Back to the Gasoline Tax Future

Last Friday, as more fully reported in this Philadelphia Inquirer article, the idea of raising state gasoline taxes resurfaced in Harrisburg. Though legislators hesitate to raise taxes the way indulgent parents hesitate to discipline ill-behaved children, the unpleasant facts include a $472 million deficit in transportation funding, a long-term $3.5 billion, yes, that’s Billion, annual short-fall in highway and bridge maintenance budgets, at least $1.5 billion in Philadelphia-area highway improvement projects on hold, $2.3 billion in transit projects on the shelf, and the likelihood of bridge collapses throughout the state. During hearings held by the House Transportation Committee, an unusual conglomeration of diverse interest groups all spoke in favor of increasing the tax. Among those acknowledging the problems and hailing a gasoline tax increase as the solution were officials of Philadelphia and other cities, employers and associations representing employers, urban and regional planners, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, and the CEO Council for Growth. Though one might expect the Motor Truck Association to resist tax increases, it appears that this organization and its members have managed to put long-term forward-projected thinking ahead of short-term profit maximization. Good for them.

So what’s the snag? A little more than half a year ago, in Poll on Tax and Spending Illustrates Voter Inconsistency, I commented on the results of a poll in New Jersey that revealed the following tidbit: “When asked if the gasoline tax should be increased to pay for highway and mass transit improvements, 62% said no.” I noted that “[t]he poll reinforces my contention that the underlying problem is the continued demand for government spending on programs that benefit state residents coupled with a continued resistance to the idea of paying taxes in order to fund those programs.” At the hearing, State Representative Kathy Manderino picked up on that problem when she explained, “Every citizen wants everything fixed, but nobody wants to pay for it." Bingo. She added, "We are not going to have a vote [in the legislature] this year unless you get people off the 'I'm afraid to make a tax vote' dime they're on." Indeed. And why are legislators so afraid to vote for revenue to provide the benefits, such as safe road and non-failing bridges, that people want? Because the anti-tax crowd has seized center stage and preaches a gospel of “no taxes no matter the long-term cost.” Perhaps they would rather die than pay taxes, but the rest of us prefer not to be crossing a bridge in our vehicles when it goes down. They have bullied politicians by broadcasting misinformation and appealing to emotional reactions to taxes. But there is good news, at least in Pennsylvania. According to the executive director of Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions, a recent poll indicated that 64% of those questioned “would be willing to pay $50 more a year to improve transportation.”

The executive director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission shared some data. A 5-cent increase in the state gasoline tax – currently at 32.3 cents a gallon – would raise $300 million even though it would increase the average driver’s gasoline costs by two dollars a month. He summed up the problem nicely: "While it may never seem a popular idea to raise taxes or impose additional fees, particularly in the current economic climate, transportation services must be viewed as a utility that everyone uses, everyone benefits from, and everyone must pay for." Imagine what life would be like if the roads and bridges collapsed or reached the point where traffic ground to a halt. What happens to incoming shipments of food, fuel, medicine, and other supplies? What happens to businesses trying to ship goods to other places? Manderino suggested that the state close bridges in danger of collapse so that motorists would experience what life will be like when the money runs out. The cost of maintaining roads and bridges has increased during the period since the last increase in the tax, and yet somehow the state is expected to get by on revenue that is shrinking in real terms. The “no tax increase” campaign is ludicrous.

Yet the anti-tax movement resists all taxes, no matter the purpose or the circumstances. What I wrote a year ago with respect to discussion of an increase in the federal fuels tax, in Is a Gasoline Tax Increase in the Pipeline?, is no less relevant today as applied to a state gasoline tax increase:

I do not understand the anti-tax sentiment when a tax is paid for direct benefits. Among my questions for the anti-tax crowd are these: "What do you propose be done? Should the nation's highways and bridges be permitted to deteriorate so that there are more incidents like the bridge collapse in Minnesota? Would you prefer a tax on everyone but yourself or yourself and your friends? Is this really about your insistence that you can go straight from the left-turn lane because you are special? Does your position reflect some sort of philosophy that you should get what you want for nothing? Are you unable to recognize that highways and bridges aren't free and that someone must pay for their construction, maintenance, and repair?"

Some of the group that opposes increases in the gasoline and other fuels taxes claim that an increase would, to quote the editorial, "damage the economy badly." I disagree. If the gasoline tax is not raised, roads will fall apart. The goods that are shipped by truck will be delayed in reaching their destinations and might not be delivered at all. Would that be good for the economy? On the other hand, faced with higher overall gasoline costs, Americans may think seriously about getting rid of the fuel-gobbling vehicles and replacing them with alternative transportation. Yes, it would be economically painful in the short-run, but it would generate long-term benefits. Post-modern American culture, characterized by "I want it all and I want it now" and afflicted with the urge to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, has been poisoned by an inability on the part of most people to think in long-term increments. Highway deterioration is but one of the many catastrophes that loom for this nation if people don't restructure the way their short-term outlook masks long-term realities.

Technically, an increase in the gasoline tax is NOT an increase in what a person pays for gasoline. It's an increase in what drivers are charged for upkeep of the roads that they use. It would be much easier to make this point if the gasoline tax were separately invoiced, because those little stickers at the gasoline pump disclosing the portion of the per-gallon price that is remitted by the station operator as taxes doesn't seem to get through to people. This is yet another reason I prefer the mileage-based road fee in lieu of the gasoline tax, As I explained in Change, Tax, Mileage-Based Road Fees, and Secrecy, I am a fan of the mileage-based road fee, and although the NSTPRSC recommended one, it was disappointing that some unidentified someone in the Administration nixed the idea before the public could be educated about it.

In the long run, the answer must be mileage-based road fees. I have written extensively about this user fee, most recently in Change, Tax, Mileage-Based Road Fees, and Secrecy and in Mileage-Based Road Fees, Yet Again. Though it will take time to implement this system, it’s time to begin. Legislation increasing the state gasoline tax needs to include provisions authorizing the Department of Transportation to determine and publicize what needs to be done to shift to a system that correlates charges for using roads and bridges to the imposition on the motorists obtaining the benefit.

Tax-Cut Advocates – Like the Poor – Will Always Be With Us: Part Three

Pappas laments, in his latest post:

I shutter when I consider that Professor Maule is likely teaching his students that there are no valid alternative arguments to increasing taxes on the rich and expanding the role of the federal government.

It’s too bad Pappas is so far away, because if he were nearby, I’d invite him to sit in the basic federal income tax course for a semester – spared of any exam or grading – just to observe what transpires. I’m too busy trying to help students how to read the piles of verbiage that have been loaded into the Internal Revenue Code to advance some special interest to wander into tax policy. There’s a tax policy course but I don’t teach it because there are other courses that I’m needed to teach. Tax policy enters into the conversation in the basic tax course when students ask why, for example, section 86 is such a minefield of complexity. The answer has nothing to do with tax cuts or tax rates.

In fact, when I teach tax computation, I show the students enough so that they understand the meaning of progressive taxation, rate brackets, and marginal rates. I don’t require them to do the computations, because there are software programs, IRS tax tables, and commercial charts available to spare students the arithmetic agony. There’s no time to study the tax rates that existed in years past. In other words, the topic – as is the case with almost every topic I have addressed in this blog – doesn’t come up in this class. It’s a three-credit course. There simply isn’t time.

When it comes to grading students, I don’t ask them policy questions. Whatever opinions they have, they don’t affect their ability to do statutory analysis, to read a case, to answer a question that focuses on what current law requires a taxpayer to do. They need to understand that section 1, in its current form, is progressive and not a flat tax. Whether they think it ought to be one or the other doesn’t tell me whether they understand what it presently, in fact, is. Fear not, Peter, I’m not addressing, nor grading students with respect to, the issues we’ve debated.

If I were to teach a Tax Policy course, and chose to address the tax rate question, I’d give the students reading assignments from across the spectrum of ideas. I’d let them make their own decisions. I doubt that the minds of those who entered the class with pre-formed opinions would be changed; at best, one or two might re-consider their position. For those few who entered the class devoid of any position on the issue, and perhaps such people exist, it would be an interesting study to determine what impact the experience would have. Some probably would leave the course as agnostic as when they entered. The difficulty in measuring the impact of the course would be in separating what a student learned in the course from what the student acquired elsewhere. Few students, for example, are exposed to the fun of section 86 outside of the basic federal income tax course, but most students in a tax policy course have been exposed to all sorts of “tax-cut, tax-hike, no-tax, more-tax” discussion throughout mainstream media, twitter, facebook, and even blogs, to name just a few of the many places they get information.

On the other hand, not a single student who was paying attention would leave a tax policy course thinking that a “flat tax” would simplify the tax law. They would leave the course, as they leave the basic tax course, understanding that the tax law would be much less complicated if the special rates for capital gains were repealed. They’d be graded on their ability to construct arguments, their ability to provide citations demonstrating that they’ve read and analyzed materials they’ve discovered by doing research into an issue, their ability to organize their writing, but not on their conclusions unless those flew in the face of accepted fact.

