to do my tax return. This experience has reinforced my hatred and disdain for our corrupt and punitive tax system. I don't even have a remotely complicated tax return, just a Cato salary and a few payments for articles and speeches on the income side, along with a standard set of itemized deductions for things like home mortgage interest.

But even dealing with a relatively simple tax return causes lots of angst and makes me long for a simple and fair flat tax. Actually, it makes me long for a limited government, as envisioned by our Founders, in which case we might not need any broad-based tax. And I suppose I shouldn't blame the IRS. The real villains are the politicians who have spent the past 97 years turning the tax code into a monstrosity.

Now that I'm done venting, I suppose I should include some educational content. In honor of tax day for procrastinators, here are three videos on the flat tax, the IRS, and the global flat tax revolution.

The White House Has Declared Class War on the Rich, but the Poor and Middle Class Will Suffer Collateral Damage

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year, which means a big tax increase in 2011. Tax rates for all brackets will increase, the double tax on dividends will skyrocket from 15 percent to 39.6 percent, the child credit will shrink, the death tax will be reinstated (at 55 percent!), the marriage penalty will get worse, and the capital gains tax rate will jump to 20 percent. All of these provisions will be unwelcome news for taxpayers, but it's important to look at direct and indirect costs. A smaller paycheck is an example of direct costs, but in some cases the indirect costs - such as slower economic growth - are even more important. This is why higher tax rates on entrepreneurs and investors are so misguided. For every dollar the government collects from policies targeting these people (such as higher capital gains and dividend taxes, a renewed death tax, and increases in the top tax rates), it's likely that there will be significant collateral economic damage.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration's approach is to look at tax policy only through the prism of class warfare. This means that some tax cuts can be extended, but only if there is no direct benefit to anybody making more than $200,000 or $250,000 per year. The folks at the White House apparently don't understand, however, that higher direct costs on the "rich" will translate into higher indirect costs on the rest of us. Higher tax rates on work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship will slow economic growth. And, because of compounding, even small changes in the long-run growth rate can have a significant impact on living standards within one or two decades. This is one of the reasons why high-tax European welfare states have lost ground in recent decades compared to the United States.

When the economy slows down, that's not good news for upper-income taxpayers. But it's also bad news for the rest of us - and it can create genuine hardship for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. The White House may be playing smart politics. As this blurb from the Washington Post indicates, the President seems to think that he can get away with blaming the recession on tax cuts that took place five years before the downturn began. But for those of us who care about prosperity more than politics, what really matters is that the economy is soon going to be hit with higher tax rates on productive behavior. It's unclear whether that's good for the President's poll numbers, but it's definitely bad for America.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner took the lead Sunday in continuing the Obama administration's push for extending middle-class tax cuts while allowing similar cuts for the nation's wealthiest individuals to expire in January. ...The tax cuts, put in place between 2001 and 2003, have become an intensely political topic ahead of the congressional elections this fall. Republicans have argued that extending the full spectrum of tax cuts is essential to strengthening the sluggish economic recovery. Geithner rejected that notion, telling ABC's "This Week" that letting tax cuts for the wealthiest expire would not hurt growth. ...On Saturday, the president used part of his weekly address to chide House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) and other Republicans who oppose the administration's approach, saying the GOP was pushing "the same policies that led us into this recession."

Killing Jobs with Class Warfare Corporate Taxation

Richard Rahn's Washington Times column makes several key points about corporate taxation, including the fact that excessive taxation of capital (the corporate income tax being just one example) is extremely foolish such taxes impose the most damage - per dollar collected - when compared with other forms of revenue. To add injury to injury, the U.S. corporate income tax is especially destructive in a competitive global economy.

