Do the Tax Rebates Cheer You Up?

Last week, in Can Tax Rebates Help Prove Malthus Wrong?, I responded to Joe Kristan's reaction, in GOOD MORNING! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!, to my inquiry, Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?, in which I note that the economic problem at which the tax rebate is directed is only going to worsen because of increasing world population and diminishing supplies of essential materials. Now, in CHEER UP, PROFESSOR MAULE!, Joe tries to get me out of what he calls a funk by directing my, and our, attention to several websites that paint a rosy picture of the future because the past didn't turn out to be as bad as predicted by the so-called doomsayers.

Let me assure Joe, and others, that I am not in a funk. I would be in a funk if I thought there was no alternative outcome. As I wrote, I worry and I wonder. I continue to urge the use of tax revenues to solve the deeper problems rather than to mask symptoms and buy votes. If the government is going to spend money, even money that it doesn't have, then it ought to spend it productively. There are serious problems that are going to get worse unless something is done quickly, effectively, and sensibly. I don't see signs of that happening. That's not to say it won't happen, but it surely isn't going to happen so long as apologists for the present system try to minimize the threats that the world faces.

My argument that the so-called stimulus payments, formerly known as rebates, are a temporary palliative that distracts voters until after the election reflects a view that does not require a dismal view of future trends. Those future trends only exacerbate the lack of wisdom in tossing around money borrowed from foreign nations. The recent upsurge in oil and commodity prices are consistent with a future trend of inadequate resource supply. If, however, there is no underlying long-term resource problem, then the advocates of stimulus payments would argue that those payments solve the temporary "glitch" in the economy. So it comes down to whether the problems in the economy are temporary glitches or symptoms of an intrinsic resource sufficiency flaw.

The projections made by the optimists to whose pages Joe links make claims that sound good but that side-step the question. For example, Ronald Bailey claims that "In addition, fossil fuels will not run out in the 21st century." That suggests we need not worry. Though the statement is true, what matters is that fossil fuel quantities will decline to the point where there is insufficient fuel to meet the needs of the world's population. Thinking that there always will be a miracle cure because most things have worked out in the past ignores the reality of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions dying from influenza shortly after the First World War because no one had yet to step up and provide a cure or vaccination. If there were a way to use tax revenues and tax policy to focus attention on the problem, it arguably would make some sense to borrow money from foreign countries. Why not use the stimulus payments to stimulate the manufacture of artificial oil that burns without polluting the atmosphere?

Bailey notes that over-fishing is a problem, and then suggests that privatization and expansion of aquaculture will solve the problem. Privatization? Is that so a few huge corporations can own all of the world's sea life resources? Expansion of aquaculture? Where will that industry obtain the requisite water, fuel, and transportation resources?

Bailey also puts much faith in the growth of food produced per acre during the past few decades. Much of that increase can be attributed to heavy use of fertilizers, which are manufactured using natural gas, and the use of mechanized farming techniques, which consumes fuel. One study suggests that of the $22 billion increase in food costs incurred by Americans from 2005 through 2007, $15 billion has been caused by the increase in cropland and crops dedicated to biofuel production. Biofuel production is just beginning to ramp up. Perhaps people will use their stimulus payments to pay their food bills. But then who writes the checks to pay the creditors who are lending the federal government the money to make those payments? And what happens next year? Will there be more stimulus payments to assist people to purchase food? Should we not consider the ecological impact of the farming methods that are touted for increasing per-acreage yield? How much more fertilizer run-off can the world's fresh water systems absorb? I doubt the folks facing the sort of food price increases described in The Growing Pain of the Middle Class, serendipitously published on the same day Joe posted his latest comments, will find much solace in the arguments Bailey makes.

Bailey reports that "Americans are using less water per capita too." The question, though, is a global one. Yet, even looking at the United States, ought there not be concerned about the serious drop in fresh water levels in the Colorado River system? What happens when the levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, currently at their lowest levels in more than 100 years, go even lower? What happens if the hydroelectric dams cannot function? Or if, in order to keep them functioning, no water for domestic or industrial uses can be drawn from the system. An official with the Department of the Interior predicts "tough times ... ahead."

It would take pages to go through the claims that Bailey makes. His assertion that "There is no likely future shortage of construction materials" must come as good news to those who watched the cost of lumber, steel, and concrete jump as demand in China and other nations soared. Bailey admits that "As the poor in the developing world become wealthier, they will want better housing, transport, and modern energy supplies." Somehow he thinks that all of these things will be produced from what remains on the planet. Bailey thinks that "China's notoriously bad air pollution may be decreasing" but recent reports from Beijing aren't all that promising as that nation goes through all sorts of gymnastics to prevent athletes and visitors from suffering ill effects of the perpetual brown haze in that city. This report uses the delicate word "struggles" to explain the challenge.

Joe answers one of my questions by explaining, "Yes, the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity have prevented the death by starvation of millions in developing nations." Yet somehow those who died in the 1970-1985 famine in Africa, which caused more than a million deaths, didn't get much help from the economists. Some scientists think that the drought can be attributed to pollution. Whether or not that is the case, the supply and demand curve did not end the drought. Far more people have died in famines caused by wars and civil unrest, most of which arise, at least in part, as people vie for power and control of resources.

Joe also suggested that the supply and demand curve and human ingenuity "have prevented 'the riots that have broken out in various places when supplies of drinking water, gasoline, food, or other essential items become exhausted,' because I'm not aware of any such riots actually occurring outside of a failed state, war zone or disaster location." By definition, when there are shortages or a total lack of essential items, people sometimes get out of control. Yes, it happens in failed states and war zones, but it civil unrest and violence have also appeared when gasoline shortages cropped up. I don't live far from the riots noted in this report from the late 1970s. In Indonesia, Mexico, Italy, and Senegal, hardly countries that can be called failed states, disaster locations, or war zones, tens of thousands have taken to the street to protest steep food price increases, as reported in The Growing Pain of the Middle Class.

Joe didn't try to answer my other question:

Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity eased the spread of new and dangerous diseases throughout the planet? Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity lengthened life expectancy in the former Soviet Union? .... Did the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity prevent the massive death and destruction of a world war fought principally over access to land, oil, rubber, and other supplies?

That's ok. I wasn't expecting answers. Not to those questions. The question I'd like to have answered is this one: So what do these tax rebates, excuse me, stimulus payments, do to refill Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to clean the air, to restore fish populations in the ocean, to clean the Mississippi River, and to stave off the next pandemic?

Mileage-Based Road Fees, Yet Again

It appears that America is beginning to pay attention to the dangers posed by highway, bridge, and tunnel degradation that has become increasingly a problem as maintenance costs soar, heavy truck use continues, and age takes its, sorry, toll on our roads and overpasses. The interstate bridge collapse in Minnesota was yet another ringing of the alarm clock, bringing into the spotlight many of the issues I discussed in Funding the Infrastructure: When Free Isn't Free. Suggestions for raising the required funds to repair our highways and put them into better shape to withstand the wear and tear of future use are easy to find. Some advocate increasing tolls on existing toll roads and adding tolls to highways that are presently toll-free, a suggestion I examined in Raising Revenue Through Tolls Isn't Simple, and in User Fees and Costs, to name two of several of my posts on the issue. Others prefer increasing the federal gasoline tax, an idea which I support for reasons discussed in The Return of the Federal Gasoline Tax Increase Proposal and the numerous other posts of mine that are cited therein. Another group has rallied behind the quick-fix tactic of selling state highways to private investors, a proposal that poses a variety of dangers, as I described in Selling Off Government Revenue Streams: Good Idea or Bad? and in Selling Government Revenue Streams: A Bad Idea That Won't Go Away. Now another solution, the mileage-based road fee, first discussed more than three years ago in Tax Meets Technology on the Road, and again revisited a few months ago in Mileage-Based Road Fees, Again, has moved back onto center stage.

Last week, in a Philadelphia Inquirer Commentary, Charles E. Greenawalt, senior fellow at the Susquehanna Valley Center for Public Policy, shared his thoughts in a version of Pennsylvania Must Look Beyond Gas Tax To Fund Transportation Needs. Greenawalt makes some good points, though I must confess that I think some of his points are good because they echo my commentary from three and a half years ago.

Greenawalt points out that as vehicle mileage standards increase and as more and more Americans shift to using vehicles that do not consume gasoline, or consume much less gasoline, the revenues generated by the gasoline tax will tumble if the per-gallon rates are left unchanged. No one can disagree with this conclusion. Unlike me, Greenawalt doesn't tilt at windmills and urge an increase in the gasoline tax. He acknowledges that legislatures just won't bring themselves to voting for such an increase. He's probably right, though I do wonder if legislatures will act differently when the funding system breaks down, as it will unless something is done. On that latter point, the need to do something, Greenawalt and I agree.