The Maule-Pappas debate arose from my assertion that there is a need for more tax education in this country. For example, suppose that every American learned how to compute their taxes under existing law, how to compute their taxes under what the tax law will be in 2011 barring legislative intervention, and how to compute their taxes under what the tax law would be if top rates were slashed even more and capital gains rates brought down to zero. Then they could see for themselves, for example, that under the more-tax-cuts plans, very few of them would benefit from lower capital gains rates. Then most of them could see for themselves that under the more-tax-cuts plan their tax bill might go down a few dollars – or perhaps even go up because of the AMT (which I’m sure many of them don’t quite understand because it’s not taught in our school systems) – the tax bills of the wealthy and ultrawealthy would go down by huge amounts. Then most of them would see that under the 2011 tax law that awaits us barring legislative intervention, their tax bills might go up by a few dollars, if at all, while the tax liabilities of the wealthy and ultrawealthy would go up by much larger amounts. And then they would be able to see what the tax bills of various taxpayers would have been during the 2000s had the “fight a war on credit extended by other nations” approach had not been taken. Then they would see who benefitted from the tax policies of the 2000s. Who still has a job? Who has money stashed overseas? Who is better off than they were ten years ago? Who’s not?

In the history of the species, there have been ideas that have been advanced, tried, and discredited. Some of these ideas have been so thoroughly discredited that they’ve lost all of their advocates. I wonder if in the dying days of these ideas, the last handful of advocates translated attacks on the idea into an attack on themselves in order to divert attention from the worthlessness of the idea, to garner sympathy, or to make the attacker look bad so that the idea could be rehabilitated. After several decades of supply-side, trickle-down, spend-but-don’t-tax, and other voodoo tax and economic policies, it’s time to put those bad ideas into the dustbin of history. And if anyone defending those ideas wants to use the term “character assassination” – as Pappas put it in If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited or Dishonest – to describe my attacks on those ideas and my call for wider tax education so people can analyze them without relying on the oversimplified soundbites tossed about in the media, then so be it. If it makes Peter Pappas feel better that people think I’ve trashed his reputation, let him so complain. Those carefully reading my posts will understand the reality. My reality is that Pappas and I will accomplish nothing more by continuing this debate other than experience in coming up with fun post titles. Whether we accomplished anything with what we did do is something everyone else can decide for themselves.

Tax-Cut Advocates – Like the Poor – Will Always Be With Us: Part Two

So why does Pappas so desperately want to show the world that I have tagged him, and other tax-cut defenders, with terrible labels, when in fact all I’ve done is assail the wisdom of their tax-cut advocacy and question their inability to see what most Americans – though unfortunately not the outspoken ones getting media attention for their histrionics – have come to understand?

Pappas tries to answer this question by arguing as follows:

Only a fractious fool would suggest it is a good thing that a few people are rich while the majority are poor, yet that view is precisely the view Maule wants you to believe that I and those on my side of the debate hold. Why? Because it makes us look, at best, ridiculous and at worst, malicious. I have never said or implied that it is good for America that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. What I have said, however, is that confiscation through taxation is not the way to deal with the problem.

I’ll let America decide what a decade of the tax cuts Pappas defends has accomplished and what those who advocated and continue to defend those cuts are thinking. On the other hand, what most Americans are thinking probably is very depressing for the few remaining tax-cut defenders. Incidentally, I haven’t advocated confiscatory actions, nor have I advocated a return to the days of 90-percent marginal rates. For some reason, Pappas thinks that my support for returning the top rate from 36% to 39.6% – and my criticism of it not having been so fixed when the decision was made to spend trillions on war – is support for confiscatory taxation. My reading of supply-side literature suggests that the anti-tax crowd thinks any tax rate exceeding 1% on unearned income is confiscatory.

Pappas also claims:

I don’t want the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor. On the contrary, I’d like to see everyone get rich. The more the merrier. Having said that, I simply don’t believe that the solution is to confiscate the wealth of the members of one class of Americans and redistribute it among the members of another class of Americans.

So let the poor catch up, Peter, and that means that the wealthy need to stop getting richer, especially when everyone else is getting poorer. During the tax-cut years, the wealthy have opened their lead on the poor. History tells us that when the top rates are higher, the poor can close the gap. Linda Beale has delved into this issue in Maule and Pappas on Progressive Taxation and the Decreasing Burden on the Rich.

With the position into which he and his tax-cut defenders have backed themselves, Pappas has no choice than to rebut my attribution of the current economic mess on the spend-but-don’t-tax policies of the past decade by claiming that he believes “that the recession as caused by a variety of complex factors none of which acting alone would have been sufficient.” Every respectable economist and analyst traces most of those factors back to the federal deficit. And the rest of the factors reflect what happens when greed flashes its short-term success; it spirals across the economy, bringing us bubbles arising from gambling with debt and making bad loans, deregulation contributing to environmental disasters and electricity price manipulation, and fraud that rips apart the foundations of a healthy economy. Those interested in more education can study this detailed report. But the advocates of small government and lower taxes don’t seem to notice that the smaller the government, the bigger the reach of the greedy and the larger the misdeeds of the money-addicted. Pappas complains that government has grown, but has he noticed that the nation’s population has grown? Has he noticed that the nation’s problems have grown? Has he noticed that the number of greedy people breaking the law has grown? Has he noticed that the need of the average person for protection against the cartels has grown? And he wants government to shrink under these circumstances? All that would happen is that the oversized public sector monoliths would become a de facto government or governments, making even the tax cut defenders long for the “good old days when at least we had the chance to vote the rascals out.” Pappas calls for tax cuts, but unless he advocates an even larger federal deficit, he surely must advocate spending cuts. I’d like to see his list, a list sufficient to eliminate the deficit while permitting more tax cuts.

Pappas concludes this aspect of his tax cut defense by taking umbrage at my position with these words:

Think about it, Maule is so sure that those of us who favor lower taxes and smaller government are blinking idiots that he compares our beliefs to the belief of some that the world is flat.

Well, guess who introduced the flat-earth concept into the debate? Here’s what Pappas said in Anti-Taxers are Either Rich, Plan to be Rich or Think the World is Flat:

Come on, Professor. You might as well have said, “Pappas favors tax cuts on the wealthy because he either is wealthy, plans to be wealthy or thinks the world is flat. The third option is no option at all.

Pappas sticks the flat-earth concept onto his position, and then tries to hold me accountable for introducing the concept into the debate. Think about it, Pappas is so sure he can pull the wool over people’s eyes that he’s gone so far as to attribute to me something he said. And yet he worries about how I teach my students. I’ll address that in my next post.

Tax-Cut Advocates – Like the Poor – Will Always Be With Us: Part One

The tenacity with which Peter Pappas holds his views on tax policy and the amount of offense he takes at having those views scrutinized, criticized, and invalidated is admirable. Unfortunately, it’s doing nothing to change my mind and doing everything to keep me from changing his mind. At this point, the next best opportunity to determine the soundness of the contrary positions that he and I take with respect to tax policy issues will be at least several years from now, when we will be able to look back on the 2010s. I think it is safe to predict that we’ll be in just as much disagreement then as we are now. As for his taking offense and translating criticism of his tax policy fact gathering, analytical, and forensic processes into perceived insults to his intelligence, only time will tell if his perception will evolve, and if it does, it won’t be on account of anything I write.

This debate began when, in Is Public Truly Getting IRS-Congress Distinction?, I wrote:

Less than a week ago, in Tax Education is Not Just for Tax Professionals, I wondered, “isn’t it time to counteract the deliberate misinformation campaigns and the foolish repetition of nonsense by the ignorant by stepping up public education, not only in schools but in workplaces, civic associations, and community centers?” It’s no coincidence that tea party movement members are being duped into fighting taxes used to pay for public education. An educated public is the worst enemy that the wealthy elite can imagine.

This call for education as an antidote to anti-tax misinformation touched a nerve with Pappas, who posts at Tax Lawyer Blog. He expressed his outrage in If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited or Dishonest. My response, in If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?, not only failed to convince him of the need to toss aside the failed policies of the trickle-down theorists, but also fueled a response from him, in Taxes, Saints & Sinners, that consisted of an attempt to recharacterized my multi-faceted analyses into three points that he tried to undercut. My responsive three-part series, Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part One, Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Two, and Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Three, did nothing more than to encourage more of the same from Pappas, whose post, Anti-Taxers are Either Rich, Plan to be Rich or Think the World is Flat continued the same dual-pronged complaint that I not only unjustifiably dismiss as foolish the tax policy dreams of “small government” advocates but also cruelly denigrate the intelligence of Pappas and others of his ideological temperament. In turn, when I explained as clearly as I could, in More Proof the U.S.A. Needs More and Better Tax Education, why Pappas was wrong on the first count and misinterpreting my criticism of his position as an assault against his character, I accomplished nothing but to encourage Pappas to replay his hand, in The Professor Still Thinks Anti-Taxers are Ignorant or Malicious. I will try one last time to set the record straight, though I doubt it will have any effect.