The majority of taxaholics are particularly addicted to the most destructive taxes, being the taxes on capital. Up to a point, perfectly sound arguments can be made for taxing tobacco, alcohol, gasoline, etc. However, taxing capital at high rates or double or triple taxing is nothing more than self-destruction. Capital is what business people use to hire workers and purchase new plants and equipment. Taxes on corporations, capital gains, dividends and interest are primarily taxes on capital - and the heavier the tax, the fewer new jobs. In a new report published by the Cato Institute, international tax experts Duanjie Chen and Jack Mintz at the University of Calgary in Canada state that the U.S. "statutory corporate income tax rate is one of the highest in the world ... which harms the economy and encourages companies to shift investment and profits abroad to lower-tax jurisdictions." (See attached chart.)The authors estimated effective tax rates for 80 countries. (Effective tax rates take into account statutory tax rates plus tax base items that affect taxes paid on new investment, such as depreciation allowances.) They found that the "U.S. effective corporate rate is 35.0 percent, which is much higher than the 80-nation average of just 18.2 percent."

For a more detailed explanation of why the corporate income tax should be reduced, see the very first video produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. It was supposed to be a test for internal purposes, and the production values are not as advanced (hopefully) as more recent videos, but the message is worth sharing.

Yes, High Tax Rates Change Behavior and Discourage Income

I've read several places that Ronald Reagan instinctively understood supply-side economics because Hollywood stars sooner or later learned that making more than a couple of movies per year was pointless when marginal tax rates were 90 percent. The same thing happens in sports. I've already posted about soccer stars turning down contracts in places where tax rates are high. Now we have a fascinating little story about taxes and the boxing profession:

For a very long time, boxing was the only really big-money sport for athletes. ...At a time when Babe Ruth was being razzed for his $80,000 salary (more than the President of the United States, it was pointed out, to which Babe supposedly replied in 1930, "Well, I had a better year than he [President Hoover] did"), heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey made about nine times as much—over $700,000, for his unsuccessful title defense against Gene Tunney in 1926. ...The 1950s was the era of the 90 percent top marginal tax rate, and by the end of that decade live gate receipts for top championship fights were supplemented by the proceeds from closed circuit telecasts to movie theaters. A second fight in one tax year would yield very little additional income, hardly worth the risk of losing the title. And so, the three fights between Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson stretched over three years (1959-1961); the two between Patterson and Sonny Liston over two years (1962-1963), as was also true for the two bouts between Liston and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) (1964-1965). Then, the Tax Reform Act of 1964 cut the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent effective in 1965. The result: two heavyweight title fights in 1965, and five in 1966.

George Will Says No VAT Unless 16th Amendment Is Repealed

As usual, some very sound thoughts - on both the value-added tax and the income tax - from George Will:

When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it — after the 16th Amendment is repealed. A VAT will be rationalized as necessary to restore fiscal equilibrium. But without ending the income tax, a VAT would be just a gargantuan instrument for further subjugating Americans to government. ...Because the income tax is not broadly based, it radiates moral hazard: Its incentives are for perverse behavior. The top 1% of earners provide 40% of that tax's receipts; the top 5% provide 61%; the bottom 50% provide 3%. So the tax makes a substantial majority complacent about government's growth. Increasingly, the income tax is codified envy. A VAT is the political class's recourse when the resources of the minority that is targeted by the envious are insufficient to finance ravenous government.

New Video Exposes Nightmare of IRS Complexity

My all-time favorite former intern, Hiwa Alaghebandian, has just narrated a new Economics 101 video about the cost of the tax code for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. I won't spoil the surprise by giving the details, but you if you're not angy now, you will be after watching.