Spurred by the Center's dislike of the turnpike lease proposal, another point on which Greenawalt and I agree, he turns our attention to the mileage-based road fee. Known in some circle as the Road User Charge, the fee is computed by tracking mileage through the vehicle's GPS. Greenawalt mentions the experiment underway in six states that I referenced in Mileage-Based Road Fees, Again. Greenawalt notes that state road use fees won't go down each time someone purchases a more fuel efficient vehicle, a point I shared in Tax Meets Technology on the Road. Of course, as total miles driven by Americans decrease, even road user fee revenues will decrease unless the per-mile fee is increased. Though most of us, mired in congestion, probably doubt total miles driven by Americans would decrease, that happened in 2007.

If the road user fee is going to get serious attention, and it should, it makes sense to examine some of its advantages and disadvantages to determine if they matter or if they can be alleviated. Here are a few considerations.

The road use fee can be adjusted so that it is higher for peak use times than for other times. This adjustment would encourage driving patterns that reduce congestion. It is not unlike the off-peak rates charged by electric utilities to encourage the use of hot water heaters and clothes dryers at times other than the peak demand period.

The road user fee, in its present form, does not distinguish among types of vehicles. It makes sense to impose different per-mile fees based on the weight of the vehicle and perhaps other characteristics that measure the costs that the vehicle imposes on the transportation system.

Unless the road user fee is enacted on a national level, there will be issues when someone with a vehicle from a state not imposing the fee drives it into a state that relies on the fee. Technology, I am sure, has the answer, but the implementation could be cumbersome. Would an out-of-state vehicle need to stop at the border and have a temporary unit installed, and then logged onto the state tracking system? Such an approach probably would resemble what happens when someone drives into Switzerland and must stop to purchase the road use sticker for the windshield.

Likewise, would a state that imposes the fee collect for miles driven by residents when they are out of the state? Would that raise constitutional concerns if the other state also imposed a road use fee on all vehicles, including out-of-state vehicles, using its roads? Probably not. But it might require a system to provide a credit for road use fees paid to other states, not unlike the current credit for income taxes paid to other states. Hopefully, states would enter into agreements to prevent the multiple taxation in the same instance.

A tax that relies on information gathered from the GPS in a person's vehicle causes many people to recoil in fear. Some simply don't understand technology. Others dislike change, especially when it involves technology. Still others worry about a government having access to information about driving habits, such as speed limit compliance, and destination identities. Similar concerns were raised when EZ-Pass and similar systems were put into place, and yet those technologies have caught on big-time.

The fun might begin when it is time to identify vehicles exempt from the user fee. It might make sense to impose the fee on fire engines and let fire companies shift the incidence of the fee to those using fire services, but it makes just as much sense to forgo taxing government vehicles. Of course, the fun could be avoided simply by creating exceptions that match those applicable to the gasoline tax, but that presupposes that the gasoline tax exceptions are neither over-inclusive nor under-inclusive.

The road mileage fee is regressive, imposed without regard to income. But, so too, is the gasoline tax, the highway toll, the bridge toll, and the excise tax on various automobile parts. If the fee varied by vehicle weight, it would cause the tax paid by owners of smaller vehicles to be proportionately less, and if lower income individuals tend to purchase smaller vehicles, that would mitigate at least some of the regressivity of the fee.

So, I join Charles E. Greenawalt in concluding that the road user charge, by whatever name known, is something whose time has come. States should establish commissions to explore its implementation, and should do so sooner rather than later, before the current highway infrastructure funding crisis becomes an unmitigated disaster.

Getting Those Tax Rebates Might Not Be So Easy

Across the nation, large numbers of citizens are looking forward to receiving a rebate check from the federal government. I doubt very many of them are giving much thought to the question of whether tax rebates solve the problems they supposedly address or to the concerns I expressed in Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?. Most of them probably think that at some point later this year a check will arrive. But it's not going to be so easy.

On Wednesday, the IRS released Stimulus Payments: Instructions for Low-Income Workers and Recipients of Social Security and Certain Veterans’ Benefits, in which it explains what people must do in order to obtain their rebates. According to the IRS, "most" taxpayers need not do anything because they will have filed their 2007 income tax returns by the time the Treasury is ready to process the checks. The IRS computer systems will "know" that these taxpayers exist.

What happens, though, to people who do not file tax returns because their gross income is below the filing threshold? The IRS advises that these people should file a 2007 federal income tax return so that can receive a rebate. To qualify, a person must have at least $3,000 of qualifying income. Qualifying income includes not only gross income such as wages and interest, but also income that is not taxed, such as certain social security benefits, certain railroad retirement benefits, and certain veterans' benefits. In order for the IRS to know that an individual has sufficient qualifying income, the individual must report these non-taxable benefits on the return that the individual would not otherwise be filing. Surely, that is going to confuse people. Individuals who do not receive a Form 1099-SSA for some reason need to estimate their 2007 social security payments, but must be careful not to include supplemental security income because it is not qualifying income. Recipients of veterans' benefits must go through some computations to estimate the amount they received in 2007 unless they have some better record.

What happens if someone receiving non-taxable income that counts as qualifying income already filed a return for 2007 without disclosing these amounts? If those returns do not show $3,000 or more of qualifying income, these folks must file amended returns. Their tax liabilities will not change, because they will be adding to the return amounts that are not taxable. If that seems oxymoronic, so it is.

In a news release, IRS Will Send Stimulus Payments Automatically Starting in May; Eligible Taxpayers Must File a 2007 Tax Return to Receive Rebate, the IRS further explained that no rebate will be sent to taxpayers who lack valid social security numbers, nor will they be sent to married couples who filed joint returns if either spouse lacks a valid social security number. Rebates will not be sent to taxpayers who use an individual taxpayer identification number issued by the IRS or any other number issued by the IRS, such as an adoption taxpayer identification number. Nor will rebates be sent to taxpayers who file forms 1040-NR, 1040-PR, or 1040-SS. The IRS also announced that to accommodate taxpayers who file their returns later in the year, rebate checks will be issued until December 31, 2008.

What about taxpayers who move after filing their returns? The IRS recommends filing a change of address with the Postal Service.

The IRS also alerted taxpayers to be on the watch for scams. This is one time no reasonable person can disagree with the IRS. The IRS will not call or email taxpayers with respect to rebates. Unfortunately, the scammers will continue to work the room, so to speak, because they know there are people who will fall victim to whatever con game these thieves cobble together.

What about taxpayers who owe back taxes? According to Facts about the 2008 Stimulus Payments, another issuance by the IRS, the rebates will be diverted to payment of those liabilities. In that issuance and in the others, the IRS disclosed it will be sending two notices, by regular mail, to taxpayers in order to explain the rebate program and to confirm eligibility.

If it weren't for the fact this is presumably a one-time event, I would propose to the faculty that we add a course to the curriculum called "Income Tax Rebates." Considering the fact this is not the first time that the Congress has used the rebate maneuver to fiddle with the economy, perhaps I should design such a course so that it's ready to be taken "off the shelf" at a moment's notice. No, that's a bad idea. Each rebate is different, and each time one is enacted, it is more complicated.

Although I continue to doubt that the rebate will have much of an effect on the economy or the underlying economic problems facing the nation, I must admit it surely will stimulate the tax return preparation industry. As some wrote to me today put it, it's not difficult finding tax return clients. Perhaps it's because there are fewer and fewer people choosing to do tax returns for a living. It's getting more difficult to get it right, it's getting more aggravating, and it's getting too complicated even for many of those who are fairly bright and experienced with tax.

They have changed the name from rebate to stimulus payment. Technically, I suppose that is because a person who has not paid income tax cannot get a rebate of something that has not been paid. But if the payment is stimulating anything, it is stimulating confusion for some, and extra work for many. The number of taxpayers who are getting rebates, sorry, stimulus payments on account of qualifying income that is not taxable is estimated to include 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans. So to those 20 million plus, let's say, "Welcome to the tax system. Enjoy your filing experience."

And I suppose the Congress added to the IRS appropriations bill money to be used to mail the notices. I suppose the Congress has made funds available to the Treasury Department to process and mail the checks. Or, as often happens, will some other program, such as enforcement or taxpayer assistance, be cut in order to fund this election-year "I voted for a rebate" ploy?

Can Tax Rebates Help Prove Malthus Wrong?

Joe Kristan, who writes the Roth & Company, P.C. Tax Update Blog, has reacted to my most recent tax rebate post, Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?, in which I note that the economic problem at which the tax rebate is directed is only going to worsen because of increasing world population and diminishing supplies of essential materials. In a post the headline of which must have startled his many readers, GOOD MORNING! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!, Joe notes that he is an optimist and is putting his money on human ingenuity and the supply-demand curve.

Once upon a time, I was an optimist. Then I became a guarded optimist. Then I began to worry. And now, I am beginning to wonder. I would like to agree with Joe, as I once would have. Let me see if I can.

We begin with the supply-demand curve. That curve works well for some things, but it becomes very inelastic when dealing with life's basic necessities. The supply-demand curve can bring some sort of economic equilibrium if we're talking about a nonessential good. As supply shrinks, prices rise, which in turn cuts demand, which brings the supply and demand back into balance. In contrast, when it comes to the things I mentioned in Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?, oil, clean water, concrete, steel, natural gas, health care, copper, agricultural products, and similar life-essential ingredients, demand will continue to rise even as supplies shrink. People can choose to refrain from purchasing a nonessential item, but people need clean water, energy, food, and items requiring concrete, steel, oil-based materials, copper, and similar items, such as homes and vehicles. In theory, people can choose not to purchase water or heat, but that's pretty much tantamount to people choosing self-destruction. When the price of scarce items reaches near-infinity, people will be compelled to forgo essentials. What happens?