Pappas claims that his argument is that I and my “pro-tax cohorts assume that those who believe they are wrong are either ignorant or selfish.” If Pappas would read carefully what I write, and refrain from injecting his own words into my compositions – as he has done repeatedly, for example, with the word “evil” – he will observe that I have ascribed multiple possibilities for explaining how people can cling to a tax policy rowboat that sank several years ago. Though selfishness and ignorance are two causes of this admirable but misplaced worshipping at the feet of the since-discredited supply-siders, they are not the only causes. Perhaps it’s a matter of flawed reasoning. Perhaps it’s deliberate misinterpretation of existing facts. Perhaps it’s a form of denial designed to preserve psychological well-being in the face of the crashing down of one’s entire tax policy, small government dreams. Perhaps it’s simply stubbornness. Frankly, I don’t care that Pappas or anyone else wants to think that lower taxes on the wealthy would make for a better life for everyone else. What I care about is the misinformation campaign that has distracted the downtrodden from focusing on the causes of their misery, because that sort of approach is no less objectionable than is the practice of claiming that someone has written something that he hasn’t written.

Pappas thinks that by writing “Pappas does nothing to flatter himself by parading out the discredited claim that letting the rich get richer while the rest of the country stagnates is good for everyone” somehow proves that I am calling him “dumb or selfish.” Once again, Pappas makes a leap from an attack on his tax policy views, and the observation that he doesn’t earn points by holding that view, to an assertion that his entire intellectual capacity has been questioned. For all we know, Pappas excels at organic chemistry. What I notice in these complaints is just one more version of the oft-heard “You criticized something I did or said, therefore you have rejected me in my entirety.”

Pappas takes this further by claiming, yet again, that I accuse he and his fellow “small government conservatives” of being indecent and ignoble. Unable to point to any such language in my posts, he claims that it is an “obvious implication.” He rests this on his claim that I am charging the “tax-cut defenders” as people who “know our position is wrong.” Hello? Didn’t Pappas just claim I tagged them as ignorant, namely, not knowing? That’s the whole point. Most of the people showing up at rallies to defend tax-cuts that benefit others and worsen their own situation are operating out of ignorance, namely, not knowing, and thus cannot be accused of being ignoble or indecent. Pappas so desperately wants to show the world how horribly he has been “tagged” by me. Why? I’ll dig into that in my next post.

Memorial Day, Taxes, and Remembering the Future

On Friday, as the Memorial Day weekend was about to begin, I heard a commercial on a local radio station that began with these words, “Memorial Day. Time to have fun and do projects.” It was an ad for a home improvement supplies store. Excuse me for being petulant, but Memorial Day isn’t a time to have fun and do projects. It’s a day intended for remembrance. It’s a day devoted to thinking of all that has been done and is being done for us by those who have served or are serving, in one way or another, for the defense of our nation and our liberties.

Memorial Day is not a time for fun. When I think about those who have given their lives, or one or more of their limbs, or their health, and who have sacrificed time, for recompense that is just infinitesimal fractions of what the power brokers haul in, I cannot but admire the gifts that Members of the Armed Forces have bestowed on this country during the past 234 years. We owe them, and we owe them a lot. I can’t imagine that they were simply having fun.

Memorial Day ought not be, and will not be, just one day. That will become readily apparent when this nation wakes up and understands the debt it owes to those who have served. Wars may end, but our obligation to care for our veterans does not end. It will not end. When we read or speak of the trillions of dollars that have been expended in the current war, we forget that the expenditures will persist for as long as there remain with us survivors of those dreadful experiences.

Memorial Day is not just a time to think about the past, but a time to think about the future, for the past impacts the future. When the time comes to pay the price for the irresponsible behavior of the “spend-but-don’t-tax” crowd, we will hear a variety of complaints about spending to which many might object but which is as imbedded in the budget as are interest payments on the overwhelming federal debt. We must understand that as the future rolls upon us, we are obligated to continue funding the care, rehabilitation, and well-being of those but for whom we would not have a future.

When Memorial Day’s wider meaning is understood, the lesson “you can pay now or you can pay a lot more later” comes home both in a defense sense as well as in a fiscal sense. Wherever one stands in the “tax-and-spend” versus “don’t-tax-don’t-spend” or “cut-tax-cut-spending” debate, it is nothing but short-sightedness to have thought or to continue thinking that “spend-but-don’t-tax” is a responsible way of being stewards of our nation. Let’s make certain that when today becomes the “later” in the painful process of “paying later” for the foolishness of “spend now, pay later,” that we don’t require our veterans to pay a second time. What they paid the first time is far more than what most Americans have ever imagined paying. Unlike taxes, what they’ve paid cannot be measured in dollars.

Remember these things, especially as the debate gets even more heated. Remember these things, when the temptation to forget becomes overpowering. Remember these things, when time tries to push memories into the distant past that once was today’s future.

To Amnesty or Not to Amnesty, That is the Question

Sorry about the bad grammar, but it happens. A grammatically correct expression of the thought would create too long of a post title.

The topic is getting attention because two amnesty programs are underway that affect the geographical region in which I live. Both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia are conducting tax amnesty programs. Under Act 48, signed into law on October 9 of last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue has set up the Pennsylvania Tax Amnesty Program, which runs from April 26 until June 18. The Department is waiving all penalties and half of the interest for any taxpayer who owes back taxes and who comes forward to pay up. Philadelphia has initiated the Philadelphia Tax Amnesty Program, its first in 24 years, which runs from May 3 until June 25. Like the Pennsylvania arrangement, the city is waiving all penalties and half the interest for any taxpayer who owes back taxes and steps up to pay.

Actually, there are two questions about tax amnesty. One is asked by a government agency, namely, should an amnesty program be established? The other is asked by taxpayers, namely, should I take advantage of the amnesty program? The considerations that are taken into account in making a decision are different.

From the government’s perspective, the principal economic advantage of an amnesty program is that it generates a short-term surge in revenues, and it’s obvious why amnesty programs are getting much attention at the present time. Another advantage is that amnesty programs, by enticing taxpayers to pay back taxes on their own initiative, save the government the costs it would otherwise incur in tracking down delinquent taxpayers, engaging in audits and reviews, and pursuing a collection process. The disadvantage is that the existence of an amnesty program and the possibility it will be repeated in the future encourages taxpayers who are thinking of letting their current tax obligations go unpaid to do so. The interest and penalties that are designed to discourage waiting to pay taxes until the government tracks down the taxpayer lose some, or all, of their impact if taxpayers perceive them as empty threats waiting to be tossed aside when the next amnesty program rolls around. There are all sorts of studies and articles written about the success of tax amnesties, evident from the numerous results searching for “’tax amnesty’ and success” but those reports focus on the short-term revenue surge. Other studies, such as Katherine Baer’s and Eric La Borgne’s Tax Amnesties: Theory, Trends, and Some Alternatives, suggest that in the long run amnesties work only if coupled with increased enforcement after the amnesty expires, and claim that amnesties do not bring chronic non-filers back into the system. Others question the impact on the morale of compliant taxpayers, who may see themselves as having made the economically unwise choice when compared to the delinquent taxpayer who ended up with penalty-free, lower-interest use of money for the period the tax debt was outstanding. Whatever the analyses may demonstrate, tax amnesties are all the rage among state and local governments. Even the federal government instituted a limited tax amnesty program with respect to off-shore transactions and accounts. Whether one likes them or not, tax amnesty programs are all around us.

From the taxpayer’s perspective, the principal economic advantage of an amnesty program is that it guarantees an elimination of penalties and a reduction of interest that will not be available if the government pursues the taxpayer through the usual procedural channels. The economic disadvantage is that the taxpayer who enters into the program is giving up the chance that the government would not have identified, located, or pursued the taxpayer. Does not the amnesty program send a message that the government cannot keep up with all of the delinquent taxpayers and that it is offering to cut a deal because it would raise less revenue, and pay more money doing so, in the absence of the amnesty? Does this not mean that the chances of getting “caught” are lower than the taxpayer may have originally contemplated? Consider that a government with a 100 percent delinquent tax collection success rate doesn’t need an amnesty program.

What this analysis omits is the moral component. Taxpayers ought to pay taxes that are legally owed. Yet penalties and interest don’t deter a growing number of taxpayers who, for a variety of reasons, some nefarious and some simply negligent, fail to pay or refuse to pay their tax obligations. The decision to enter or not enter an amnesty program isn’t unlike the decision to pay or not pay taxes that is faced when the taxes are due. Economic analysis might suggest that playing the audit lottery optimizes “profits.” But the cost of short-term profits often is long-term loss, a concept that seems to have been missed by many taxpayers, businesses, entrepreneurs, and commentators. That long-term loss includes not only direct economic loss, but the indirect economic loss that flows from inattention to moral obligation. If amoral economic analysis prompts every taxpayer to decide not to pay taxes, the long-run cost, not only in economic but in societal terms, is devastating.