Europe Should Not Copy America's Imperialist and Anti-Growth Worldwide Tax Regime

The overall fiscal burden in the United States may be lower than it is in Europe, but there are some features of the internal revenue code that are far worse than what can be found on the other side of the Atlantic. America has a "worldwide" tax system, for instance, which means that our government interferes with the sovereignty of other nations by taxing income earned by Americans inside their borders. Good tax policy, by contrast, relies on the "territorial" principle of only taxing income earned inside national borders - and every other developed nation uses this system. Not surprisingly, both the flat tax and national sales tax are based on this common-sense approach. If an American earns income in Hong Kong, it should be up to Hong Kong to decide how that money gets taxed. Likewise, if a German earns money in the United States, then he is fair game for the IRS. There's an old saying that good fences make good neighbors, and territorial taxation is the fiscal policy equivalent of this sound rule. Not surprisingly, however, other nations want to mimic this horrible feature of the American tax code. The Financial Times is even urging European nations to jointly make that misguided choice. Fortunately, it is almost certain that some nations will refuse to join in such a statist cartel:

The US is unique in using citizenship in determining whether a person’s worldwide income is subject to taxation. Most countries do not impose tax on their citizens who are not resident within their borders – apart from any income that is sourced in that country. But the US system has much to commend it. After all, any citizen of a country enjoys the implicit legal and physical protection it affords. ...provision is made to avoid double taxation. Moreover, there is an exit for individuals who do not accept it as they can renounce their citizenship and move elsewhere. But perhaps the best thing about it is that a worldwide system linked to citizenship is simple and easy to understand. Most American citizens do accept it, although more have handed back their passports recently. It would be hard for, say, the UK or Germany to introduce such a system unilaterally. There would be the risk of citizens jurisdiction-hopping by swapping one passport for another within a common economic area. But all European Union states could introduce the same rule. That would not be impossible. After all, EU countries already co-ordinate their policies on savings taxes and their tax authorities exchange information.

Debating another Neurotic Silver-Spoon Leftist

I've always thought it would be nice to inherit a big pile of money, but whenever I debate some trust-fund collectivist, it makes me wonder whether there's too much risk that unearned wealth causes...well, let's just say causes strange opinions. Here's my recent debate on Kudlow's show with a rich guy who wants to pay more tax to the crooks in Washington.

Ultra-Rich Leftists Want to Atone for their Guilt by Paying Higher Taxes...And They Want to Impose their Neurotic Views on the Rest of Us

A Washington Post columnist reports on a group of limousine liberals who are lobbying to pay more taxes. Of course, there's no law that prevents them from writing big checks to the government and voluntarily paying more, so what they're really lobbying for is higher taxes on the vast majority of investors and entrepreneurs who don't want more of their income confiscated by the clowns in Washington and squandered on corrupt and inefficient programs. I debated one of these guilt-ridden, silver-spoon, trust-fund rich people on CNN last year and never got an answer when I asked him why he wanted to pull up the ladder of opportunity for the rest of us who would like to become rich some day:

A group of liberals got together Tuesday and proved that they, too, can have a tax rebellion. But theirs is a little bit different: They want to pay more taxes. "I'm in favor of higher taxes on people like me," declared Eric Schoenberg, who is sitting on an investment banking fortune. He complained about "my absurdly low tax rates." "We're calling on other wealthy taxpayers to join us," said paper-mill heir Mike Lapham, "to send the message to Congress and President Obama that it's time to roll back the tax cuts on upper-income taxpayers." ...For them, Obama's plan to "spread the wealth" (by raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000) is too conservative. "The Obama plan we don't think goes far enough," Lapham protested. "We think probably more like the top 5 percent should have their taxes raised." That would be those above $200,000. "Or go beyond that," he suggested. ... They are among 50 families with net assets of more than $1 million to take a "tax fairness" pledge -- donating the amount they saved from Bush tax cuts to organizations fighting for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. According to a study by Spectrem Group, 7.8 million households in the United States have assets of more than $1 million -- so that leaves 7,799,950 millionaire households yet to take the pledge. ...Of course, if millionaires really want to pay higher taxes, there's nothing stopping them. The Treasury Department Web site even accepts contributions by credit card to pay the public debt. ...His donation will, however, ease the sense of guilt that comes with great wealth, described poignantly by the millionaires: "In 1865, my great-great-grandfather Samuel Pruyn founded a paper mill on the banks of the Hudson River in Glens Falls, New York," Lapham explained. Judy Pigott, an industrial heiress on the call, added her wish that her income, "mostly unearned income, be taxed at a rate that returns to the common good that I have received by a privilege." Confessed Hollender, who now runs the Seventh Generation natural products company: "I grew up in Manhattan on Park Avenue in a 10-room apartment."