Some claim that demand cannot exceed supply, but that assertion rests on a definition of demand as a measure of the quantity of the item in question being purchased. What truly matters, especially with respect to essential items, is the quantity of the item that is required. Though there may not be such a thing as "supply shortfall," as some claim, there are such things as shortages. There also are items that aren't available at any price.

Turning to the human ingenuity factor, one can only hope, not predict with certainty, that some genius will discover the ideal vehicle fuel, abundant, clean, and technologically useful. Perhaps some other genius will discover a way to prevent water pollution and clean up existing fresh water supplies. Yet, with world population records being broken every day, the need for a parade of genius inventors becomes extremely pressing, and the likelihood is low that substitutes or work-arounds for all of the impending shortages will be forthcoming in time, if at all. Do tax rebates somehow encourage bright people to focus on these problems instead of applying their skills elsewhere? Does the tax system reward the sort of activities and endeavors that would generate the products of human ingenuity that are so desperately required?

I wish I could agree with Joe. I wish that it was as rosy as he describes. I might be so inclined if it had worked out that way in the past. Even though the world's population, as a whole, is wealthier than ever, as Joe explains, the distribution of that wealth, and the distribution of resource ownership, is out of balance. Systems in disequilibrium are not foundations for stability. Malthus was wrong in terms of his time scale. Much of what he predicted has come to pass on a smaller scale, but yet on an increasingly more frequent and deeper cycle.

Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity prevented the death by starvation of millions in developing nations? Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity eased the spread of new and dangerous diseases throughout the planet? Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity lengthened life expectancy in the former Soviet Union? Have the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity prevented the riots that have broken out in various places when supplies of drinking water, gasoline, food, or other essential items become exhausted? Did the supply-demand curve and human ingenuity prevent the massive death and destruction of a world war fought principally over access to land, oil, rubber, and other supplies?

Over what essential commodity will the next global war be fought? Oil, as many predict? Food? Or perhaps fresh water? Or will it erupt when the teeming masses of the planet's overcrowded cities, afflicted by disease, shortages of food and water, and lacking the optimism Joe exhibits, decide that there is no other recourse but to strike out in fear, anger, desperation, and hate?

If the Treasury is going to borrow money to fix things, I'd rather the money be used to solve the underlying problems rather than encourage the outcomes I described in Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?. It is no surprise that what happens in some remote corner of the world today boomerangs throughout the American economy tomorrow. Will the predicted use of the tax rebates change what happens in that remote corner, with sufficient speed and sufficient impact?

I would like to be wrong. I would like Joe to be right. And he well could be, if people and governments mobilize to deal with these issues while there still is time. Dishing out tax rebates isn't going to get the job done.

Can a Tax Rebate Band-Aid Stop the Economic Bleeding?

So the economy-saving tax rebate is about to become law. According to this CNN story, the President is expected to sign the legislation this week.

Even though inWho Should Get a Tax Rebate?, I focused on questions regarding the selection of rebate recipients, I also pointed out that I'm not convinced a tax rebate will work to solve the economic problems faced by the nation. And even though, as I pointed out in Improved Rebate Deal Better But Still Falls Short, the tweaking that the proposal received was an improvement, I continue to think that Len Burman's proposal, which I critiqued in Something Better Than a Tax Rebate?, makes much more sense.

According to the CNN story, the Treasury Department reports that it will begin sending rebate checks in May. That's three months from now. A lot of things can happen in three months. Apparently the rebate distribution will not be finished until the end of summer. That's September. September is seven months away. So not only must the rebate advocates persuade me that tax rebates are the solution, they must persuade me that tax rebates issued in the future are the solution.

Why do I conclude that tax rebates are not the answer? They do not address the underlying economic problems. They are mere band-aids on an out-of-control hemorrhage. As I wrote in Who Should Get a Tax Rebate?:

The issuance of tax rebates will enlarge the federal deficit. At some point, that deficit will haunt the economy in ways that no tax rebate, even an abolition of taxes, will cure. So long as consumption exceeds production, so long as more wealth, particularly dollars, flow out of the country than flow into the country, so long as certain items remain in short supply and project to remain that way, the nation's economic and financial health will worsen. Tax rebates will not increase the supply of clean water, oil, natural gas, or any of the other resources mismatched to the demands of the world population. In some ways, it makes the question about who should get a tax rebate seem trivial, almost like fighting over a deck chair on a sinking ship.

The principal argument for tax rebates is that they will permit recipients to infuse the money into the economy by making retail purchases, thus propping up consumer spending levels. Is that what will happen? The CNN story reports that a survey indicated that recipients planned to use the rebate as follows: 25% plan to spend the money, 28% plan to save the money, and 46% plan to pay off debt with the money. So 75% percent of the money ends up in banks and other financial institutions. The goal of the tax rebate advocates isn't going to be achieved.

What will the banks do with the money? Perhaps they will lend it to people who will spend it. What does that accomplish? It generates a momentary boost in retail spending. It increases the number of people in debt and increases the nation's consumer debt load. Note that it also increases interest charges flowing from consumers to banks. Ultimately, where are most of the tax rebate dollars? Think about it.

Considering that one of the glaring imbalances in the national economy is consumer debt, reported by the Federal Reserve as $2.5 trillion, why enact legislation that makes things worse? I think the answer is that anyone who stood up and spoke common sense was run over by the tax rebate bandwagon that in some ways looks not unlike the transmission of money to people who, 6 to 18 weeks later, will be voting in a national election in which all 435 seats in the House and one-third of the Senate is up for grabs.

It gets better. To finance the tax rebates, the Treasury will need to borrow money, because it doesn't have spare cash sitting around. From whom will it borrow? Someone with dollars to unload. Who might that be? Could it be the People's Republic of China? Saudi Arabia? The United Arab Emirates? Some international bank? Whoever it turns out to be, they will be looking for two things. They will want interest, because they're not going to lend the money for nothing. And ultimately they will want the debt repaid. Who pays the interest? Who repays the debt? It will be the taxpayers of the third, fourth, and subsequent decades of this century. These taxpayers, already burdened with individual debt, will discover that they lack sufficient funds to buy the things they need and the luxuries they desire without going into more debt. From whom will they borrow? At what point do the creditors say, literally, "We own you."

This nation has been living beyond its means for far too long. Most people, though not all people, in this nation have been living beyond their means. Some people need to live beyond their means simply to survive. A family of four trying to live on income of $25,000 will be racking up some of that credit card debt that has reached a total of almost one trillion dollars. Some people live beyond their means because they simply must have what they want. A very small slice of the population does not live beyond its means because its means are so huge that the limits of time and space prohibit a person from spending that much money. So these folks join the creditor nations in making most Americans their economic vassals. And to think we concluded the middle ages ended a few centuries ago. What a surprise!

The impending shortages of critical goods and materials, including oil, clean water concrete, steel, natural gas, health care, copper, agricultural products, and similar life-essential ingredients, will only worsen the problem. An ever-increasing world population, seeking more and more quantities of these and other items, coupled with the emergence of a small creditor group and massive hordes of debtors, is a recipe for disaster. Somewhere along the way, these conditions will trigger armed conflict, pestilence and pandemics, civil disorder, and breakdowns in societal structures. No one ever promised that the Dark Ages were a one-time event.

A User Fee That Makes Sense

A recent New York Times story, Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags explores a user fee that accomplishes what user fees should be designed to do. In this instance, the user fee is in the form of a 33-cent tax imposed by Ireland on plastic bags. The justification for the tax, or fee, is that plastic bags are not biodegradable, end up in landfills where they remain forever, clog sewage systems, and create all other sorts of environmental damage. In theory, residents of Ireland could choose to pay the fee and let the government follow the more difficult path of cleaning up the mess. Instead, within weeks of the fee's imposition in 2002, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Shoppers are bringing cloth bags to hold their purchases.

The Irish government did not make the use of plastic bags illegal. What has happened is that the widespread success of the user fee has nurtured a social norm disfavoring the use of plastic bags. Other governments have tried other approaches. New York City requires stores that put customers' purchases in plastic bags to accept a return of the plastic bags. China plans to prohibit giving customers free plastic bags. Other nations are studying ways to eliminate plastic bags and their use.

The Irish user fee is difficult to evade. Because most retailers' cash registers already were programmed to collect the national sales tax, it was relatively inexpensive to add the bag fee to retail pricing systems. One attribute of an efficient user fee is that it is inexpensive to administer. Another is that it is difficult to evade. The plastic bag user fee scores well on both counts.

