How did supposedly sophisticated investors sign up for investments that have tax liability bombs in them? The seemingly arcane but actually important tax problem of UBTI, or “unrelated business taxable income,” illustrates how utterly outmatched private equity limited partners are by the general partners and their top-tier hired guns.
Read more...This weekend, former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson weighed in at the New York Times abouyt the need for more urgent action on the climate front, and described how various indicators of how quickly climate change is taking place, such as the speed of Arctic and Antarctic ice melt, are moving much faster than models had predicted.
Paulson, who has long been an ardent conservationist (and in contrast to his alpha Wall Street male standing, lives modestly), made a forceful pitch for carbon taxes. The irony of this proposal is that we have a Republican showing what a right-winger Obama really is.
Read more...Under a fiat currency regime, policymakers need to rethink what they tax and why.
Read more...Transfers don’t matter for investment, and most savings are transfers. Thus Piketty’s wealth tax won’t hurt investment.
Read more...Governments use taxes to move resources to the public sector, where they can be used to promote social goals.
Read more...We’ve published 12 private equity limited partnership agreements, including the KKR limited partnership agreement that was key to an important Wall Street Journal story. The source documents have been removed from the Pennsylvania Treasury’s website, so our document trove has now become the best source for these records.
Read more...Yves here. A lot of people argue for redistributive taxes, contending that they were very successful in the golden age of the American middle class, from the end of World War II through the Reagan era, in constraining the concentration of income and wealth at the top. However, that tax structure reflected a broad social consensus in favor of fostering prosperity for ordinary Americans, in no small measure to keep Communist impulses at bay.
In Yankee terms, Wray’s argument against using taxes to create a more egalitarian distribution of income is “You can’t get there from here”.
Read more...The Department of Justice wants the public to see the guilty plea it obtained from Credit Suisse as a Big Deal. Is it?
Read more...MMT argues that “taxes drive money” in the sense that imposition of a tax that is payable in the national government’s own currency will create demand for that currency. Sovereign government does not really need revenue in its own currency in order to spend.
Read more...Most economists deride Thomas Piketty’s recommendation of a wealth tax as the remedy to inequality. It might help if they did some empirical research.
Read more...It’s been creepy to see economists and the financial media cheering the re-levering by American households as a sign that they economy is on the mend and consumers are regaining their will to shop. The number of Americans who are tapping into their 401 (k) accounts is proof that the financial health of ordinary Americans is far from robust.
Read more...Michael Hudson discusses how Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century greatly understates the degree of wealth concentration with Karl Fitzgerald of Renegade Economists.
Read more...Yves here. The subject of inequality in income and wealth has, in the last year or so, become an oft-mentioned topic in economic and political commentary. It’s now even acceptable to use the word “oligarchy” to describe the US. Yet too often lost in the debate is that this type of inequality is the result of what right society allows various members to have. For instance, in the last 30 years, intellectual property laws have gotten stronger while the rights of workers to organize have been cut back.
We had a more equitable society when unions were stronger, taxes were more progressive, and anti-trust laws were enforced. This post by Geoff Davis serves as a reminder that there are remedies other than progressive taxation (which he regards as an after-the-fact remedy) to achieve that end.
Read more...Contrary to the claims of some overwrought Easter weekend posts, the tax court did not revoke attorney-client privilege. Here’s why.
Read more...ur nation’s tax code reflects our corrupt politics. The code contains many provisions that benefit our wealthiest, most powerful companies and people while hurting the rest of us.
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