Tag Archives: income tax reform

the administration, the economy and the stock market

August 15, 2018 By in corporate income tax reform, corporate tax reform in the US, government economic policy, income tax rates, taxes, Trump, taxes and trade, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

I’m taking off my hat as an American and putting on my hat as an investor for this post.

That is, I’m putting aside questions like whether the Trump agenda forms a coherent whole, whether Mr. Trump understands much/any of what he’s doing, whether Trump is implementing policies whispered in his ear by backers in the shadows–and why congressmen of both parties have been little more than rubber stamps for his proposals.

My main concern is the effect of his economic policies on stocks.

the tax cut

The top corporate tax rate was reduced from 35% to 21% late last year.  In addition, the wealthiest individuals received tax breaks, a continuation of the “trickle down” economics that has been the mainstay of Washington tax policy since the 1980s.

The new 21% rate is about average for the rest of the world.  This suggests that US corporations will no longer see much advantage in reincorporating abroad in low-tax jurisdictions.  The evidence so far is that they are also dismantling the elaborate tax avoidance schemes they have created by holding their intellectual property, and recognizing most of their profits, in foreign low-tax jurisdictions.  (An aside:  this should have a positive effect on the trade deficit since we are now recognizing the value of American IP as part of the cost of goods made by American companies overseas (think: smartphones.)

My view is that this development was fully discounted in share prices last year.

The original idea was that tax reform would also encompass tax simplification–the elimination of at least part of the rats nest of special interest tax breaks that plagues the federal tax code.  It’s conceivable that Mr. Trump could have used his enormous power over the majority Republican Party to achieve this laudable goal.  But he seems to have made no effort to do so.

Two important consequences of this last:

–the tax cut is a beg reduction in government income, meaning that it is a strong stimulus to economic activity.  That would have been extremely useful, say, nine years ago, but at full employment and above-trend growth, it puts the US at risk of overheating.

–who pays for this?  The bill’s proponents claim that the tax cut will pay for itself through higher growth.  The more likely outcome as things stand now, I think, is that Millennials will inherit a country with a least a trillion dollars more in sovereign debt than would otherwise be the case.

One positive consequence of the untimely fiscal stimulus is that it makes room for the Fed to remove its monetary stimulus (it now has rates at least 100 basis points lower than they should be) faster, and with greater confidence that will do no harm.

Two complications:  Mr. Trump has begun to jawbone the Fed not to do this, apparently thinking a supercharged, unstable economy will be to his advantage.  Also, higher rates raise the cost of borrowing to fund a higher government budget deficit + burgeoning government debt.

 

Tomorrow: the messy trade arena

the border tax

April 28, 2017 By in border tax, corporate income tax reform, income tax rates, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

too-high corporate tax rate

The rate at which the domestic earnings of US corporations are taxed by the federal government is unusually high by world standards.

Corporate response has been what one would expect:  some firms leave for lower-tax jurisdictions; others engage in elaborate tax avoidance schemes, the bare bones of which I wrote about yesterday; still others spend tons of time and money lobbying Congress for exemptions.  Not a pretty picture.

What to do?

The straightforward answer would be to lower the tax rate and eliminate the special treatment.  Of course, congressmen, lobbyists and the industries receiving tax breaks are all against the latter.

border tax

That’s one reason for the appeal of a flat tax of perhaps 20% on the value of all imports–it leaves the status quo untouched but raises tax dollars to offset those lost through reducing rates.

A border tax would have another advantage, eliminating abuses from transfer pricing.  This is a practice whereby goods imported into the US are first shunted on paper through a tax haven where their price is raised.  The effect is to redirect profits from the US to the tax shelter country.

problems

The biggest theoretical issue with a border tax is the law of comparative advantage, the idea on which most international commerce is based that countries all gain by specializing in what they do best and buying everything else from abroad.  Contrary to what one might think at first, trying to do everything in-country and taxing imports reduces national wealth.

A big practical defect of the border tax, to my mind, is that there are mammoth categories of everyday goods–food, clothing, furniture, toys–that are only available at low cost in the US because they are made abroad.  Another is the question of retaliation, as the US is now doing against Canadian efforts to favor local milk products over imports from Wisconsin.

a rising dollar?

Border taxers reply to the higher-cost-of-imports issue by claiming that implementing a border tax will cause the dollar to rise–maybe even by enough to offset the effects of the border tax in dollar terms.  How so?

The argument is that every day US parties go into the currency markets wanting to exchange dollars for foreign currency.  Similarly, foreigners come with their currency to exchange into dollars to buy US-made stuff.  The interaction of supply and demand sets the exchange rate.

Post border tax, higher prices of foreign goods means less demand in the US for them, which means fewer dollars available for exchange, which means the price of dollars goes up. Some border tax advocates claim the dollar spike could be as much as +25%-30%.

huh?

I suppose this line of reasoning could be right. But it seems to assume, among othe things, that, contrary to what we’re doing with Canada, no one retaliates; and that demand for now-higher-priced US goods remains relatively unaffected.  Good luck with that.

Ultimately, though, I think that, whatever the strength of its conceptual underpinnings, the border tax is an attempt to avoid attacking the rats nest of special interest exemptions in the tax code while still lowering the headline rate. So it’s “fixing” one tax distortion by creating another.  That’s vintage Washington.  But making taxes more complex, not less, is a recipe for trouble.