Interestingly, there wasn't a shift from plastic bags to paper bags. The Irish Minister of Environment has disclosed that if paper bag use increased, he would seek to impose a tax on the user of paper bags. Although paper is recyclable and biodegradable, the manufacture of paper bags generates more greenhouse gases than does the manufacture of plastic bags. Plastic bags are made in part from oil, which is nonrenewable, whereas paper bags are made mostly from trees, but that difference fades in comparison to the adverse environment impact both types of bags create.

Not surprisingly, manufacturers of plastic bags and retail merchants oppose the user fee. They claim it is "bad for business." In some places, proposed taxes or user fees on plastic bags have met so much resistance that the legislative body in question failed to enact the fee or tax. Yet Irish retailers, after a few years of experience with the tax, support it. Their attempts to persuade their counterparts in the rest of Europe to support similar fees have gone for naught.

The success of the user fee has inspired people in Ireland to propose user fees or taxes on two more items that cause environmental damage. One item is chewing gum. Apparently sidewalks in Ireland are home to thousands of chewing gum wads. The other item is the ATM receipt. People drop them on the ground, the wind picks them up, they're all over the place. The challenge with user fees imposed on these items is that the fee would be paid by people who do not litter the streets with gum and receipts. The fees would not be limited to the litterbugs. Unlike plastic bags, which are environmentally harmful per se, both in terms of manufacture and ultimate disposition, chewing gum and small slips of paper need not be environmentally damaging if people dispose of them properly. Yet in terms of administration, it is very difficult to impose a fee only on the litterbug, because to do so a government would need to station litter monitors on every corner.

So when the person in the store asks, "Plastic or paper?" the response could be, "The tax law encourages me to request cloth." Don't mind the bewildered look. Direct them to this blog post.

Not the Sort of Tax Loss Taxpayers Prefer

During the past few years, I've commented from time to time on the disarray afflicting the Philadelphia real property tax assessment process (see An Unconstitutional Tax Assessment System; Property Tax Assessments: Really That Difficult?; Real Property Tax Assessment System: Broken and Begging for Repair; and Philadelphia Real Property Taxes: Pay Up or Lose It). In the most recent post, How to Fix a Broken Tax System: Speed It Up?, I noted that there had been four previous posts and that perhaps five was the magic number. It isn't.

In one of the earlier posts, Real Property Tax Assessment System: Broken and Begging for Repair, I commented on a Philadelphia Inquirer story that described the 4-3 decision by the Philadelphia Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) to refrain from reassessing the 27-room mansion owned by state senator Vincent Fumo. The property, which Fumo put on the market with an asking price of $7,000,000, is assessed at a value of $250,000. The ensuing fallout from this news brought a promise from the BRT to explain how a multimillion dollar property is assessed for only $250,000.

According to this Philadelphia Inquirer story, released Monday, the BRT says that it cannot find the file for the Fumo property. A consultant claims that the BRT "moved heaven and earth to try to find it." Members of Hallwatch, a public interest group, have requested the file but have not been provided copies. The BRT consultant thinks the file disappeared when the BRT moved its offices. His explanation: ""They have thousands and thousands and thousands of files. They couldn't find it, and that was where it was left."

The BRT consultant did reveal that when the BRT proposed raising the assessment on the property from $200,000 to "more than $436,400," Fumo appealed and the BRT set the assessment at $250,000. Until and unless the file is located, there is no way of knowing what Fumo argued in his appeal. The head of the BRT in 2003 said there was a general policy at that time to cut proposed assessment increases when taxpayers appealed. The BRT consultant explained that the BRT encountered an obstacle when it focused on the valuation of Fumo's property, namely, a 1995 court order making Fumo's building and renovation permits secret. Fumo obtained the order after alleging that his pro-choice views threatened his safety. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that no other property owner has obtained an order making a building permit or renovation permit secret. The BRT apparently ignored public records showing that the property was used to secure a second mortgage of $750,000 and a third mortgage of $1,100,000.

Fumo put the property on the market to raise funds for his defense in a corruption trial, which is scheduled to begin later this year. He recently dropped the asking price to $6,000,000. He claims he received no special treatment from the BRT, and the BRT claims it treated Fumo as it would any other taxpayer. One of the allegations in the corruption indictment is that one of his senate aides worked on the renovations of the property while drawing a public salary.

There are several troubling aspects to this story.

First, it is not reassuring to realize that government agencies lose important public documents. It makes one wonder about custodial control, file integrity, and competence.

Second, it is very puzzling why the information is not in digital form, with off-site backup. In that instance, moving offices ought not cause the loss of the information.

Third, it is disturbing to learn that the BRT automatically reduced assessments in 2003 when property owners appealed. I wonder how many people who did not have sufficient time or money to pursue an appeal would have found a way to do so had they known of the automatic reduction policy.

Fourth, it is bewildering that the BRT continues to undervalue Philadelphia properties for tax purposes. One analysis cited by the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that assessments in the city average 60 percent of value. In Fumo's situation, the assessment is at roughly 4 percent of value.

Fifth, it is troubling to learn that the BRT does not cross-check property assessment records with public mortgage loan records.

When people complain about taxes, as they often do, it is helpful to ask whether the complaint is about the tax, the implementation and administration of the tax, or the use to which the tax revenues are put. In this instance, the implementation and administration of the real property tax in Philadelphia (and elsewhere in the commonwealth) leaves very much to be desired. If this is the best government can do, government's best isn't good enough.

Another Sip of the Drink Tax

Last week, in No One Drinks to This Tax, I questioned the wisdom of limiting such a tax to center city establishments rather than all establishments. I noted that such a distinction was inconsistent with the presumed justification for the tax, namely, the costs imposed on society by the drinking of alcohol.

A reader, who lives and works near Pittsburgh, wrote to tell me something I did not know, but probably should have known. I would have known it had I done some research. I would have discovered, for example, articles such as this one. The purpose of the drink tax in Allegheny County is to bail out the Port Authority Transit system, which is having financial difficulties. Now that I'm aware of this, I cannot resist criticizing the tax, regardless of whether it is imposed uniformly, as proposed, or without uniformity, as the Governor has suggested ought to be done.

As I pointed out not too long ago in User Fees and Costs, my view of user fees is that they should pay for the costs tied to the use on which they are imposed, including costs that arise from the impact of the use on related activities. Thus, as I pointed out, it makes sense to use tolls from use of a particular highway not only to maintain that highway, but also to alleviate the costs incurred by neighboring towns on account of the traffic using the toll highway. It does not make sense, I pointed out, to set the user fee high enough so that the revenue can also be used for some unrelated function in some distant place. As I explained in When User Fees Exceed Costs: What to Do?," user fees ought not be diverted to unrelated disconnected activities." Many people in Allegheny county aren't happy, and they're even singing about the drink tax. One restaurant owner wants to make the continuation of the tax contingent on the outcome of a boxing match he proposes between himself and the principal advocate of the tax. Who said tax isn't exciting?

So the question in the context of the drink tax is this: How do people buying alcoholic beverages in Allegheny County impose on the Port Authority Transit system costs that are more than those imposed on the system by people not buying drinks? And why should the financial relief of the Port Transit Authority be limited to people drinking alcoholic beverages? What about people imbibing soft drinks and fruit juices? What about people eating junk food? Or smoking? Or going to the movies? My guess is that it is easier to "target" drinkers of alcoholic beverages for a tax than it is to "target" movie-goers or people frequenting fast food outlets whose fare contributes to bad health.

The net take from the drink tax is less than its gross revenue, because the county must hire people to administer the tax, collect the tax, and provide legal guidance with respect to imposition of the tax. No tax exists that can be administered without cost. Proprietors of establishments that sell alcoholic drinks have been left with little time to reprogram their cash registers. But their attempt to obtain a stay of enforcement was denied.

If there is any logic, the tax should be levied on those using the system, and if their economic position precludes imposing enough user fee (in the form of fares), then it could be argued that a fee should be imposed on the system's competition, namely, the private vehicle. However, most users of private vehicles who are in town during the evening use their vehicles because they find public transit to be inconvenient, sometimes unsafe, and inefficient. It's not just drinkers who drive into town. So, too, do movie-goers, for example. A sufficiently high user fee on private vehicles would bring more riders, and thus more revenue, to public transit. However, would it bring enough of a ridership increase so that the public transit could add more trips to the schedule, shorten the length of trips, or take people from where they are to where they want to be?

Logic also suggests that it would make sense to encourage drinkers to use public transit rather than drive because it would keep them from driving while impaired. Would a decrease in the public transit fee increase ridership? Perhaps. Would it be enough to offset the revenue loss arising from the decreased fare? Only if a substantial number of new riders are added.

The drink tax may have the effect of discouraging people from going into town to have a drink. If, somehow, an exception is carved out for establishments not in center city, as the Governor prefers, even more people would remain closer to home. The drink tax would not bring in the anticipated revenue. What then? Increase the drink tax and discourage still more people to stay home?

Whether the drink tax, and its related car rental user fee, will solve the Port Transit Authority's financial woes is questionable. According to this analysis, the problems of efficiencies, or lack thereof, account for a significant portion of the annual operating deficit.

But who ends up paying? According to this story, the higher drink prices means less change when payment is made, causing reductions in tips. So bartenders and wait staff are paying for the transit system.

