The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law authorized $80 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service over the next 10 years. More than $45 billion is earmarked for enforcement — part of an effort to close the estimated $600 billion “tax gap,” the difference between what Americans owe and what they actually pay. In fact, research by the Wharton School of Business concludes that the Inflation Reduction Act “would have no meaningful effect on inflation in the near term but would reduce inflation by around 0.1 percentage points by the middle of the first decade.”
And then it is reported a couple days ago that U.S. IRS to hire nearly 20,000 staff over two years with $80 billion in new funds. We wonder if that will resolve the problem of inequality? While experts generally agree that the legislation will modestly help slow the growth of prices, its benefits to the consumer is unclear.
Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves by Anthony Infanti (The MIT Press) Hardcover – October 2, 2018 written by a Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, explore the topics of Why tax law is not just a pocketbook issue but a reflection of what and whom we, as a society, value. Most of us think of tax as a pocketbook issue: how much we owe, how much we’ll get back, how much we can deduct. In Our Selfish Tax Laws, Anthony Infanti takes a broader view, considering not just how taxes affect us individually but how the tax system reflects our culture and society. He finds that American tax laws validate and benefit those who already possess power and privilege while starkly reflecting the lines of difference and discrimination in American society based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, immigration status, and disability. Infanti argues that instead of focusing our tax reform discussions on which loopholes to close or which deductions to allow, we should consider how to make our tax system reflect American ideals of inclusivity rather than institutionalizing exclusion.
Infanti offers two comparative case studies, examining the treatment of housing tax expenditures and the unit of taxation in the United States, Canada, France, and Spain to show how tax law reflects its social and cultural context. Then, drawing on his own work and that of other critical tax scholars, Infanti explains how the discourse surrounding tax reform masks the many ways that the American tax system rewards and reifies privilege. To counter this, Infanti urges us to work together to create a society with a tax system that respects and values all Americans.
The recent CPI numbers indicated that The index for shelter was by far the largest contributor to the monthly all items increase. This more than offset a decline in the energy. Housing played a major role in the February CPI all-items index, with shelter accounting for 70 percent of the increase. There is a different argument that The Biggest Driver of Inflation Is a Price That No One Is Actually Paying. Which one is more reflective of reality?
The Book, Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age revealed the underbelly of a system tilted in favor of the few, with the many left out in the cold. David Wessel, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings and director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, unveil incredible tale of how Washington works-and why the rich keep getting richer-starts when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur develops an idea intended as a way to help poor people that will save rich people money on their taxes. He organizes and pays for an effective lobbying effort that pushes his idea into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning by congressional or Treasury tax experts-and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors, bumper-sticker simplicity and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill.
In another book, Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget Paperback – July 2, 2013, David Wessel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter, columnist, and bestselling author of In Fed We Trust, dissects the federal budget in this New York Times bestseller. In a sweeping narrative about the people and the politics behind the budget–a topic that is fiercely debated today in the halls of Congress and the media, and yet is often misunderstood by the American public–Wessel looks at the 2011 fiscal year (which ended September 30) to see where all the money was actually spent, and why the budget process has grown wildly out of control. Through the eyes of key people, including Jacob Lew, White House director of the Office of Management and Budget; Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office; Blackstone founder and former Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson; and more, Wessel gives readers an inside look at the making of our unsustainable budget.
Red Ink is a sobering look at the 2012 federal budget, including an analysis of the “unsustainable trajectory” of federal borrowing—which has expanded significantly in the seven years since this book was published. The U.S. government will spend $1.28 for every dollar it receives in 2020, and is set to run trillion-dollar yearly deficits as far as the eye can see. And now in 2023, Federal budget deficit hits $1.1 trillion over six months: CBO estimates. U.S. government posts $378 billion deficit in March.
At this rate, by 2049 federal debt will equal 174 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product—the value of all goods and services produced in this country in one year. And gone are the days we could console ourselves by saying the national debt is no problem “because we owe it to ourselves.” Today, around half our debt is owed to foreign nationals, over $2 trillion to China and Japan, societies that saved while we borrowed.
Public economics and public policy: The ideas and influence of Martin Feldstein, 1939-2019 spoke of the method Martin Feldstein deployed in institutional data collection and policy making bases. Maybe congressional government need to establish committees to work on these important issues.