STUMP » Articles » Taxing Tuesday: Lazy Days of Summer » 20 August 2019, 04:03

No commentary from me today. Just links.

(I’m going to Splashdown Beach with the family today. I hope I don’t frizzle in the sun.)

TAX STORIES

• Tax Foundation: Comments on the Initiation of a Section 301 Investigation of France’s Digital Services Tax
• The Center Square: Op-Ed: Property Tax Relief Task Force should start with consolidation
• Fred Klonsky: TAXING SYLVIA GONZALEZ OUT OF HER LOGAN SQUARE HOME DRIVES GENTRIFICATION.
• The Hill: White House denies exploring payroll tax cut to offset worsening economy
• NY Post: Team Trump eyes payroll tax cut to spur economy: report
• CNN: Amazon to pass along costs of France’s ‘digital services tax’
• IRS begins tax clampdown on unreported cryptocurrency profits
• Chicago Sun-Times: Lightfoot to ask legislature for power to tax high-end professional services and big-ticket home sales – oh, that should be fun.
• WSJ Letters: Congress Must Resolve the Internet Sales-Tax Fiasco
• NY Post: Your tax dollars at work: funding the radical left
• The Hill: Water bottle tax penalizes California’s rural poor
• Fox News: Trump says French wine may face ‘100 percent tariff’ in response to tax on US tech firms: report
• Trump argues NY tax return case should take place in DC
• Tax cuts to avoid recession would be another Trump contradiction
• Unlikely allies: Trump, tech giants team up, fight French tax
• Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

Okay, I will comment on that last one. A friend sent me that link, and I’ll just copy a bit over:

Making the case for (or against) a tax on sugar-sweetened beverage requires addressing a number of questions.
Why focus on sugar-sweetened beverages rather than on other sources of calories, or on candy and junk food?
How much does consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages lead to heath or other harms like tooth decay?
…..
To what extent do the costs of such a tax, and also the health benefits of such a tax, fall more heavily on those with lower income levels?
Putting all these factors together, does a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages seem like a wise policy?

This may seem like a lot of complications for answering a question about a small-scale policy. But for those who want a serious and actual answer , these kinds of questions can’t be avoided.

The author was responding to a paper that came up with its own answer, but also noted:

Furthermore, sugar-sweetened beverage taxes are not a panacea—they will not, by themselves, solve the obesity epidemic in America or elsewhere. But sin taxes have proven to be a feasible and effective policy instrument in other domains, and the evidence suggests that the benefits of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes likely exceed the costs.

I think it’s more annoying than anything, like the dumbass Connecticut plastic bag tax.

I’m obese and I don’t drink soda. Heck, I barely get stuff with added sugar at all, except for a little tin of caramels I buy from Trader Joe’s.

But I like my food. There is a reason many people are fat, and, frankly, I prefer living in a country where the poor have too much food rather than the opposite. I’m going through Dickens’s Bleak House currently, and only 10% in, at least one person has died related to him starving. Yes, officially, it was an opium overdose, but he was obviously taking opium in lieu of eating.

TAX TWEETS

WH officials: "Cutting payroll taxes is not something under consideration at this time."

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 19, 2019

White House official: "As Larry Kudlow said yesterday, more tax cuts for the American people are certainly on the table, but cutting payroll taxes is not something under consideration at this time."

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) August 19, 2019

Huh? When/where is this coming from? This is coming from nowhere to me.

i'm not necessarily against this, but: is it actually about reversing a weakening economy, or is it about “tax cuts are always good, we’ll take any excuse we can”?

also, given biggest risks to economy right now, why not aim your tax-cutting gun at…import taxes, aka tariffs? https://t.co/ddk268sF9M

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) August 19, 2019

The year is 2094. Miami is underwater. 3 trillionaires own more wealth than 99% of all Americans combined. America is rationing food because of the climate change driven famine. We're bombing 36 countries. "A tax cut will fix this" the GOP president proclaims. https://t.co/Hc6poAne19

— Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) August 19, 2019

Billionaires and huge corporations should not be allowed to use loopholes and tax havens to avoid paying their fair share. At a time of massive global inequality the very wealthy should be paying more in taxes, not less. pic.twitter.com/uRIQoiqn7c

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 18, 2019

You first. I have only the one house, after all.

Warren defining "structural change": Strong unions, wealth tax.

Crowd chanting: "Eat the rich! Eat the rich!" pic.twitter.com/cj91ZzPPd0

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 20, 2019

Crowd now chanting about the wealth tax: "Two cents!" pic.twitter.com/LuWpLKv38L

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 20, 2019

I am tired of wealthy people doing this shit. How many homes do you have, Warren? Go screw yourself.

So Planned Parenthood can no longer take advantage of our tax dollars, through the Title X program!

It's already the law, & a similar rule was upheld by the Supreme Court back in 1991.

Not a dime is taken away from healthcare; just from child-killing.

Yay!#prolife#abortion

— Fr. Frank Pavone (@frfrankpavone) August 19, 2019

The Commerce Commission petrol report in a nutshell: Ignore the blue (tax) and the brown (actual fuel costs) and introduce a whole lot more bureaucracy and red tape to hammer the red (the cost of transporting, storing, and retailing fuel). pic.twitter.com/k6veYcgAB7

— David Seymour (@dbseymour) August 19, 2019

(that’s New Zealand, above)

The five counties with the highest median property tax payments in the country all have bills exceeding $10,000 and are located near New York City: https://t.co/QSkRpHtISl janellecamm</a> <a href="https://t.co/IqbF8VG4Nl">pic.twitter.com/IqbF8VG4Nl</a></p>&mdash; Tax Foundation (taxfoundation) August 20, 2019

Yes, of course I live in one of those places.

What started as a simple and elegant tax incentive in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has brought us all together like never before— and opened up a pathway to partnerships between city leadership and the broader business community. #OpportunityZones pic.twitter.com/xmtCzTtmHM

— Ben Carson (@SecretaryCarson) August 20, 2019

Want a tax revolt? See the following for a good way to get a tax revolt. They couldn’t even get one passed in Germany.

pic.twitter.com/dOrjZntJNw

— XBradTC, HSD (@xbradtc) August 20, 2019