Ideally, public transit should be priced at actual, corruption-free, efficient cost. If the resulting fares are too high for people in lower income brackets, then the question of subsidizing them should be addressed directly. To then conclude that people drinking alcoholic beverages, or people drinking downtown, should foot the bill through a drink tax so that the fare increases can be avoided defies logic. But who ever promised that tax and user fee policy would be logical? And if it had been so promised, who would believe?

What's In a Tax Label?

In remarks at a press conference covered by BNA, Senator Charles Grassley described the provision in H.R. 2419 codifying an economic substance doctrine to be a "loophole-closer" and not a "tax-raiser." The issue arose because the President, in his State of the Union address, warned that he would veto any bill sent to him that "raises taxes." When describing the proposal, counsel to the Senate Finance Committee explained, "This isn't raising revenue." The Administration opposes the codification of the economic substance doctrine on the grounds it is unnecessary and should be left to the courts to refine.

The nation's addiction to sound bites, and dislike of thorough analysis, gives us this most recent bickering about the use of language. I would call it silly but for the fact it involves a serious issue.

When a provision has the effect of making people pay taxes that they should have been paying but were not paying, that provision raises revenue. It increases the amount of money flowing into the Treasury. If it didn't have that effect, why waste time enacting it? Clearly the provision is expected to raise revenue.

Similarly, a provision that has the effect of making people pay taxes that they should have been paying but were not paying does not increase the taxes paid by taxpayers who are complying with the tax law. In this respect, the provision could be described as "not raising tax rates" or "not a tax-rate-raiser." Does the Administration truly believe that the provision raises taxes and thus should be the object of a veto, as Senator Grassley seems to think the Administration believes?

Why is it so necessary to find and use two-word phrases that are inaccurate? Do politicians think Americans cannot handle a sentence that tells them that "this provision does not increase tax bills for taxpayers who comply, but collects taxes not being paid by people who owe them."? Has the typical human brain become incapable of concentrating for more than 2 seconds or unable to process 22-word sentences?

Fortunately, "loophole-closer" is an accurate label for the provision. Unfortunately, too few people understand what a genuine loophole is. So we're back to a longer description: "this provision closes a loophole, which means tax bills don't increase for taxpayers who comply, but taxes that should be collected but aren't being collected will be collected."

Considering how crucial tax policy is to the economic survival of the nation, is it asking too much for citizens to pay attention for more than two seconds, for politicians to wean themselves from sound-bite mentality, and for educators to insist that students learn how to handle the reading and writing of compound sentences?

No One Drinks to This Tax

Philadelphia has a by-the-drink tax on alcoholic beverages served in bars and restaurants. Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, has just enacted a similar tax. According to Rendell Tweaks Remarks About City's Drink Tax, Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell tried to comfort owners of small pubs and bars by pointing out the Philadelphia experience with the tax. Essentially, he explained that Philadelphia selectively enforces the tax, focusing on the larger establishments. His comments creates such a fuss that he had to clarify his remarks, claiming that enforcement is not selective but simply "concentrated" on the large establishments. A spokesperson for Philadelphia's mayor noted that “It makes sense that you would obviously go after those individuals, those entities that would have the highest return for the city” but that the city does not "go easier" on smaller venues.

The Governor also explained that he wished there was no uniformity clause in the Commonwealth's constitution because he would like to see the tax apply only to center city bars and restaurants. Goodness, I would enjoy a chance to debate this proposition with fellow Villanova Law grad Ed Rendell. It makes no sense to me, but perhaps he has some insight that would cause me to say, "Aha." As I see it, the justification for a tax on alcoholic drinks is the costs imposed on society by the drinking of alcohol in public establishments. On a per-drink basis, how does a person buying two drinks at a center city bar impose any greater cost on society than does a person buying two drinks at a neighborhood tavern? What justifies taxing one and not the other? To me, the notion of taxing the center city bars and not neighborhood bars is a matter of reaching for low-hanging tax fruit. Layered onto my analysis is a question about the large establishment in some other area of the city, for example, in the sports complex or in the greater Northeast, that generates as much, if not more, revenue than do many of the center city watering holes.

Unless someone can demonstrate that a person taking a drink in center city imposes a greater cost on society than by taking a drink elsewhere, I must conclude that a drink is a drink, a drink tax is a drink tax, and the drink tax, if it exists, ought to apply to all alcoholic drinks no matter where served. Otherwise, the very thing the uniformity clause is intended to protect would be destroyed. That would be unwise.

Improved Rebate Deal Better But Still Falls Short

Several of the criticisms that I and others levelled against the original tax rebate component of the proposed economic stimulus plan, as noted in Who Should Get a Tax Rebate?, have been addressed in the deal that was struck late last week by members of Congress and the Bush administration. According to various reports, including this Philadelphia Inquirer story. Single taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes above $75,000 and married taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes above $150,000 would receive smaller rebates, with the amount of the rebate decreasing by $50 for every $1,000 the taxpayer's adjusted gross income exceeds the limit. Not only would the very wealthy be excluded, but also most taxpayers in what could be called the upper middle class. As I pointed out in Who Should Get a Tax Rebate?, "The wealthy aren't likely to rush to the store because a $400 or $800 check has arrived." People who do not pay income taxes because their incomes are too low, their deductions sufficient to offset income, or their credits sufficient to offset tax liability before credits will be eligible to receive rebates. As I also pointed out, "But for the working poor and the retired poor, an $800 check is far more than petty cash."

The proponents of the plan hope that it passes in time so that the Treasury can begin issuing rebate checks in May and that they will reach people by July. News flash: If the economy is spiraling into a recession as many claim and as appears to be the case, July is too late. Is there a faster way? Could the rebate be taken as a reduction in 2007 tax liability on 2008 returns? That would be a fine idea except that the forms have already been designed, printed, and distributed. Could the rebates be sent electronically through direct deposit? That also would be a fine idea except that the IRS doesn't have the direct deposit information that would be necessary.

The provision in the proposed deal that would permit businesses to deduct one-half of the cost of newly purchased depreciable property is misplaced. Businesses make investments if the investment is required. No well-managed business will purchase equipment merely because its after-tax cost is a bit less than it otherwise would be. Businesses that need equipment won't make the purchases if they are cash poor. By the time consumers spend the rebates, which they may or may not do, businesses in need of cash and getting it from rebate-fueled purchases would not be making purchases until late in the year. News flash: That's way too late. Businesses could borrow money, but isn't most of the current problem a consequence of excessive use of credit, and mis-use of credit, by individuals and businesses?

The more I consider the delay factor, the more I think that Len Burman's idea, discussed in Something Better Than a Tax Rebate? makes more sense. Not only would it be more effective, it also would be more timely. It would make its impact the day it is enacted, rather than months later.

Something Better Than a Tax Rebate?

In a Wednesday editorial, Make the Tax Cuts Work, Len Burman suggests that a good way to stimulate the economy and head off or shorten a recession is to accelerate the termination of the 2001 federal income tax cuts. His rationale is that investors, facing higher capital gains taxes in 2009, would rush to sell their capital assets in 2008 in order to reduce their taxes. In turn, the sale proceeds would presumably be used to purchase what I call high-end assets, such as the yachts and fast cars mentioned by Burman. Burman points out that in 1986, when facing a capital gains tax increase in 1987, stock sales doubled. Burman also argues that more tax cuts, including rebates, are temporary and at best postpone a recession. He also notes, as I did on Wednesday in Who Should Get a Tax Rebate?, that 37% of households would not get a rebate, and they are the people most likely to spend a tax rebate. Burman also takes the position that the deficit is "the single largest threat to the economy's long-term health."

Burman's proposal interests me. It's not that he agrees with my take on the rebate proposal as it presently exists, and it's not that we agree about the long-term dangers posed by the federal deficit. His proposal interests me because it addresses an issue that needs to be addressed if my never-ending call for the elimination of special low tax rates for capital gains were to be adopted. An increase in the capital gains rate, even if not enough to make it equal the rate on ordinary income, will encourage capital asset sales. Is that a good thing? Burman thinks so. I'm tempted to agree. However, if there is a rush to sell stock, would that not depress the stock market to the extent sellers purchase high-end consumer goods rather than other stock? Perhaps. But the "seller's market" impact might be offset by the purchases made by those adding to their holdings because they see long-term potential in the stock of companies poised to benefit from the increases in sales of high-end consumer goods.

My hesitation is that I'm not convinced there is a net long-term benefit from increases in the sales of high-end consumer goods, or perhaps even from increases in the sales of consumer goods generally. Increases in the sales of consumer goods translates into more energy use, more demand for increasingly scarce resources, and more dollars flowing out to the countries producing these consumer goods. Aren't these included among the things causing the lack of confidence that has triggered the recent stock market slide? In the long-term, can the planet handle a never-ending, sometimes slowed upward spiral in the consumption of its resources? At some point, the combination of the federal deficit, the trade deficit, the ensuing decline in the value of the dollar, the declining supply of oil, clean fresh water, copper, and similar resources, the growing world population, and the widening gap between haves and have-nots and the concomitant disappearance of the middle is going to cause something in the highly tensed global and national economic systems to snap. When something snaps, there's no easy prediction as to where the pieces land or what else gets broken. The scary question is whether something already has snapped and we're just now beginning to realize it.