So to the taxpayer my advice would be to “get in there and pay before it is too late.” That advice probably would cost me a lot of clients who simply don’t want to contribute anything to the cost of the society in which they live. My advice to governments, however, is more nuanced. I would tell them, “Sure, institute a tax amnesty program, keep it short in duration, but then come down hard on the delinquent taxpayers who did not pay up, perhaps dedicating 20 or 30 percent of what is collected from the amnesty to undertake a rigorous pursuit of the scofflaws.”

More Proof The U.S.A. Needs More and Better Tax Education

It started with my post, Is Public Truly Getting IRS-Congress Distinction?. My suggestion that if people understood the tax system and the fallacies advanced by the anti-tax folks and by those advocating even more tax cuts for the wealthy riled up Peter Pappas, who posts at Tax Lawyer Blog. He commented on my analysis, In If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited or Dishonest. In If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?, I elaborated on my position and analyzed the arguments Pappas raised, but that failed to persuade him, for in Taxes, Saints & Sinners, he tried to controvert what he identified as the three main points that I had advanced. I followed up with a three-part series, Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part One, Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Two, and Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Three. Not surprisingly, Pappas has reacted to my arguments with his latest post in this debate, Anti-Taxers are Either Rich, Plan to be Rich or Think the World is Flat.

Although the debate started with my contention that the nation suffers from the effects of inadequate education with respect to taxation and tax policy, it has evolved, as one can tell from the titles to some of the posts, into an examination of the motives of those who support tax cuts for the wealthy and even those who oppose taxes, period. I’ve been accused of labeling these people as “evil,” though I did not use that word, of being arrogant, because, I suppose, I’m so confident that misinformation about tax and tax policy has harmed the country, condescending, perhaps because I see lack of education as something needing redress, sophomoric, for reasons that escape me, and insulting, surely because I dare to challenge the goals of those who oppose remediation of a decade’s worth of bad tax policy. Accused of offering no facts to support my position, I have supplied cite after cite to study after study, none of which get any acknowledgment in the posts Pappas propounds.

Pappas agrees that I did suggest three possible reasons why he – or anyone else for that matter -- advances the cause of tax cuts for the wealthy. Here is what I had said:

I offered three possible reasons for the vigorousness with which Pappas opposes letting the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. First, perhaps he is among the wealthy. Second, perhaps he is certain to be or desires to be wealthy. Third, he thinks tax cuts for the wealthy have so benefitted the entire populace that more should be enacted.

Paraphrasing these three reasons, Pappas concludes:

Now, if I ascribed to either one of the first two reasons, that would make me selfish and self-interested. If, however, I ascribed to the third reason, I would be a blithering idiot because it’s obvious that we are doing worse today, in the midst of a recession, than we were ten years ago when we were not in a recession. That’s not much of a choice, now is it?

No, it is not much of a choice, and it proves my point. If the third reason is a non-starter, or as Pappas puts it, “no option at all,” because the nation’s economic experience has demonstrated the foolishness of cutting taxes on the wealthy at the turn of the century and the double foolishness of not undoing that mistake when government spending exploded with the onset of war, then what’s left to commend the cause of those who want to preserve the economic status quo as it relates to taxation of the wealthy?

Pappas provides this nugget of wisdom:

Maule is correct. Most of us are indeed worse off today than we were ten years ago. But that hardly means that we’re worse off because George W. Bush lowered the top tax rates. Correlation is not causation. There are thousands of subtle and not so subtle differences between the 1990’s and the 2000’s, any one or a combination of which might be responsible for our current predicament. Cherry-picking a single difference and assigning it all of the blame is both simplistic and silly. So simplistic and silly, in fact, that anyone can do it. Like thus:

The reason we are worse off now than we were in 2000 is that during the 90’s, when we had higher tax rates on the rich, corporations moved their operations overseas in record numbers. The flight of the job creators eventually caused the massive rates of unemployment we began seeing in 2007.

In his attempt to disprove the established connection between the government’s don’t-tax-but-spend policy of the 2000s and the nation’s current economic mess, Pappas conjures up an implausible example in the hopes that its disconnects can somehow create a broad brush that would sweep away any explanation that dares to lay blame on those don’t-tax-but-spend policy decisions and decision makers. The silliness of Pappas’ “straw man” argument is that tax rates were reduced during the Clinton administration – though not deeply enough to satisfy the wealthy and their advocates – making it fantastical to claim that tax increases in the early 1990s caused a mess in 2007 through 2010 despite intervening tax cuts pushed through by people on both sides of the partisan aisle, one side because it wants to destroy taxation and the other because it perceived political survival as requiring caving in to the other side on this point. While we’re playing this sort of game, try this analysis: the success at pushing through ill-advised tax cuts, and in preserving them in the face of overwhelming war-time expenditures, so emboldened this group that they parlayed their addiction to money, a/k/a greed, and the need for ever-increasing “money highs,” into riskier and riskier stunts like mortgage securitization schemes that also afflicted the same rapidly-vanishing middle class that was already reeling under the impact of the tax cuts for the wealthy. Pappas wants “certainty” but although quantum physics teaches us that in the long run there is no such thing in the material world, I suggest he take a look at this prescient analysis from October 2007, and note particularly the observation that most Americans were not doing what they needed to do to LEARN about the impending economic mess, which exploded in their faces not long after, in no small part due to lack of education.

Pappas claims that “none of the possible motives Mr. Maule attributes to me are flattering.” Aside from the fact I attribute them not only to Pappas but to his mentors, disciples, and tax policy comrades, Pappas does nothing to flatter himself by parading out the discredited claim that letting the rich get richer while the rest of the country stagnates is good for everyone. His disingenuous “who, us?” defense of the tax-cut crowd, wrapped in the cry that someone or something else, but surely not tax cuts for the wealthy, is the cause of current economic misery, is likewise not flattering at all. Perhaps it’s time for Pappas and the rest of the tax-cut defenders to admit that there isn’t anything that can be said about their position that flatters them or their policies.

Pappas complains that I, and others who share my views, “are constitutionally incapable of seeing any nobility or decency whatsoever in a person who believes something different than what they believe.” Where have I tagged Pappas as lacking nobility or lacking decency? This debate started with my claim that Americans need more tax education, not that they need lessons in nobility or decency. If Pappas wants to interpret my call for more tax education as “arrogant” or as an “ad hominem” attack, so be it. Perhaps that interpretation proves my point even more. Folks who believe the earth is flat, in the face of evidence from Magellan’s circumnavigation through satellite photographs, can object all they want to calls for geography education, and ought not and will not be treated as ignoble or indecent, but they ought not be permitted to be in charge of any government policy that involves, depends on, or deals with the shape of the globe. In other words, tax-cut advocates, you had your chance, it didn’t work, so please step aside and give others an opportunity even though it will be a tougher task because of the mess you left for us.

Philadelphia Soda Tax Proposal Shelved, But Will It Return?

Some tax issues don’t get widespread attention because they’re too technical or deal with obscure transactions, but the proposed Philadelphia soda tax has been the talk of the town. On Thursday, as reported in this Philadelphia Inquirer article, City Council passed a budget that omitted the mayor’s proposed tax on soda and other beverages containing sugar. According to the article, similar proposals failed to pass in Baltimore, Washington, and New York State, though I’ve been told by readers that similar taxes do exist here and there throughout the country. It’s a controversial tax, and one on which I shared my thoughts most recently in Yes for The Proposed User Fee, No for the Proposed Tax. My op-ed piece on the issue, Why Phila. Soda Tax Already Has Gone Flat, was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 24 of this year. It amuses me when supporters of the tax claim that the opposition comes from the “big soda lobby” because I do not own a soda company, I do not own stock in a soda company, I do not sell soda, and I do not drink soda. My opposition to the tax rests on a variety of principles, but there’s one that stands out.

Aside from the legal issues, aside from the difficulties of implementing the tax, aside from the cost to retailers of collecting the tax, aside from the cost to the city of enforcing the tax, aside from the ease with which the tax can be avoided, one huge question looms over the debate. Why single out beverages? Every justification that is given for taxing sugary beverages applies equally, if not more thoroughly, to other items. Donuts, for example, not only contain sugar, but contain fats. Hard candy is nothing more than condensed sugar. Cookies contain sugar, carbohydrates, transfats, lard, and all other sorts of things that do as much damage to a person’s health if ingested in unreasonable quantities. The supporters of the soda tax, though correct in pointing out that soda contributes to obesity, act and speak as though nothing else contributes to a person’s being overweight. There are far more than enough obese people who do not drink sugary drinks. A user fee, reflecting the cost to society of overindulgence in unhealthy foods, would be much more appealing if it applied to everything that was harmful to a person’s well-being. Spread over all unhealthy foods, a user fee could raise the same amount of revenue as would the mayor’s proposed soda tax without through a very low per-item assessment, unlike the significant increase in the prices of certain beverages that the soda tax would generate. Even a user fee on oversized portions might make sense, although that would punish people who save half of the gargantuan meal for the next day.