P.S. It's also rather revealing that Massachusetts had (and maybe still has) a portion of the state tax form allowing people to pay extra tax, yet very rich statists like John Kerry decided not to pay that tax while urging higher taxes for mere peasants like you and me.

Taxing the Rich Won't Raise Revenue - but Will Hurt the Economy

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, my Cato Institute colleague Alan Reynolds offers a simple economics lesson about pitfalls of class-warfare tax policy:

...the evidence is clear that when marginal tax rates go up, the amount of reported incomes goes down. Economists call that "the elasticity of taxable income" (ETI), and measure it by examining income tax returns before and after marginal tax rates claimed a bigger slice of income reported to the IRS. The evidence is surveyed in a May 2009 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley, Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan, and Seth Giertz of the University of Nebraska. They review a number of studies and find that "for an elasticity estimate of 0.5 . . . the fraction of tax revenue lost from behavioral responses would be 43.1%." That elasticity estimate of 0.5 would whittle the Obama team's hoped-for $1.2 trillion down to $671 billion. As the authors note, however, "there is much evidence to suggest that the ETI is higher for high-income individuals." The authors' illustrative use of a 0.5 figure is a perfectly reasonable approximation for most purposes, but not for tax hikes aimed at the very rich. For incomes above $100,000, a 2008 study by MIT economist Jon Gruber and Mr. Saez found an ETI of 0.57. But for incomes above $350,000 (the top 1%), they estimated the ETI at 0.62. And for incomes above $500,000, Treasury Department economist Bradley Heim recently estimated the ETI at 1.2—which means higher tax rates on the super-rich yield less revenue than lower tax rates. If an accurate ETI estimate for the highest incomes is closer to 1.0 than 0.5, as such studies suggest, the administration's intended tax hikes on high-income families will raise virtually no revenue at all. Yet the higher tax rates will harm economic growth through reduced labor effort, thwarted entrepreneurship, and diminished investments in physical and human capital. And that, in turn, means a smaller tax base and less revenue in the future.

PG 13 Political Joke (and Two Extras from the Late-Night Comics)

The Last Nickel

A father walks into a restaurant with his young son. He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied. Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face. The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back. The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.

A well dressed, attractive and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at the coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.

Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants, takes hold of the boy's testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand. Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the Father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor?"

"No", the woman replied. "I'm with the IRS."

-----

And here are two extra jokes from the late-night comics.

Obama demanded more accountability, a crackdown on corruption, and a better government. And if it works in Afghanistan, he’s going to try it in the United States - Dave Letterman, on Obama's trip to Afghanistan

It must be very embarrassing for the people involved. I’m sure the strippers didn’t want anyone to know they were hanging out with politicians - Craig Ferguson, commenting on the scandal of the RNC spending donor money at a strip club

Maryland Politicians Crash on the Laffer Curve

An insightful editorial from the Wall Street Journal examines how soak-the-rich taxes in Maryland backfired, leading to less revenue for the government. The politicians would like us to think this is just the effect of the recession, but the article points out that one out of every eight millionaires who filed a tax return in 2007 did not file one in 2008. A few may have died, but the big reason for this shocking reduction is migration. As one study discovered, Maryland's tax base fell by $1 billion because successful taxpayers escaped to other states:

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is the latest Democrat to demand a tax increase, this week proposing to raise the state's top marginal individual income tax rate to 4% from 3%. He'd better hope this works out better than it has for Maryland. ...The politicians in Annapolis had said they'd collect $106 million by raising its income tax rate on millionaire households to 6.25% from 4.75%. In cities like Baltimore and Bethesda, which apply add-on income taxes, the top tax rate with the surcharge now reaches as high as 9.3%—fifth highest in the nation. Liberals said this was based on incomplete data and that rich Marylanders hadn't fled the state. Well, the state comptroller's office now has the final tax return data for 2008, the first year that the higher tax rates applied. The number of millionaire tax returns fell sharply to 5,529 from 7,898 in 2007, a 30% tumble. The taxes paid by rich filers fell by 22%, and instead of their payments increasing by $106 million, they fell by some $257 million. Yes, a big part of that decline results from the recession that eroded incomes, especially from capital gains. But there is also little doubt that some rich people moved out or filed their taxes in other states with lower burdens. One-in-eight millionaires who filed a Maryland tax return in 2007 filed no return in 2008. Some died, but the others presumably changed their state of residence. (Hint to the class warfare crowd: A lot of rich people have two homes.) A Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysis of federal tax return data on people who migrated from one state to another found that Maryland lost $1 billion of its net tax base in 2008 by residents moving to other states. ...Thanks in part to its soak-the-rich theology, Maryland still has a $2 billion deficit... The state's best hope is that politicians in other states are as self-destructive as those in Annapolis.

Texas Thumps California

Texas has a small state government and no state income tax. California has a bloated state government and a punitive state income tax. Here's a simple quiz: Which state is doing better? The answer is obvious, as Michael Barone explains:

Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million -- all originally extracted from taxpayers -- into effective TV ads. Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California -- almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census. Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes -- and no state income taxes -- and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California's year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent. But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California's. But its test scores -- and with a demographically similar school population -- are higher. California's once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. In the meantime, Texas' economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs. And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.

Real World Evidence for the Laffer Curve from the Government of Washington, DC

President Obama is proposing a series of major tax increases. His budget envisions higher tax rates on personal income, increased double taxation of dividends and capital gains, and a big increase in the death tax. And his health care plan includes significant tax hikes, including perhaps the imposition of the Medicare payroll tax on capital income - thus exacerbating the tax code's bias against saving and investment. It is unclear why the White House is pursuing these punitive policies. The President said during the 2008 campaign that he favored soak-the-rich taxes even if they did not raise revenue, but his budget predicts the proposals will raise lots of money.

Because of the Laffer Curve, it is highly unlikely that all of this additional revenue will materialize if the President's budget is approved. The core insight of the Laffer Curve is not that all tax increases lose money and that all tax cuts raise revenues. That only happens in rare circumstances. Instead, the Laffer Curve simply reveals that higher tax rates will lead to less taxable income (or that lower tax rates will lead to more taxable income) and that it is an empirical matter to figure out the degree to which the change in tax revenue resulting from the shift in the tax rate is offset by the change in tax revenue caused by the shift in the other direction for taxable income. This should be an uncontroversial proposition, and these three videos explain Laffer Curve theory, evidence, and revenue-estimating issues. Richard Rahn also gives a good explanation in a recent Washington Times column.

Interestingly, the DC government (which certainly is not a bastion of free-market thinking) has just acknowledged the Laffer Curve. As the excerpt below illustrates, an increase in the cigarette tax did not raise the amount of revenue that local politicians expected. The evidence is so strong that the city's budget experts warn that a further increase will reduce revenue:

One of the gap-closing measures for the FY 2010 budget was an increase in the excise tax on cigarettes from $2.00 to $2.50 per pack. The 50 cent increase in the cigarette tax rate was projected to increase revenue but also reduce volume. Collections year-to-date point to a more severe drop in volumes than projected. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Maryland smokers who were purchasing in DC in FY 2008, because the tax rate in the District was less than the tax rate in Maryland, have shifted purchases back to Maryland now that the tax rate in the District is higher. Virginia analyzed the impact of demand when the federal rate went up by $0.61 in April and has been surprised that demand is much stronger than they had projected--raising the possibility that purchasing in DC has moved across the river. Whatever the actual cause, because of the lower than anticipated collections, the estimate for cigarette tax revenue is revised downwards by $15.4 million in FY 2010 and $15.2 million in FY 2011. Given that cigarette tax rates in neighboring jurisdictions are now lower than that of the District, future increases in the tax rate will likely generate less revenue rather than more.