Who Should Get a Tax Rebate?

The idea of boosting the economy through a tax rebate has once again surfaced as politicians in Washington seek to find the appropriate band-aid to deal with the financial distress that manifests itself ever more intensely as the Congress cannot bring itself to perform the required surgery. The surprise isn't that things are going badly, it's that it took as long as it did for people to notice.

Assuming that a tax rebate would work, and I'm not convinced it will, it makes sense to ask who should get the rebate. It's not my question. The issue has already sparked debate, somewhat along partisan lines, in a Congress that promises to act quickly. Until and unless this question is resolved in a manner that gathers sufficient votes along with no executive branch opposition, there won't be a tax rebate.

If the theory of the rebate is to give individuals and businesses money to spend, ought not the money go to those who are most likely to spend it? Restricting the rebate to those who have paid income taxes would preclude a substantial portion of the population, and an even larger proportion of everyday consumers, from having additional money to spend. Rebates received by the wealthy are unlikely to alter their spending habits. The wealthy aren't likely to rush to the store because a $400 or $800 check has arrived. But for the working poor and the retired poor, an $800 check is far more than petty cash. It's not as though the working poor don't pay taxes. They might not pay income taxes but they pay social security taxes. Those taxes take a higher percentage of their income than they take from the incomes of the wealthy, in part because of the earnings cap and in part because the income of the wealthy has a much higher proportion that comes from income not subject to social security taxes.

As for businesses, will tax breaks for the international giants make a difference in what they spend? The businesses most in need of help are the ones barely breaking even, or perhaps losing money, possibly because their customers aren't spending. Yet of what use is another income tax deduction or an increased deduction to a business not owing income taxes because its taxable income is zero or negative? The taxes that choke businesses are state and local levies, often imposed on businesses getting little benefit from the government assessing the tax. Perhaps turning the state and local income tax deduction into a credit would help these enterprises, but it might not make sense to provide such relief to larger businesses.

It's all in the details, of course, and fiddling with the details is inconsistent with the expressed intention of doing something quickly. One difficulty with this sort of government intervention is that it's much like chasing a child on a sled after the child and sled start going down the hill. How likely is the parent, guardian, or baby-sitter to reach the sled and child before the sled and child hit the tree? Hopefully that image is better than the one about barn doors and horses.

The issuance of tax rebates will enlarge the federal deficit. At some point, that deficit will haunt the economy in ways that no tax rebate, even an abolition of taxes, will cure. So long as consumption exceeds production, so long as more wealth, particularly dollars, flow out of the country than flow into the country, so long as certain items remain in short supply and project to remain that way, the nation's economic and financial health will worsen. Tax rebates will not increase the supply of clean water, oil, natural gas, or any of the other resources mismatched to the demands of the world population. In some ways, it makes the question about who should get a tax rebate seem trivial, almost like fighting over a deck chair on a sinking ship.

Tax Busy-ness in the Pennsylvania Legislature

During the past week, the Pennsylvania legislature has been very active in the world of taxation. On Thursday, as reported in this Philadelphia Inquirer story, the state House passed a proposed constitutional amendment that would permit the state to restrict real property taxes to businesses and commercial enterprises while sparing homeowners any obligation to pay. Presently, the state constitution contains a provision permitting a 50 percent reduction in real property taxes imposed on homeowners.

The proposed constitution amendment cannot become law until it passes the Senate and is signed by the Governor. It then faces a second legislative enactment process and must be approved by the voters in a referendum. In other words, it would not take effect for at least a few years.

The House also enacted a bill that would reduce taxes for low-income workers and cut the state personal income tax. This provision cannot become law until it passes the Senate and is signed by the Governor, but a referendum is not required. The bill is what remains of a much larger proposal that would have cut a variety of other taxes. According to this earlier Philadelphia Inquirer story, at one point the legislation included reductions in, or elimination, of, the gross receipts tax on sales of cell phones, the inheritance tax, the corporate net income tax, and apparently an array of other taxes. Eventually, the realization that there would be little, if any, tax revenue left for states and localities to collect caused the legislature to disregard the proposed cuts other than the personal income tax reduction. My guess is that the parade of amendments served its purpose, namely, permitting sponsors to tell their constituents that they tried to eliminate taxation but were unable to overcome those who prefer to impose taxes.

So what would happen if somehow the legislature did repeal most, if not all, of the state's taxes? How would people react? Would there be dancing in the streets? Or would that stop once someone stepped into a pothole? When would the reality hit home?

The Return of the Federal Gasoline Tax Increase Proposal

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission (NSTPRSC) has recommended an increase in the federal gasoline tax. As reported by CNN, the proposal is for an increase that could be as much as 40 cents, phased in over a five-year period. The revenues from the tax would be dedicated to repairing highways and bridges, and to making improvements that would decrease traffic congestion. Thereafter, the tax would be adjusted for inflation. Some of the revenue would be used for reconstruction and expansion of railroads.

The members of the Commission, whose report has not yet been released, are divided on this question. Several plan to issue dissents, because they prefer raising revenue through tolls and selling public assets to private investors.

According to the CNN story, the recommendation of the NSTPRSC dovetails with those made by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, some states, and some other business organizations. All of these groups see a need to fix the nation's transportation infrastructure. These aren't the only ones who advocate increasing the gasoline tax. Calls for hikes of up to $1 per gallon have been made, for example, by Business Week, and by Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard University.

It's not difficult to find people who oppose the idea of raising the federal gasoline tax. At Fred08 the position is that there already is sufficient money and the solution is to give decision making on the issue to the people who use the roads, rather than imposing federal taxes and federal mandates. How comfortable are we leaving specifications for bridge gusset plates to bridge users? Ron Paul has , to use his words, blasted the recommended increase. In his view, the cost of gasoline should be adjusted to fit what people are able to pay rather than the economic burdens gasoline use imposes on society and the economy. The folks at Tank the Gas Tax devote their efforts to repealing the tax, so it's safe to assume they oppose any increase. How they would fund highways isn't clear.

Nor is it difficult to learn where I stand on the issue. After the disaster in Minneapolis, I expressed surprise at the reaction by the President and the Transporation Secretary to proposals to increase the gasoline tax to fund infrastructure repair, in Funding the Infrastructure: When Free Isn't Free. I have repeatedly objected to the idea of reducing gasoline taxes to accommodate rising prices, as explained repeatedly in these posts: September 2005, March 2005, another one from March 2005, May 2004, and March 2004. The post, Raise, Don't Lower, Fuel Taxesalmost says it all.

It is human nature to want things for free, to seek preferential treatment, to get someone else to do one's work, to live on the backs of others. It takes intelligence, wisdom, and a sense of justice to understand that there is no such thing as a freeway, even if a select few find a way to make it free for themselves. Someone needs to pay. The mentality that brings the "I get to go straight out of the left turn lane because I am special" approach to driving surely dovetails with the "I get to use the highways without paying for them" mindset. The gasoline tax hasn't been increased for 15 years. The costs of repairing highways has increased during the same time period. That alone should close the door to the notion that the federal gasoline tax should be locked in forever at its current level.

Realists point out that increasing the federal gasoline tax is a politically difficult thing to do. For example, the Washington Post quotes Leon Panetta as explaining, "I don't think there's any question that as a matter of policy it makes a lot of sense to move in that direction, but politically it's a very high hurdle to get over." Of course it is. But if the nation doesn't clear that hurdle, the gasoline tax debate might become trivial in comparison to what awaits us if this situation isn't fixed, and fixed quickly.

When User Fees Exceed Costs: What to Do?

Last week, in User Fees and Costs, I explained why I think user fees, such as tolls, should be used for construction, maintenance, and repair of the item for which the fee is charged, together with the expense of offsetting the impact of the item on adjacent areas and activities. I made these comments in connection with a proposal by New Jersey Governor Corzine to raise tolls on New Jersey toll roads rather steeply in order to pay not only for transportation throughout the state but also to pay down the debt incurred by the state on account of consistent budget deficits.

Now that there has been some time to study Corzine's proposal in more detail, plus the release of more information, two Philadelphia Inquirer writers have penned a story explaining that, if implemented, the toll hikes would generate revenues exceeding what is required to maintain and repair the state's highways and to pay off the general debt. It appears that by 2022, the proposed annual toll revenues would almost double what is needed to operate the state's highways and pay off the debt.

The governor's response? The extra revenue could be applied to reduction of the tolls. My inquiry? Then why raise the tolls by such a substantial amount? I'm wondering if the "reduction" would come in the form of an income tax rebate to state residents, leaving toll-paying nonresidents out in the cold. Why do I think this? Corzine stated, "If it [the increased tolls] does produce profit, the benefit will be for the citizens of New Jersey." I wonder if a plan with such an effect could withstand constitutional challenge.