City Council’s decision to leave the soda tax out of the budget has not deterred supporters of the soda tax. The mayor explains that he is not “done fighting” and observers suggest that it will be re-proposed by the end of next month. In the meantime, even though Council passed a balanced budget, according to this Philadelphia Inquirer story, the mayor claims he will need to cut several fire companies, chop a day from library opening hours, and eliminate two classes at the police academy. Why? To increase the reserve fund. Reserve funds are important, and there’s much to be said about building them up during times of plenty, to insure against times of need, but is this a good time to be collecting more in revenue than is being spent? Yet, in another explanation, the mayor claims that the cuts are needed because of cash flow problems, that is, the timing of the inflow and outflow of tax receipts and expenditures. As it is, the budget passed by Council will allow for reserves, so Council and the Mayor are at odds over the size of the reserve. Are the mayor’s threats simply bargaining chips, considering how his planned cuts affect three city services that affect everyone, namely, police, fire, and libraries? No one in city government seems to mention how much can be saved by ditching those patronage jobs at the BRT, or elsewhere. Why?

R.I.P., BRT

On Tuesday, the voters of Philadelphia decided to relegate the Bureau of Revision of Taxes to the trash heap. According to this Philadelphia Inquirer article, more than 70 percent of those who voted opted to send the BRT into the pages of history. The vote was not surprising. The Mayor, most members of City Council, political watchdog groups, commentators, and just about everyone except those who benefitted from the BRT’s inefficiencies and the patronage jobs it provided were in favor of saying good-bye to an antiquated tax administration structure.

During the past several years, a continuous parade of revelations about BRT operations showed up in Philadelphia papers, often on the front page. I commented on some of these issues in a long series of MauledAgain posts, starting in An Unconstitutional Tax Assessment System, and continuing in Property Tax Assessments: Really That Difficult?, Real Property Tax Assessment System: Broken and Begging for Repair, Philadelphia Real Property Taxes: Pay Up or Lose It, How to Fix a Broken Tax System: Speed It Up? , Revising the Board of Revision of Taxes, and How Can Asking Questions Improve Tax and Spending Policies?, This Just Taxes My Brain, Tax Bureaucrats Lose Work, Keep Pay, Testing Tax Bureaucrats Just Part of the Solution, A Citizen Vote on Taxes, Freezing Real Property Tax Reassessments: A Nice Idea, The Tax Price of a Flawed Tax System, Can Bad Tax Administration Doom the Tax?, and Taxes and Priorities.

One might expect that the focus would now turn to implementation of the terms of the resolution that the voters approved. Within months, the mayor, exercising authority provided by the city charter, is expected to set up the Office of Property Assessment and the Board of Property Assessment Appeals that will take over the functions that had been assigned to the BRT. By separating the task of assessing property from the task of listening to and deciding appeals with respect to those assessments, the changes provide a better system of checks and balances than existed within the BRT.

But things may not move along on the expected timetable. According to this KYW Radio report, at least one member of the BRT has suggested he will challenge the vote. He questions the authority of the City Council to put the referendum on the ballot. The State Supreme Court, as reported in this article, and as I noted in Taxes and Priorities, previously dismissed a procedural challenge to the vote, but left the door open for a challenge based on the merits of the argument that City Council lacked the requisite authority.

Even if the BRT is successful, all it accomplishes is a postponement of its date of death. If the referendum is overturned, the issue will be raised in the state legislature, which is unlikely to ignore the overwhelming voter support for terminating the BRT and which will be under pressure from the mayor, City Council, and other civic and political leaders in Philadelphia to put an end to the BRT. The BRT can prolong the process, but it cannot turn back the tide of change. Its delaying tactics, however, would cause Philadelphia taxpayers to endure one or two or three more years of inefficient property tax administration, while the city waits for the new system to be implemented.

This is one of those situations in which prudence should trump legal niceties. It’s a point not easily learned by some folks, including some lawyers. When I taught the course in wills and trusts, I used an example dealing with advancements to ask students what they would advise a client in a position to end up with more of her mother’s estate by staying out of the probate process. Some students, but far from all, understood that the client would end up with more money by declining to participate in probate, but would end up with an unhappy group of other heirs. What’s to be gained, in the long run, by suing to prevent the death of the BRT when it’s going to terminate one way or the other? It’s not too difficult to guess why the members of the BRT don’t want the BRT to die. It’s very easy to understand why the voters of Philadelphia have provided a resounding death sentence to the BRT.

In the long run, I’ll miss the BRT only because its death will mean that the stream of BRT stories on which I comment will come to an end. Somehow, I have a feeling that this post is not the last BRT post. We’ll see. But, fear not, I’m also confident that there will be more posts concerning the Philadelphia property tax and the new system that inevitably will be put in place.

Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Three

Today, in conclusion, I will deal with what Peter Pappas describes as my third point, namely, the assertion that Pappas opposes higher taxes because he is either already rich or plans to be rich some time soon. Actually, what I wrote was the following: “Either Pappas is already among the wealthy, or he is so sure or desirous of joining their ranks that he subscribes to their outlook. Surely he cannot think that the nation is economically better off now than it was before the wealthy engineered their tax cuts a decade ago. Or perhaps he does so think?” In other words, I offered three possible reasons for the vigorousness with which Pappas opposes letting the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. First, perhaps he is among the wealthy. Second, perhaps he is certain to be or desires to be wealthy. Third, he thinks tax cuts for the wealthy have so benefitted the entire populace that more should be enacted. My rhetorical style somehow encouraged Pappas to add “some time soon” to what I purportedly claimed, even though those words don’t appear. Quick to criticize my debating style, Pappas more than once has added or changed what I have said so that he can set up something that is easier for him to attack than are the positions I actually have put forth.

Thus, Pappas claims that even though he “listed six perfectly reasonable, non-selfish justifications for opposing high taxes and the continued expansion of government,” I insisted “on assigning to [him] a selfish motive.” Pappas claims that I am “making the assumption that [he is] either rich or plan[s] to be rich some time in the near future.” The style in which I wrote my conjecture, specifically “Or perhaps he does so think?” suggested that Pappas was in fact relying on six justifications offered up as “perfectly reasonable” but dismantled for the reasons I and many others have repeatedly shared. There is no way of telling if Pappas is rich or not, if he wants to be rich or not, or if he expects to be rich or not, but it is clear that he subscribes to the notion that taxes for the wealthy ought not be raised, and that taxes, even though lower than they have been in the past, are high. Why he does so in the face an overwhelmingly dismal tax-cut track record astounds me. I can admire his tenacity but mourn his misplaced tax policy perspective.

Perhaps the deep attachment Pappas has for the cause of the wealthy will loosen after he takes a look at several recent revelations. In Tax Cuts and ‘Starving the Beast’, Bruce Bartlett explains how the “reduce taxes so that government can be reduced” tactic backfired and contributed to the economic mess in which the nation finds itself. It turns out that when the opportunity to increase taxes on the wealthy arose, federal expenditures as a percentage of GDP fell. But that effort was short-circuited when the “cut taxes for the wealthy and spend trillions in Iraq” fiscal insanity was foisted on the nation under the dubious promise of economic prosperity for all. In the meantime, a Quinnipiac University study revealed that a proposal to increase taxes on households with more than $250,000 of income is supported by 60 percent of Americans. The clincher, though, is Shifting Responsibility: How 50 Years of Tax Cuts Benefited the Wealthiest Americans, a position paper signed by small business owners and even several wealthy individuals, who understand the serious damage done by those tax cuts for the wealthy, in which they seek a plan of “Undoing the Damage” caused by “The Great Tax Shift” that came from “Asking Less from Those with More.” I suppose that by supporting continued tax cuts for the wealthy, Pappas supports continuing these trends set forth in Shifting Responsibility: How 50 Years of Tax Cuts Benefited the Wealthiest Americans: (1) The share of total federal taxes paid by the top 0.1 percent fell from 60 percent to 33.6 percent over a 44-year period, costing the Treasury $281.2 billion in 2007 alone; (2) The share of total federal taxes paid by the top 400 income-earners fell from 51.2 percent to 16.6 percent over a 52-year period, costing the Treasury $47.7 billion in 2007 alone; (3) The 2001 tax cuts cost the Treasury $700 billion between 2001 and 2008, and if retained as Pappas desires, will add another $826 billion to the federal deficit; and (4) In the meantime, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers pay 16.1 percent of their income in total federal taxes, whereas 50 years ago, it was 15.9 percent. Pappas wants studies, surveys, and facts. There are more then enough in this document alone.

If, despite seeing these facts, Pappas wants to continue advocating tax cuts for the wealthy, making the nation more and more a debtor nation, he ought not be surprised when things take a turn in the direction they have in Greece. Unlike Greece, there are no nations to which the United States can turn for a bailout. Given these facts, how can anyone continue to ask for more of the same? It makes no sense to stay the course when a tornado is heading straight at us. Tenacity is not a virtue when a tornado is headed directly at someone. Good judgment impels the sensible thing, and that is to reverse course, quickly.

Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part Two

Today I will deal with what Peter Pappas describes as my second point, namely the assertion that statistics showing that the rich pay a greatly disproportionate share of taxes are flawed. In If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited, or Dishonest, Pappas relied on statistics showing the percentage of taxes classified according to adjusted gross income. Those statistics, for example, show that 22 percent of income is earned by those in the top one percent of adjusted gross income, but that those individuals pay 40 percent of income taxes. In If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?, I pointed out that adjusted gross income is a misleading measure, because it omits various sorts of income far more likely to be found among the wealthy than the rest of the nation’s taxpayers. If, instead of using adjusted gross income, the statistics reflected all increases in wealth – net of the cost of generating the income – the statistics would change. What sorts of transactions are missing? The adjusted gross income measure omits tax-exempt income, depreciation on properties not going down in value, earnings on money stashed overseas, gifts and inheritances, deferred compensation, and a long list of exclusions and deductions either far more likely to be found among the transactions of the wealth or, when also showing up in the activities of the not-wealthy, far more likely to be of a much higher dollar amount among the wealthy.

Why would the use of a less flawed statistical base matter? Consider an example. Assume that the nation has 1,000 taxpayers. Ten of those taxpayers (the top 1 percent) each have adjusted gross income of $10,000,000 and pay income taxes of $3,000,000. Each of the other 980 have adjusted gross income of $50,000 and pay income taxes of $3,000. The total adjusted gross income of the 1,000 taxpayers is $149,000,000. Of that amount, the top 1 percent account for 67.1 percent. The total taxes paid by the 1,000 taxpayers is $32,940,000. Of that amount, the top 1 percent account for 91.1 percent. What happens if the same analysis is done using a measure of income that more closely approximates increase in wealth. Among the wealthy, there are far more dollars excluded and deducted that consist of tax breaks than there are among the not-wealthy. Assume (and I’ll come back to that) the ten taxpayers each have a more accurately measured income of $15,000,000, and still pay income taxes of $3,000,000. Assume the other 980 each have a more accurately measured income of $65,000 and still pay income taxes of $3,000. The total more accurately measured income of the 1,000 taxpayers is $213,700,000. Of that amount, the top 1 percent account for 70.2 percent. The total taxes paid by the 1,000 taxpayers remains $32,940,000. Of that amount, the top 1 percent account for 91.1 percent. The point is that the closer the income measurement is to an accurate measure, the less of a “discrepancy” between the wealthy’s share of income and the wealthy’s share of taxes.

The key, of course, is the assumption. No one really knows how much income is earned by the wealthy on monies stashed in secret overseas bank accounts or in offshore trusts. What’s certain is that there is quite a bit, and people earning lower amounts of income aren’t the ones with the “excess cash” available for deposit in Switzerland or the Cook Islands. Better guesses can be made with respect to some of the other items, but for one reason or another, the IRS does not generate all of the information that is required to generate precise numbers. The limited attempt to determine “expanded income” by the IRS does not provide the hidden information. The point is that the adjusted gross income numbers on which Pappas relies are, to this extent, arbitrary and tainted with the residue of the many tax breaks available, legally and illegally, to the wealthy. It has been demonstrated, for example, that two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, as explained in this report and analysis.

Yet Pappas accused me of “[i]gnoring or dismissing facts [I] don’t like” and that doing so “is not evidence.” It is widely agreed among tax professionals that adjusted gross income is a flawed measure of actual income. According to this explanation of adjusted gross income, “In terms of the income tax system, AGI is the broadest measure of income but, compared with taxable income (the income measure to which tax rates are actually applied), it does not reflect personal differences that affect individuals’ ability to pay taxes.” An example of this flaw shows up in the fact that in 2006 there were 8,252 individuals with adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more who paid no federal income tax, and another in the news that nearly 1,000 individuals with income exceeding $1,000,000 paid no income tax in 2007. Pappas claims that I fail to offer “a shred of evidence” and fail to point “to a single contrary study” showing that his statistics “are wrong.” They’re not “wrong.” As I pointed out in If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?, they’re misleading and flawed. The evidence for this conclusion is overwhelming, I’ve pointed to enough of it to make the point, and anyone who has been through a good basic federal income tax or economics course understands this point. Even the IRS tries, though with limited success, to mitigate the flawed nature of adjusted gross income as a measuring stick by working with what it calls expanded income. It’s no wonder that Pappas and the wealthy have far more affection for statistics based on adjusted gross income than they do for statistics based on actual income.

Next, in an effort to prevail with quantity rather than quality, Pappas cites six things he generously calls “studies.” One is the IRS information based on adjusted gross income, another simply copies that information, a third is the U.S. Treasury version, a fourth is a very brief note that cites the Treasury item, the fifth is a CNN news report that refers to the fourth item, and the sixth is a CBO report that is the only one that relies on something other than adjusted gross income, but it makes no attempt to deal with the hidden income from overseas hidden bank accounts and offshore trusts or the deductions and exclusions which are not backed out in its attempt to generate “comprehensive household income.”

Pappas concludes by asserting that there is no room to “question whether or not the rich actually” “pay a disproportionate share of taxes.” Recall that this particular point of contention arose from the attempt by Pappas, in If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited, or Dishonest, to demonstrate that the claim, “The rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes” is a “doozy,” one of “many distortions that regularly ooze from the mouths of big government activists demanding higher taxes on the rich.” When I rebutted that attempt, I did not try to prove that the wealthy do not pay disproportionately higher taxes. Instead, I stressed that “Pappas does nothing to define ‘fair share,’ even though there is much support for the proposition that regressive taxes are not fair.” Pappas still hasn’t offered his definition of “fair share.” Perhaps Pappas thinks it is “fair” that, as reported in Shifting Responsibility: How 50 Years of Tax Cuts Benefited the Wealthiest Americans, the top 400 income-earners paid 51.2 percent of their income in taxes in 1955 but only 16.6 percent in 2007, whereas the median income-earner saw the percentage of income paid in taxes grow from 7.4 percent in 1955 to 13.6 percent in 2007. I suspect his emphasis on the word “disproportionate” provides a clue that he’s in favor of the wealthy and the low-income folks all paying at the same rate, or perhaps for the aforementioned trend to continue until the top 400 are paying 0.1 percent of their income in taxes while the median income-earner pays 70 percent of income in taxes. The wisdom of cutting taxes for the wealthy is about as devoid of fairness as is the thinking behind the notion that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

In the next post, I turn to the question of why Pappas so zealously opposes the expiration of those unwise tax cuts for the wealthy.

Canonizing the Rich with Tax Cuts: Part One

It started with my post, Is Public Truly Getting IRS-Congress Distinction?, in which I asked, “Isn’t it time to counteract the deliberate misinformation campaigns and the foolish repetition of nonsense by the ignorant by stepping up public education, not only in schools but in workplaces, civic associations, and community centers?” That jab at the attempts to persuade Americans that tax cuts for the wealthy are the gateway to paradise riled up Peter Pappas, who, in If You Oppose Tax Increases You’re Stupid, Exploited, or Dishonest, criticized my treatment of Sarah Palin’s “47 percent of households pay no federal income tax” comment, suggested – correctly – that I think “all small-government, anti-tax conservatives are motivated by self-interest,” claimed that the my attitude and those of others who share my fiscal policy views “is both arrogant and condescending . . . sophomoric and insulting,” and set forth five of “many distortions that regularly ooze from the mouths of big government activists demanding higher taxes on the rich,” which he then attempted to disprove by dragging out worn-out, disproven arguments. I replied, in If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?, which I am not going to summarize at this point. As might be expected, Pappas has rejoined with Taxes, Saints & Sinners, in which he tries to demolish what he has identified as the three main points in If You Like What Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Brought Us, Are You Uneducated? Exploited? What?

Today I will deal with what he describes as my first point, namely, the assertion that anti-tax conservatives are selfish people. In follow-up posts, I will address his analysis of what he claims is my second point, namely, that statistics showing that the rich pay a greatly disproportionate share of taxes are flawed, and his analysis of what he claims is my third point, that Pappas opposes higher taxes because he is either already rich or plans to be rich some time soon.

Recall that Pappas asked if I think “all small-government, anti-tax conservatives are motivated by self interest?” I replied, “Yes, I do. Many are motivated by financial self-interest, as more than a few have admitted to me to my face or in emails. One person said, ‘I am selfish.’ At least he’s honest. Others are motivated by the self-interest of being let alone by government, and that’s clear from their complaint that government is too big and intrusive. They want to do what they want however they want to do it, with no restrictions on their ‘freedom’ and ‘liberties.’” I pointed out that “[s]ome of their advocates, of course, claim that they take this anti-tax position because lower taxes mean more jobs, but the experience of the last decade taught us that lowering taxes, in the long run, caused jobs to vaporize, helped the rich get richer, and left everyone else with incomes and assets that declined in real terms.”

Pappas suggests that my conclusion that “many” anti-tax advocates are “motivated by financial self-interest” should be rejected because I base my conclusion on “conversations with some of them.” What I said was, “Many are motivated by financial self-interest, as more than a few have admitted to me to my face or in emails.” My reference to communications with people was an example of one source of information shedding light on the thought process of anti-tax advocates. That reference does not imply that I made no use of the torrent of other anti-tax advocacy readily available in the media nor that my conclusion was based only on conversations. The anti-tax individuals who rest their opposition on the argument that government ought not be big, ought not be fed money, and ought not have the means to intrude on individual liberties and freedoms are advancing a position that has been around so long that it has become part of the political landscape. One does not need a survey to learn what these folks are thinking. What sort of survey would be required to figure out that those who oppose taxes in order to choke off government restriction of “freedom” and “liberties” are manifesting their self-interest in those asserted freedoms and liberties? As for the “lower taxes are good for everybody” argument, isn’t it time that to admit that every attempt to help everybody with lower taxes has only helped those whose taxes were lowered?