Class Warfare Tax Policy Wreaks Havoc with New Jersey Economy

Barack Obama wants higher tax rates on the so-called rich, including steeper levies on income, capital gains, dividends, and even death! Along with other greedy politicians in Washington, he acts as if successful taxpayers are like sheep meekly awaiting slaughter. In reality, class-warfare tax policies generally backfire because of the five reasons outlined in this video:



A new study from Boston College provides additional evidence about the consequences of hate-and-envy tax policy. The research reveals that high tax rates in New Jersey have helped cause wealthy people to leave the state, leading to a net wealth reduction of $70 billion between 2004 and 2008. Wealth and income are different, of course, so it is worth pointing out that another study from 2007 estimated that the state lost $8 billion of gross income in 2005. That's a huge amount of income that is now beyond the reach of the state's greedy politicians. Here's a report from the New Jersey Business News:

More than $70 billion in wealth left New Jersey between 2004 and 2008 as affluent residents moved elsewhere, according to a report released Wednesday that marks a swift reversal of fortune for a state once considered the nation’s wealthiest. Conducted by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, the report found wealthy households in New Jersey were leaving for other states — mainly Florida, Pennsylvania and New York — at a faster rate than they were being replaced. ...The study – the first on interstate wealth migration in the country — noted the state actually saw an influx of $98 billion in the five years preceding 2004. The exodus of wealth, then, local experts and economists concluded, was a reaction to a series of changes in the state’s tax structure — including increases in the income, sales, property and “millionaire” taxes. “This study makes it crystal clear that New Jersey’s tax policies are resulting in a significant decline in the state’s wealth,” said Dennis Bone, chairman of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and president of Verizon New Jersey. ...In New Jersey, the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay more than 40 percent of the state’s income tax, he said. “That’s probably why we have these massive income shortfalls in the state budget, especially this year,” he said. Until the tax structure is improved, he said, “we’ll probably see a continuation of the trend, until there are no more high-wealth individuals left.” He added the report reinforces findings from a similar study he conducted in 2007 with fellow Rutgers professor Joseph Seneca, which found a sharp acceleration in residents leaving the state. That report, which focused on income rather than wealth, found the state lost nearly $8 billion in gross income in 2005. ...Ken Hydock, a certified public accountant with Sobel and Company in Livingston, said in this 30-year-career he’s never seen so many of his wealthy clients leave for "purely tax reasons" for states like Florida, where property taxes are lower and there is no personal income or estate tax. In New Jersey, residents pay an estate tax if their assets amount to more than $675,000. That’s compared to a $3.5 million federal exemption for 2009. Several years ago, he recalled, one of his clients stood to make $60 million from stock options in a company that was being acquired by another. Before he cashed out, however, the client put his home up for sale, moved to Las Vegas, and “never stepped foot back in New Jersey again,” Hydock said. “He avoided paying about $6 million in taxes,” he said. “He passed away two years later and also saved a huge estate tax, so he probably saved $7 million.”

Still not convinced that high tax rates are causing wealth and income to escape from New Jersey? The Wall Street Journal wrote a very powerful editorial about the Boston College study, noting that New Jersey "...was once a fast-growing state but has now joined California and New York as high-tax, high-debt states with budget crises." But the most powerful part of the editorial was this simple image. Prior to 1976, there was no state income tax in New Jersey. Now, by contrast, highly-productive people are getting fleeced by a 10.75 percent tax rate. No wonder so many of them are leaving.