The governor's second response? Spend the extra revenue on transportation. My inquiry? What transportation? Existing roads that are not toll roads and nowhere near the toll roads? Public transportation? Assistance to low-income families to purchase energy efficient vehicles? I wonder how well thought out this plan is. In other words, is the plan a plan or simply the expression of an idea that has not been thoroughly analyzed? I'm not the only one thinking this way. One member of the state Assembly commented, "The idea of raising more money than you actually need just tells me that this entire enterprise has not been thought out correctly."

It might be acceptable, in a truly free market, for private enterprise to cost its goods and services at what the market will bear. But when a government imposes a user fee, it ought to charge no more than is necessary to provide what the user fee purchases. Governments ought not be in the business of making profits. And, as I pointed out in last week's User Fees and Costs, user fees ought not be diverted to unrelated disconnected activities. Corzine's proposal appears to violate both of these principles, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps deliberately. Until yet more information is disclosed, and some is promised for release this week, it's too soon to decide if the excess is planned or unexpected.

How Simple and Fair is Fair? Part 2

A reader sent along a comment and two questions about my How Simple and Fair is Fair? posting on the FairTax, and asked me to explain. I welcome the opportunity to elaborate.

First, the reader commented:

Yes, we will all pay taxes whether it is withheld from our paychecks or paid at the register; but the big difference is that under the Fair Tax plan we have the CHOICE to NOT make the purchase or save our money and NOT pay taxes. Under our current tax system I do not have a choice.

In response, I analyzed the difference between theoretical choice and practical needs:

In theory, a person can choose not to spend their money and thus avoid the proposed federal sales/consumption tax. But that person must eat, needs a place to live, must have transportation of some sort, needs health care, requires clothing, and has other needs that preclude the option of not making purchases. The proposed prebate does not cover sufficient purchases for people living in most metropolitan areas. A similar argument can be made of the income tax. A person can avoid the income tax by not having income. That person wouldn't last long, either.

Second, the reader asked

Why do the critics keep saying the rich don't spend their money? Does the good fairy provide them expensive homes, cars and vacations?

In response, I provided an example of why critics of the FairTax think it lets the wealthy off the hook relative to other taxpayers:

The rich spend proportionately far less of their money than do the poor and middle-class. For example, a person earning $100,000 probably spends all of it. Perhaps they save a little and spend $80,000. For ease of computation I'll use 25% as the proposed federal sales tax rate. The person just described would pay $20,000 or $25,000 depending on if they saved $20,000 of the $100,000. Let's say the prebate gives the person $6,000 back. So the person incurs a tax of $19,000 or $14,000. That's an effective rate of 14% or 19%. Contrast the rich person who has $1,000,000 of income. That person spends, say, $400,000 (which buys a lot, quite a lot). The tax? $100,000, or $94,000 after prebate. Effective rate on their income? 9.4%. Now let's add in the ease with which the rich person can spend some of the $400,000 abroad, say on a vehicle or house they keep in Portugal. Good luck collecting the tax. Short answer: there are all sorts of studies showing that as incomes rise, the proportion that is spent decreases. The sales tax is a regressive tax. Add in the prebate and the tax gets the classic bubble, namely, highest effective marginal rate on the middle incomes.

The comment and questions focus attention on issues that don't get sufficient treatment in campaign soundbites. When people have a chance to think analytically about the FairTax, and look behind the slogans and superficial summaries, they can get a better picture of what the FairTax does, and base their decision to support or reject it on facts and analysis rather than platitudes.

User Fees and Costs

New Jersey Governor Corzine has unveiled his budget plan, and among his proposals is a recommendation that tolls on New Jersey's toll roads be increased. Under the plan, tolls would be increased in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022, by as much as 50 percent. There also would be increases linked to inflation every four years until 2083. Some of the toll hikes would pay for improvements and repairs to New Jersey roads, and part of the toll revenue increase would be used to reduce the state's debt. The plan also includes the formation of a corporation that would borrow against the anticipated increases and pay New Jersey for the right to manage the toll roads and collect the revenue. The corporation's profits would be used to fund transportation projects. Officials consider toll increases to be realistic because many tolls are paid by nonresidents of the state who are passing through on their way to some other place. Supporters of the plan think that motorists using E-Z-Pass won't object as much as they otherwise would because the don't "see the actual fees" being paid.

According to this Courier News story, reaction has been very negative. Republicans call the proposed toll increases "an additional tax." Another claimed that the proposal was "a solution only my teenagers would have come up with." Yet another pointed out that people who rely on the toll roads for daily travel and commuting would bear an unfair portion of the burden.

As an advocate of user fees, I support the notion that toll roads should pay for themselves. The toll should be based on the cost of building, expanding, improving, repairing, maintaining, policing, and monitoring the road. It isn't difficult for a cost accountant to determine how much it costs to operate the New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, or any other toll road. Tolls should be increased as costs increase, and though it is preferable to recalculate the cost each year, it might be easier to use some sort of inflation index and do the cost recalculation every four or five years.

What many see as objectionable is the use of toll revenues from a toll road to fund other government projects and functions. I don't think there is a simple yes or no response to the question of whether this is fair, appropriate, or sensible. The analysis I support is one that looks at the impact of the toll road and its use on surrounding residents, neighborhoods, and infrastructure. Traffic volume surrounding a toll road interchange is higher than it otherwise would be, and that generates additional costs for the local government. It makes sense to include in the toll an amount that offsets the cost of widening adjacent highways, installing traffic signals, increasing the size of the local police force, adding resources to local emergency service units, and similar expenses of having a toll road in one's backyard. I understand the argument that because the locality benefits economically from the existence of the toll road and its interchange that it ought not be subsidized by the toll road. It is unclear, though, whether the toll road is a net benefit or disadvantage. If it were such a wonderful thing, why are new roads so vehemently opposed by so many towns and civic organizations?

Using toll revenue to maintain and repair roads and infrastructure far from the toll road is more difficult to justify. Other than relying on arguments such as the maintenance of a high quality state-wide road network that would attract more tourists and business ventures, proponents of siphoning toll revenue to distant areas have a, sorry, tough road to hoe. A better approach would be to impose tolls on heavily used roads in those distant areas.

People do not like toll roads, and people do not like toll increases. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a freeway or a costless highway. If the motorist does not pay, someone else is paying. The argument that it is unfair to use toll revenue to build schools, or to pay the debt incurred in building schools, in some other county can be turned very easily into one that points out the unfairness of using general tax revenue paid by many to support the cost of a road used by fewer than many.

My guess is that the tolls on New Jersey's toll roads need to be increased to offset increased costs of repair, maintenance, and expansion of those roads. To that extent, Corzine's plan is defensible. To figure out how to pay the debt saddling New Jersey, ought not the legislature figure out how that debt was incurred? What expenditures in previous years required the increase in debt? What needs to be increased are the taxes that should have been increased in the earlier years when those expenditures were made. Perhaps some of those expenditures were for underfunded or unfunded costs of the toll roads. That, however, is unlikely. It is difficult, therefore, to justify charging motorists on the toll roads for programs that have nothing to do with the toll roads. The fact that those motorists might include nonresidents with no voice in the matter, or that drivers somewhat clueless about what is being charged to their credit cards through E-Z-Pass are not sufficient reasons to hike the tolls beyond what the toll roads and the adjacent infrastructure requires.

How Simple and Fair is Fair?

Advocates of the Fair Tax are treating Mike Huckabee's victory in the Iowa Republican caucus as a triumph for the Fair Tax proposal. According to the Fair Tax web site, Huckabee's victory indicates that the Fair Tax proposal is getting ready to sweep into the next set of primaries as a prominent factor in the 2008 election. It is not unrealistic to suppose that during the next few months, the Fair Tax proposal will get even more attention, though it is competing with a variety of other hot-button issues. Keeping public attention on the details of a tax issue is challenging, but important.

What is the Fair Tax?

The Fair Tax website lays out the basics. Under the Fair Tax, all federal personal and corporate income taxes would be repealed. So, too, would be the gift tax, the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax, social security taxes, medicare taxes, and self-employment taxes. Surely that will get people's attention. These federal taxes are replaced with a federal retail sales tax administered by state sales tax officials in state revenue departments. Each household would receive a check covering the estimated tax on expenditures up to the household's annual consumption allowance. This so-called prebate is intended to eliminate the proposed sales tax on expenditures up to the poverty level.

Proponents of the Fair Tax claim that one of its advantages is the elimination of the IRS. They assert that it would be a very simple system. They also claim that it would enable workers to keep their entire paycheck, retirees to keep their entire pension, American products to compete fairly, Social Security and Medicare funds to be maintained, along with some other alleged benefits.

Criticism of the Fair Tax is easy to find. One can read analyses by Bruce Bartlett, Linda Beale, The New York Times, and others. There have been so many criticisms that the Fair Tax advocates have dedicated a portion of their web site for rebuttals of the criticisms.

For the moment, I am going to focus on five concerns. The Fair Tax is not as simple as alleged. The administration of the Fair Tax will not be uniform. People will not keep their entire paychecks and pensions. To provide the promised funding, the Fair Tax will raise overall federal tax revenues. The Fair Tax isn't necessarily fair.