Pappas explains that he questions the “anti-tax equals selfish” thesis because it “effectually conceded” his point that “pro-tax, big government liberals sincerely and passionately believe they are morally and intellectually superior to those who oppose tax increases.” It has nothing to do with superiority. It has everything to do with what works and what doesn’t work. If repeated tax cuts for the wealthy worked, the nation’s economy would be robust. It isn’t. Pappas is particularly dismayed, because, he claims, “Maule’s opinion of conservatives and conservatism is a tragic one for any American to have, but it’s particularly disturbing in this case because it’s held by a member of the Academy who has, supposedly, committed himself to the idea of intellectual open-mindedness.” Open-mindedness, though, does not mean accepting as truth the absurd claims that have been made for several decades that the path to national economic success are more and more tax cuts for the wealthy. Open-mindedness means willingness to look at the facts, even when they compel conclusions that tear apart the premise underlying the argument that tax cuts for the wealthy, even in the face of huge increases in military expenditures, and the resulting huge budget deficits, are good for the nation. And it is to that issue that Pappas invests most of his attempt to deal with the “anti-tax equals selfish” thesis. He labels as misinformation the conclusion that tax cuts for the wealthy have ruined the economy, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. He quotes Thomas Sowell, who falls back on the notion that because today’s poor supposedly are better off than yesteryear’s poor, we ought not call today’s poor “poor.” Sowell claims “there is very little real poverty in the United States today, except among people who come from poverty-stricken countries and bring their poverty with them.” Good grief. Apparently none or few of the people who have lost their homes and health insurance on account of the huge jump in unemployment aren’t living in poverty, barely getting by, postponing medical check-ups, visiting food kitchens, buying clothes at thrift shops, and even living on the street. The notion that “there is very little real poverty in the United States today” flies in the face of information in reports such as The Changing Face of Poverty in America, statistics showing the scope of hunger in America, and the rapidly growing suburbanization of poverty.

One need only to work through the numbers, as is done, for example, in this analysis of income information, to learn that from 2004 to 2005, those imprudent tax cuts had the effect of increasing the income of those in the top one percent by 14 percent, while DECREASING the income of those in the bottom 90 percent by 0.6 percent. Between 1980 and 2005, the top 300,000 Americans went from receiving about 200 times as much income per person as did those in the bottom 150 million to receiving 440 times as much income. This is what tax cuts do for the nation. Even from an international perspective, the growing inequality in this nation tops that in almost every other nation, as explained in Gap Between Rich And Poor Growing. Things haven’t changed during the intervening five years. Take a close look at Recession Widens Gap Between Rich and Poor Even Further, and at Not Everyone is Hurting – The Rich Get Richer as the Income Inequality Gap Explodes. So much for Thomas Sowell’s proclamation that poverty has pretty much disappeared.

Now, of course, Pappas contends that tax cuts have nothing to do with this. I intend to turn to that argument in the next post.

More on Private Toll Roads

After reading my Friday post, Are Private Tolls More Efficient Than Public Tolls?, Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst for Tax and Budget Policy of the U.S. PIRG, Federation of State PIRGs, sent me a copy of a report, “The Facts About Toll Road Privatization and How to Protect the Public.” It is definitely worth reading, as it provides a much more thorough analysis of the issues than can be enveloped in a blog post. The report can be found on-line at this link. For an analysis of the issues as they apply to other public assets, see Privatization and the Public Interest: The Need for Transparency and Accountability in Chicago’s Public Asset Lease Deals.

Another reader offered an explanation for why the private sector considers itself more efficient at building and operating toll roads than is a state or local government. According to this reader, who is familiar with these sorts of transactions, the principal advantage is that the private sector claims to be more disciplined than is the government when the “design build” phase of infrastructure construction is commenced. Governments are less efficient because of “political pressure and a lack of sophistication and ‘ownership’” in the project. The “private equity risk” faced by a private sector concessionaire encourages a “heightened level of discipline.” This reader agrees, though, that using a private concessionaire after the construction phase doesn’t provide an advantage, and wonders if “lack of discipline during the design-build phase” could be handled by having “governments . . . pay management fees to project managers who oversee the life cycle of the project and impose that discipline on the project,” though he explains that the “problem this approach is politics: politicians and interest groups will get involved and pressure the project manager to make decisions that don't contain costs over the long term.” This reader also points out that it is cheaper for governments to finance infrastructure through tax-exempt bonds, which “represent lower-cost financing to governments than private financing.”

My reaction to these insights were summed up in my response, slightly edited:

So it comes down to whether the savings to taxpayers by shifting the design build phase to the private sector are enough to allow for the profit that is required for the private sector to be willing to do this plus the extra cost of borrowing that the private sector encounters, and whether, if so, it makes sense to put the project in the hands of the private sector which is impervious to ballot box pressure. With the outcomes in Orange County, San Diego, and South Carolina (the last of these coming to my attention in a follow-up article (Two roadblocks to new tolls on PA highways) by Joe DiStefano, who wrote the article (Private Toll Roads Are on Their Way Back) that triggered my Are Private Tolls More Efficient Than Public Tolls?post), I am very dubious about the claims made by the private sector. However the theory turns out, the practical application is bringing low grades to the private sector experiment.

And I wrote this response before reading the the report that Phineas Baxandall sent me.

So does the choice come down to choosing between toll highways built by governments that are inefficient in the design-build phase or toll highways built by private sector firms whose track record is far from ideal? Or is the answer some sort of arrangement by which the design-build phase is bid out to private sector management for a fixed fee, with some sort of safeguards installed to cut out the pressure for decisions that benefit politicians and interest groups at the expense of cost overruns for the project? The theoretically ideal answer is for voters to make government more efficient by holding them accountable through the ballot box, an avenue of recourse not available with respect to private sector construction and operation of toll roads, but unfortunately, in practice, voters tend to re-elect the very people about whom they gripe so much.

User Fees As Alternative to Cutting Spending

A little more than a week ago, in Taxes and Priorities, I noted that “[t]The tension between demands for reduced taxes or reduced tax increases and demands for government services is escalating.” One of the recent developments that I included in my list of examples was the news that in order to devote more of its dwindling resources to crime fighting, the Philadelphia Police Department would no longer send police officers to handle minor vehicle accidents. If the motorists agree to exchange information, no one is injured, and the cars can be driven, the police will not show up. Motorists will need to go to the nearest police station or call in the accident by phone. According to the Police Department, there are roughly 68,000 minor accidents in Philadelphia each year.

Not surprisingly, the negative reaction has commenced. In a perceptive editorial, Free Pass for City's Aggressive Drivers? Ignoring Fender-benders Will Encourage Worse, Brian Hickey points out the risks that the new policy poses for motorists driving in Philadelphia. He explained that he was in a minor-fender bender recently, and that the other motorist did not remain at the scene. He argues that with common courtesy so lacking on Philadelphia streets, it’s asking too much to expect motorists to handle these 68,000 accidents without additional difficulties. He also argues that the new policy “could convince bad motorists that there’s no price to pay for driving amok.” Hickey thinks the new policy will create more arguments for lawyers defending motorists who flee the scene of serious accidents. What happens, he asks, if one of the motorists in a minor fender-bender is drunk, uninsured, or fleeing the scene of another crime? He’s puzzled why a Police Department objecting to the district attorney’s new policy of diverting focus away from prosecution of minor marijuana possession offenses has decided to “give aggressive drivers cover to escalate their behavior to hit-and-runs.” He shares the concerns of one attorney who worries about “injuries that don't become evident until later, increased civil litigation, false accident reports, reluctant witnesses, claims that insurers won't process without valid police reports, untrained civilians handling traffic control, and uncredentialed drivers and cars going unpunished.” The same attorney wonders if the new policy will open the door to reduced or eliminated response to vandalism and theft.

Reduction in essential services is, as I pointed out in Taxes and Priorities, an almost unavoidable consequence of cutting taxes. “You can cut taxes if you cut spending” is a rallying cry of those who want to reduce the size of government. But there is an alternative. Why not reduce the need for the services? Quick arithmetic suggests that there are almost 200 minor accidents every day in Philadelphia. How many truly are accidents, and how many are caused by irresponsibility? How many of the accidents result from texting while driving, reading newspapers while driving, paying more attention to a child or dog than to driving, putting on makeup while driving, trying to drink coffee while driving? Will the “cut spending so you can cut taxes” crowd devote time and energy to cutting down on accidents so that there is less demand for city services to deal with them? How many of the accidents that are so easily prevented are caused by members of the “cut spending so you can cut taxes” crowd who are among the first to dial 911? I don’t know. But it’s clear that a significant number of these accidents are preventable, and it’s unlikely that the advocates of spending and tax cuts are not among those creating a demand for police services at the scenes of minor accidents.

