Category Archives: Taxes

Wolf Richter: Luxembourg Is Not The Next Cyprus, Not Yet, But….

Yves here. This article if anything underplays how much a one-trick pony Luxembourg is and what a fix it is in if Germany and/or the EU continues its campaign against tax avoidance and evasion. Luxembourg hope to come to an understanding with the Eurozone and slowly reach accommodations, which would still shrink its banks, but in a less brutal manner than Cyprus. But with such a large financial sector, any action is still going to cause a fair number of customers to flee. It’s hard to see how any gradual path can be found, which then raises the question of whether a series of bank failures in Luxembourg would have broader ramifications.

Joe Stiglitz Blasts Our Wealthy-Coddling Tax System for Increasing the Returns on Rent-Seeking

It’s a sign of how well relentless propagandizing works that Joe Stiglitz has to devote a lengthy op-ed in the New York Times to debunking the idea that our income tax system, whose salient characteristic is low tax burdens for the rich, is good for anyone other than the rich.

Obama Moves Forward with Cutting Social Security and Medicare as We Lecture Europe Otherwise

It must be really hard to be an Obama defender these days, at least if you are not on a big corporate payroll.

Michael Hudson Explains How Deficit Hysterics Target the Wrong Type of Debt

I was at the Atlantic Economy conference the week before last, and Michael Hudson got in one of the best quips: “Helicopter Ben has taken off and has been dropping money all over Wall Street. But he hasn’t dropped any on Main Street.” He has an informative talk with Paul Jay of Real News Network on why the fixation on public debt is wrongheaded, and we should worry about private debt instead.

Repeat After Me, Cyprus Is (Was) Not a Tax Haven

Cyprus is over as an international banking center, which the Financial Times reports was one of Berlin’s objectives for its rescue. However, the business press (and yours truly following them) has referred to Cyprus as a tax haven. That description is part of the PR campaign to justify punishing the island.

Why Obama Refuses to Kill the Sequester

The game of chicken both the Republicans and Democrats are playing with the sequester and the budget/deficit talks is striking. One of the truly bizarre elements is that neither side is signaling the faintest interest in dealmaking of any kind. As I indicated the week before last, the lack of any sense of urgency was obvious: Congress had a holiday last week, and there were no real negotiations or even an exchange of proposals, virtually guaranteeing the sequester would take place as scheduled.

NC Crowdsourcing! Whither the Deficit Cliffhanger?

I’m obviously removed from the action, but I’m surprised at the complacency in DC and in the markets over the fact that the sequester is a comin’ soon. Next week Congress is out of session, and the media messaging from both sides at this point lacks the sense of urgency (in particular, front page reports of intense pow-wows) that I’d expect if a deal were to be done by the sequester deadline of early March.

So I have these questions for the NC commentariat:

IRS Anticipates Cheapest ObamaCare Family Plan Will be $20,000 in 2016

Aiee! CNS News found this tidbit (hat tip furzy mouse), contained in IRS final regulations published on January 31. Now admittedly these are examples for the purposes of illustrating how to make various calculations under the new regulations, but the assumptions are pretty clear.

All Good Democrats Applaud Republicans Rearranging Battle Lines in Austerity Phony War

As we anticipated, the Republicans have climbed down on making the debt ceiling the key battle line in their plan to impose spending cuts. Good Democrats applauded that move as a sign that Obama had displayed toughness and prevailed.

It’s not quite that simple.

New York Times Article Tells Big Lies on Impact of Fiscal Cliff Deal on Rich v. Ordinary Americans

If the media was licensed, the New York Times story, “After Fiscal Cliff Deal, Tax Code May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979,” would be grounds for disbarment. I flagged the piece as a Big Lie in comments yesterday, and figured that since anyone who was either old enough to have been paying taxes in the 1980s or had minimal Google skills could ascertain its claims were nonsense, that it would be debunked elsewhere. Instead, it was apparently tweeted actively by soi-disant liberals on Saturday.