Though advocates of the Fair Tax assert it is simple and transparent, consider the proposed definition of a household and who is considered to be a member:

The term “qualified family” means one or more family members sharing a common residence. A qualified family consists of all family members sharing the common residence. Family members include an individual and his or her spouse, children and grandchildren, parents, and grandparents. Children/students living away from home are considered family members if they are registered as a student for at least five months out of the year and receive at least 50 percent of their support from the family unit. Children of divorced parents are considered to be family members of the custodial parent. Incarcerated individuals are not eligible to be members of a qualified family.
In order for a person to be counted as a member of the family for purposes of determining the size of the qualified family, a person must have a valid Social Security number and be a lawful resident of the United States. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, the application/registration form that families who choose to receive the prebate must file is simple and straightforward. Those choosing not to register will not receive a prebate. The registration form requires only the following information:
1. The name of each family member who shares the residence;
2. the Social Security number of each family member;
3. the family member to whom the monthly prebate check should be paid;
4. a sworn statement that all listed family members are lawful residents, that all family members sharing the common residence are listed, and that no listed family members are incarcerated;
5. the address of the shared residence; and
6. the signature of all family members 21 years of age and older.

Each of the terms in this description need to be defined. What is a common residence? Who is the spouse? Is a person a spouse if he or she abandons the residence during the year? Who qualifies as a student? How is support calculated? What constitutes incarceration? What happens if someone is not a member of the household for some portion of the year due to illness? How are kidnaped children counted? In other words, all of the complexities that afflict sections 151 and 152 of the current Internal Revenue Code would still be with us. There are special rules for hobby losses that resemble section 183, special rules for gaming activities, an exemption for intermediate sales, provisions affecting purchases by governments, rules for mixed-use property, not-for-profit organizations, and financial intermediation services. Each of these provisions includes all sorts of terms that need to be defined. For example, the need for complex definitions dealing with non-profit organizations will be no less under the Fair Tax than under the current income tax. Bottom line? The Fair Tax is nowhere near as simple as advertised. That it is presumably less complicated than the current income tax is not a noteworthy achievement. Everything is less complicated that the current income tax.

The proposed administration of the Fair Tax will be a nightmare. Advocates of the Fair Tax, intent on eliminating the IRS, propose that each state administer the program through their revenue departments. What about states without a sales tax? Will they be compelled to create special departments to handle their Fair Tax duties? Where do they find people to administer the tax? Hire them away from other states? Outsource the work to other nations? Have the advocates of the Fair Tax ever taken a close look at the administration of state sales (and use) taxes? Do they think this is an improvement over IRS administration? What if one state defines a non-profit organization differently than does another? What if one state deals with kidnaped children differently than another? A tax that is not administered uniformly is not fair.

The assertion that workers will keep their entire paychecks and retirees their entire pensions is a semantic tap dance. When workers and retirees pay the proposed federal sales tax, they will be using part of their paychecks and pensions. Whether tax is withheld, or paid out of pocket, when the dust settles, the person does not have in his or her hand all of the paycheck or pension. A tax is a tax. Trying to fool people into thinking that they will receive a paycheck and not pay any taxes because there is no withholding is the style of snake oil sales reps. Playing on people's misunderstandings is manipulative. And wrong.

Advocates of the Fair Tax claim that enough revenue will be raised to fund Social Security, Medicare, and other federal programs. If that's to be the case, then the Fair Tax must raise more revenue than do current federal taxes, because the current system is causing the nation to incur deficits. In other words, the Fair Tax would increase federal revenue. That means somebody's federal tax payments will increase. Or perhaps a bunch of somebodies will incur tax hikes. Why not advertise this fact? Why lure people into thinking that the Fair Tax will reduce everyone's taxes and yet somehow increase total tax revenue? Something is out of whack.

The Fair Tax isn't all that fair. The impact on the people with incomes at or below the poverty line would be minimal, because the prebate would offset the taxes they pay. In contrast, because the wealthy spend relatively little of their income, their tax burden would be far less than what it would be if it applied to their entire income. So who pays the bill? The middle class, which spends most of its income and which therefore would pay a higher percentage of its income in tax than would the poor or the rich. Somehow, it seems to me that the Fair Tax is a refined version of what has been done with the income tax, namely, absolve the wealthy, particularly through the special low capital gains and dividends rates, and the poor, through the earned income tax credit, and let the middle class pay. Of course, once the middle class is taxed out of existence, what will the wealthy do with the hordes of poor people, particularly when they are frustrated and feel hopeless?

Finding the actual language of the proposal on the web site isn't easy. In fact, one must go to the Library of Congress Thomas website and search for the bill language. How many people can do that? Why not put the text of the bill on the Fair Tax web site? Perhaps because once people see it, they will question some of the assertions.

A quote from the current standard bearer for the Fair Tax, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, reveals quite a lot about his own understanding of the Fair Tax: "Instead, we will have the Fair Tax, a simple tax based on wealth.” Excuse me, Mr. Huckabee, a tax based on wealth would not be computed by reference to consumption.

Chances of the Fair Tax becoming law are between nil and none. If those who seek the unquestionably necessary change in the federal tax system could direct their energies to support of a plan that did not require complex transition, did not shift more tax burden onto the middle class, eliminated computations based on joint and household concepts, and tied ability to pay with incidence of taxation reflecting benefits provided by society, federal tax reform's chances might slip beyond none into the realm of slim and possible. I am confident that if Americans avoid the sound bites and think carefully about the Fair Tax plan, they will see whose ox is going to be gored.

Tax Cuts = Deaths?

Almost four years ago, in A Tax Trifecta: Gas, Enforcement, and Special Interests, I commented on a Philadelphia City Council plan to reduce the local tax burden of an insurance company. The tax relief followed the company's announcement that without the tax reduction it would take itself and its 1,000 jobs to some other place. I asked:

So what happens if this [plan is] approved? Are new jobs created? No. Do city tax revenues increase? No. Do city tax revenues decrease? Yes. How does the city make up for the decrease? It could reduce services, increase taxes on other taxpayers, or borrow money. The first choice drives more individual taxpayers (and small businesses) out of the city or out of business. The second choice does the same thing. The third choice requires further cuts to finance the interest payments, and poses a long-term threat to the city's financial stability. It wasn't that long ago that New York City almost defaulted on its debt.

It turns out that the first alternative, reducing services, does more than drive individual taxpayers and small businesses out of the city or out of business. It can kill people.

According to Philadelphia's City Controller, the city's ambulances are so slow in responding to emergency calls that there is only a 60 percent chance that they will arrive in time to save a person's life. In this Philadelphia Daily News report, Alan Butkovitz, the City Controller, explained that at least 40 percent of ambulance runs do not arrive within the nine minute period recommended by EMS experts as the standard, that the city has insufficient ambulances, insufficient paramedics, increasing calls for assistance, and a deteriorating communications and dispatch system. The chief of the Fire Department, which runs emergency services, admits that it is a struggle to keep up with public demand for help. The problems were anticipated by union members and by journalists, but little has been done to repair the system. Why?

The reason simply is lack of resources. The City Controller suggests that scheduled business tax cuts should be delayed. The incoming Mayor ran in part on a pledge to accelerate those cuts. What will happen? Will tax cuts be maintained? Accelerated? Postponed? Will people begin to die?

A few days after Butkovitz issued his statement, a woman died after waiting for more than an hour after calling 911 for an ambulance. According to this Philadelphia Daily News story, the ambulance that eventually showed up then broke down. It was based in south Philadelphia, and was responding to a call from Northeast Philadelphia. Not what one would call a neighborhood service. Forty minutes later another ambulance arrived but it was too late. I'm sure the City Controller is far from pleased that his prediction has come true. People are dying for want of sufficient emergency services.

In my earlier commentary on the disadvantages of tax breaks targeted for specific, usually large, business entities, I wrote "The city is in a spiral. A revenue death spiral." Little did I know that my figurative use of language would turn out to be literal. People are dying. The politicians should be more than embarrassed, and should do more than express their apologies. As I wrote almost four years ago,

How can it get out of [the revenue death spiral]? What is needed is clear: it needs a tax base. It needs jobs. It needs businesses willing to set up shop in the city and it needs people willing to live in the city. It needs a reversal of the trends of the past 30 years.

Why do people not live in the city? Most say it is the high taxes and the low quantity and quality of services. I think it is more than that. I think it is a matter of people not wanting to live or work in a place that suffers from the inefficiencies and political games that afflict Philadelphia government. People don't "see" Philadelphia as a great place to live and work. Philadelphia needs to examine WHY people are reluctant to live and work within its boundaries. It needs to ask questions and it needs to be prepared for answers that it won't like and that will cause much angst. It needs to admit that the policies of the last 30 years, even if suspended for a mayoral term here or there, don't work and should be rejected. THAT will require a huge shift in the way things are done in Philadelphia.

I concluded that "My guess is that it will not happen." I wonder if the unfortunate death of a citizen left without timely assistance will change things. Or, will my initial prediction, that "It won't happen because people are walking away rather than staying to fight for change," turn out to be correct?