Here’s a better way to manage the problem. Send a police officer. Let the police officer, subject to department and judicial review, determine if any of the involved motorists was violating the law or violating common sense. Subject those motorists to user fees, equal to the cost of providing the police service. It doesn’t matter that this user fee would not be paid in advance as are most others. Think of it as a variant of the principle expressed in the sign, “You Break It, You Bought It.”

Are Private Tolls More Efficient Than Public Tolls?

On Tuesday, in PhillyDeals: Private toll roads are on their way back, Joseph N. DiStefano, after explaining the history of toll roads, predicts that private toll roads will be returning “to a neighborhood near you.” He may be right, and I have no evidence to prove that private toll roads will not be returning. The question is whether it makes sense to permit this to happen.

Once upon a time, some roads were privately owned, and DiStefano gives as an example the Lancaster Turnpike, which is now the state-owned Lancaster Pike that traverses the western Philadelphia suburbs. Yet even while private individuals were building and then charging for use of this turnpike, travelers also had the option of heading west on Conestoga Road, portions of which still exist, without paying tolls. Those in a hurry and with money used the Lancaster Turnpike, and those unwilling or unable to pay used the less convenient Conestoga Road. During World War One, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased the Lancaster Turnpike, took over its maintenance, and abolished the tolls. Today, there are two main differences between Lancaster Pike and Conestoga Road in those areas where both exist. Lancaster Pike has four lanes of travel in most places, whereas Conestoga Road has two lanes. And Lancaster Pike wins the “has more traffic lights” contest by a wide margin. Both roads are toll-free, and both get very congested during peak travel times, and are quite busy throughout most other times.

DiStefano reports that Pennsylvania’s governor, seeing his proposal to use tolls on I-80 to fund road and bridge repairs elsewhere in the state and his proposal to use the proceeds of a Turnpike lease for the same purpose having been rejected, is going to be pressured by a campaign for a return to private toll roads. This campaign, DiStefano tells us, is “a well-funded movement, with support in both parties” and is orchestrated “by building contractors, investors and their professional representatives.” These folks have placed the catchy tag of “Public-Private Partnerships” on their idea.

When the state builds a toll road, it borrows money, pays for the construction, charges tolls, and uses the toll proceeds to maintain the road and to pay off the loans. According to DiStefano, the Public-Private Partnership allows private companies to acquire money by borrowing – “from banks, investors, even federal loan programs” – pay for the construction, charge tolls, and use the toll proceeds to maintain the road and pay off the loans. As best as I can tell, there are two differences between public state toll road construction and private toll road construction. First, the private toll road needs to charge a higher toll in order to make a profit. Second, the private toll road is beyond the control of voters, because voters do not have the opportunity to speak at a ballot box with respect to the private companies the way they do with the state.

DiStefano quotes Frank M. Rapoport, who represents big contractors. He says, “Nobody’s against this,” although I’m guessing that by “this” he means turning over to the private sector the construction of additional highways, or even the construction of additional tolled lanes to existing highways. Rapoport cites, as support for his proposition, a Frank Luntz poll that “found commuters would pay more to drive, if it would cut traffic delays.” That survey proves an unsurprising outcome. Those with the means to do so would pay for access to roads with lower traffic density. But it doesn’t tell me that those roads need to be built with money borrowed by the state that is repaid through state-charged tolls or with money borrowed by private industry that is repaid through private tolls that are higher because the private investors seek a profit that is not an object for a state-operated highway system.

Though Rapoport claims, “Nobody’s against this,” I am, at least until someone demonstrates how the numbers play out. Someone needs to explain to me, and to everyone else for that matter, how a privately constructed and operated toll road is less expensive than one built by the state. In other words, if it is possible for a private company to build a road from point A to point B, or to add express lanes to Highway W, then why can’t the state do the same thing at a lower cost because of the absence of a profit motive? Perhaps the answer is that those who stand to gain by reason of privatizing highways lead the charge to protest “expansion of government” in response to state-built toll roads, but are waiting to jump at the chance to do the same thing themselves in order to squeeze out that profit. Those who cannot afford the higher private tolls would be left to fend for themselves. Perhaps that is the plan. Those who can afford to pay ride on the nice roads, and those who cannot afford to pay are stuck with the public roads that cannot be improved because of objections to “expansion of government.”

The explanations that I provided for my opposition to selling or leasing publicly owned toll roads, shared in Selling Off Government Revenue Streams: Good Idea or Bad?, in Are Citizens About to be Railroaded on Toll Highway Sales?, Turnpike Cash Grab Heats Up, five months later in Selling Government Revenue Streams: A Bad Idea That Won't Go Away, and a year later in Turnpike Lease: Bad Policy and Now a Bad Deal , The Pennsylvania Legislature Gets It Right and Killing the Revenue Idea That Won't Die, are not fully applicable when the road in question is a new road. At least with a new road, a public asset isn’t being sold off to the private sector. But it isn’t clear to me that the analysis of the numbers flips when shifting the question from selling or leasing an existing road to building a new one. Why do something as risky as privatizing highways when there are other options, such as the mileage-based user fees I discussed in Tax Meets Technology on the Road.

Indeed it is risky to transfer highway expansion to the private sector. It’s not a new idea, and one need only look at what happened in California when it permitted private industry to build and charge tolls for express lanes on Route 91 to learn how the ultimate bearer of risk is the taxpayer. More recently, the private enterprise building another California private toll road filed for bankruptcy. In the first instance, the financial mess was absorbed by taxpayers when the regional highway agency had to take over the Route 91 express lane operation. In the second instance, it remains unclear whether Caltrans will need to step in. A major factor in the Route 91 failure was the provisions in the agreement that prohibited the state from building additional lanes on the public portion of the highway. A major factor in the second failure was a huge increase in the tolls.

In How Do Toll Road Lessees Make a Profit?, I pointed out how the profit factor enters into the picture when private industry operates toll roads:

Lee Matchett shared what he calls "another twist" to the proposed arrangement. And indeed a twist it is. He noted that as one tries to determine why the lessee would fork over big bucks for the rights to take over what currently is the equivalent of a break-even enterprise, the answer must be found by "think[ing] through the deal from the other side." He asks:

What does the lessee have to gain, and what are the lessee's potential pitfalls?. One obvious potential liability for the operator would occur if there was a decrease in revenue caused by, say, a decrease in the vehicles deciding to use the toll road. What could cause this? Well, perhaps if alternative roads were improved, or if some other form of transportation were made available (mass transit, rail, etc.), maybe drivers would opt not to pay the increased tolls.

He then directed me to Patrick Bedard's column in the February issue of Car and Driver magazine.It's an important read for drivers, taxpayers, citizens, and voters. Not only are lessees extracting promises from state and local governments to refrain from making improvements to highways offering alternative routes to the leased toll road, they are also compelling the governments to make those alternate routes less attractive by reducing speed limits for no sensible reason (other than to steer vehicles onto the lessee's road) and by adding traffic signals and other restrictions that otherwise have no reason to exist.

Lee's point is important. I've consistently warned that the only way for private enterprise, in the business of making profits, to extract profits from a toll road that presently breaks even is to increase profits, cut services and maintenance, or both. So now the nasty twist to the deal is revealed. Revenue can be increased without raising tolls by coercing drivers to use the toll road. To the free market advocates, I direct this question: Is that how a free market works? If so, it's not a free market. Toll road lessees want to use public resources, namely, the legislature and highway department) to crush any opposition (the alternative roads). It's been happening in the corporate world, to no good end, and now invades the public sector through these "privatization" boondoggles.

What I said in Raising Revenue Through Tolls Isn't Simple concerning the imposition of tolls on existing toll-free roads applies to the idea of private construction and ownership of new roads or new highway lanes. I predicted what DiStefano indicates is about to happen:

Unfortunately, the issue [of tolling existing highways] isn't going to be resolved on the basis of economic analysis, the weighing of public costs and utility, the worth of user fees, or the disadvantages of selling government out to wealthy private interests. Instead, as has happened with so many federal and state legislative decisions during the past several decades, it will come down to politics. More specifically, it will come down to campaign contributions and the granting of favors. And we know, when that is how the game is played, the people with money and assets end up with more, everyone else ends up paying more, and the promised benefits do not materialize as promised. Someday Pennsylvanians and those using Pennsylvania highways are going to rub their eyes, blink, and ask, "How did this happen?" The response will be, "While you were sleeping."

Perhaps the eagerness with which advocates of private toll highways in Pennsylvania have adopted a modern phenomenon originating in California can be matched by their eagerness in reading carefully this warning from the story about the bankrupt private toll road project near San Diego: The outcome “may wind up testing the wisdom of public-private partnerships.” With a growing string of failures presented by their predecessors, the private toll road advocates in Pennsylvania have a lot of explaining to do, and the governor and the legislature have a lot of studying to undertake. The last thing Pennsylvania needs is another failed private sector promise.