Wow… that is quite a lot of information to digest and to comment on. I need to read it through a few more times. It does occur to me that the complexity of our tax structure and the financial hierarchy of our society is quite purposeful and intentional. I wonder if this was the intention of Hamilton, or if over 250 years human nature took over and it evolved into the system we currently have?
I doubt that Hamilton expected anything like what we have. Our first income tax was around the Civil War and was repealed shortly thereafter. It wasn't until the 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, that we had an income tax system.
There is an astounding amount of intentional gaming in today's system. Nobody would have thought of some of our exemptions unless they were pushed by special interests. For example, in the 1097 pages of the Trump tax cut law, check out, for example, the text on page 141 defining “rules for plants bearing fruits and nuts”.
Very few people understand even the basics of how our tax system works, which makes it a very convenient place to hide gifts to various interests. And the media obligingly focuses most articles about taxes on marginal rates, which simply don't matter to the wealthy.
+1, Thanks for this amazing service. Great summary resource to understand a complex topic. Better than high school civics class - because now I am old enough to understand (most) of it.
This blog keeps getting more and more interesting. Thanks for this topic - I've not seen a lot of press coverage on this before. Keep it up.
Thanks. The press coverage on this stuff is really lacking — they focus on marginal tax rate and occasionally mention capital gains rates.
Wow… that is quite a lot of information to digest and to comment on. I need to read it through a few more times. It does occur to me that the complexity of our tax structure and the financial hierarchy of our society is quite purposeful and intentional. I wonder if this was the intention of Hamilton, or if over 250 years human nature took over and it evolved into the system we currently have?
I doubt that Hamilton expected anything like what we have. Our first income tax was around the Civil War and was repealed shortly thereafter. It wasn't until the 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, that we had an income tax system.
There is an astounding amount of intentional gaming in today's system. Nobody would have thought of some of our exemptions unless they were pushed by special interests. For example, in the 1097 pages of the Trump tax cut law, check out, for example, the text on page 141 defining “rules for plants bearing fruits and nuts”.
Very few people understand even the basics of how our tax system works, which makes it a very convenient place to hide gifts to various interests. And the media obligingly focuses most articles about taxes on marginal rates, which simply don't matter to the wealthy.
+1, Thanks for this amazing service. Great summary resource to understand a complex topic. Better than high school civics class - because now I am old enough to understand (most) of it.
Thanks.
Lee, you do a fabulous job of explaining concepts most of us know little or nothing about. Thanks for this amazing service.
Thanks.