Sex-Change Operations Are Deductible According to Tax Court

The internal revenue code is a monstrous nightmare of special-interest loopholes and class-warfare penalties, but at least is generates some interesting stories. Here's a report from Bloomgberg about a court deciding that the costs of switching from a man to a woman are tax deductible. Since I'm not a leftist, I'm not going to make the absurd argument that taxpayers are subsidizing sex-change operations. After all, the case revolved around how much of his/her own money the taxpayer got to keep. But I am an economist, so I'm going to say that tax loopholes tilt the playing field and encourage all sorts of inefficient outcomes. Indeed, this tax court ruling should be seen as a symbol of why tax preferences for health care should be eliminated as part of the shift to a simple, fair, and neutral flat tax:

Costs incurred in sex-change operations and procedures are tax-deductible, the U.S. Tax Court ruled. The Washington-based court decided yesterday that hormone therapies and sex reassignment surgeries are necessary to treat gender identity disorder, a disease, in the case of a Boston- area man who became a woman named Rhiannon O’Donnabhain. “The Court is persuaded that petitioner’s sex reassignment surgery was medically necessary,” Judge Joseph Gale wrote in a 69-page decision for the majority. The decision is the first to rule that sex-change operations qualify as medical care and overturns a 2005 Internal Revenue Service policy denying medical expense deductions in such operations on the grounds they are ‘cosmetic.’’ The case involves a $5,679 tax bill assessed by the IRS, which denied medical deductions claimed by O’Donnabhain after she underwent sex reassignment-surgery in 2000. O’Donnabhain, a civil engineer who joined the U.S. Coast Guard during the Vietnam War, was diagnosed with gender identity disorder in 1997. O’Donnabhain sued the IRS after it denied her deduction of $25,000 in out-of-pocket medical costs associated with the surgeries and other care such as hormone treatments and counseling, according to Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which represented her in court.

Revenge of the Laffer Curve, Part II

It seems New York politicians are running into a problem with the Laffer Curve. According to an AP report, the state's 100 richest taxpayers have paid $1 billion less than expected following a big tax hike. The story notes that several rich people have left the state, and all three examples are about people who have redomiciled in Florida, which has no state income tax:

Early data from New York show the higher tax rates for the wealthy have yielded lower-than-expected state wealth. ...Paterson said last week that revenues from the income tax increases and other taxes enacted in April are running about 20 percent less than anticipated. The concern about millionaire flight has prompted some states, including New York, New Jersey and California, to increase the highest tax rates only temporarily. ..."People aren't wedded to a geographic place as they once were. It's a different world," said New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch. He said last year's surcharge on income taxes, set to last three years, won't likely meet expectations. So far this year, half of about $1 billion in expected revenue from New York's 100 richest taxpayers is missing. ...State officials say they don't know how much of the missing revenue is because any wealthy New Yorkers simply left. But at least two high-profile defectors have sounded off on the tax changes: Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the billionaire who ran for governor three times and who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. Golisano changed his official address to Florida, and Limbaugh, who also has a Florida home, announced earlier this year that he was relinquishing his home in Manhattan. Donald Trump told Fox News earlier this year that several of his millionaire friends were talking about leaving the state over the latest taxes. ...And it's not just the well-known leaving. Nancy Bell is moving her Science First manufacturer of scientific products from the Buffalo site her father founded in 1960 to Florida... "It was the higher tax brackets, the so-called millionaire's tax" that forced the move, she said. "We feel we have to look to the future ... I'm leaving wonderful, wonderful friends. It's not our first choice. It's our 100th." Maryland enacted higher tax rates for wealthier residents in 2008 to boost revenues but income from those taxes is down 6.7 percent so far this year.

For more background information on why higher taxes on the rich do not necessarily raise revenue, see this three-part Laffer Curve video series:

A Funny (or Tragic) Look at Taxes

Penn and Teller analyze our wonderful and delightful federal income tax.