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The Market Center Blog

Observations and insights on the global fight
for economic freedom and prosperity

CF&P's Market Center Blog Archives
May 2008

Monday, May 12, 2008 ~ 4:44 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Energy Subsidies and Cost-Benefit Analysis. The Wall Street Journal's excellent editorial page analyzes government data on the the level of subsidies compared to the amount of energy produced. Not surprisingly, solar power, wind power, and ethanol are exposed as being ridiculously inefficient. This does not mean that they will always be uneconomical, but it certainly suggests that market forces should govern energy, not politically-driven subsidies:

Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables." Even more subsidies are set to pass this year. An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59. The wind and solar lobbies are currently moaning that they don't get their fair share of the subsidy pie. They also argue that subsidies per unit of energy are always higher at an early stage of development, before innovation makes large-scale production possible. But wind and solar have been on the subsidy take for years, and they still account for less than 1% of total net electricity generation. ...The same study also looked at federal subsidies for non-electrical energy production, such as for fuel. It found that ethanol and biofuels receive $5.72 per British thermal unit of energy produced. That compares to $2.82 for solar and $1.35 for refined coal, but only three cents per BTU for natural gas and other petroleum liquids. All of this shows that there is a reason fossil fuels continue to dominate American energy production: They are extremely cost-effective. That's a reality to keep in mind the next time you hear a politician talk about creating millions of "green jobs." Those jobs won't come cheap, and you'll be paying for them.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121055427930584069.html

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Sunday, May 11, 2008 ~ 7:51 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Obama Wants America to be a German-Style Welfare State. A German journalist writing in the Wall Street Journal explains that Senator Obama's proposals to expand the size and scope of government will mean European-style stagnation and unemployment:

When I begin to feel homesick for Germany, I have discovered a cheap and easy way out. I simply turn on the TV and listen to a Barack Obama stump speech. ...Mr. Obama...has promised not only a $160 billion program for new green-collar jobs, a higher minimum wage, affordable health care for everybody, a massive investment in infrastructure and tax-free status for pensioners who make less than $50,000. All these nice things come with no tax increase for 95% of Americans. Wow! That's Germany-plus! I've been in the U.S. for a while, but if I remember my home country correctly, all the German comforts come with a price. My grandma has paid 10% of her salary to the public pension system, and her employer has matched the contribution. For our health insurance everyone has to sacrifice 7% of his or her earnings, which again is matched by the company. Fashionable windmills go along with extra taxes for fuel. A gallon of regular gas in Munich or Berlin costs - fasten your seat belt - more than $8. Not all of my fellow Germans are happy with this, but the overwhelming majority of my fellow countrymen made their decision a long time ago. They prefer big government. They have learned to live with growth rates far behind and an unemployment rate far above the U.S.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121038123776782371.html

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Saturday, May 10, 2008 ~ 8:30 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Criminals Benefit when Politicians Impose High Taxes on Cigarettes. Patrick Fleenor of the Tax Foundation explains in the Wall Street Journal that New York politicians are enriching criminals - including perhaps terrorists - when they over-tax cigarettes and encourage smuggling:

On April 23, less than two weeks after Mr. Nablisi's arrest was made public, Gov. David Paterson signed into law a $1.25 per-pack tax hike on top of the state's $1.50 per-pack tax. That's in addition to New York City's own $1.50 per-pack tax. Come July 1, New York City's smokers will be paying on average $9 a pack for legal cigarettes. But if history is any guide, most cigarettes sold will actually be trucked up from Virginia, or shipped in from China, by "butt-leggers" who can make over $1 million on each tractor-trailer load of smuggled smokes. The blunt fact, which politicians of both political parties are determined to ignore, is that high cigarette taxes in New York have led to a bloody, decades-long smuggling epidemic. ...As a state tax enforcement official noted, it soon became "literally more profitable to hijack a cigarette-delivery truck than an armored truck." More tax hikes followed in the 1990s. City and state records of tax-paid cigarettes show sales plummeting, despite stable smoking rates. This signals the resurgence of smuggling and large-scale tax evasion. As the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said in September 2002 of New York's cigarette smuggling, "Traditional organized crime is involved, terrorist groups are involved, and street gangs are involved." Rivalry among these groups has resulted in numerous shootings and homicides. ...Politicians continue to use the health of smokers as their excuse for higher cigarette taxes. This view is myopic. As Gov. Wilson argued three decades ago, high cigarette taxes are bad public policy because of their effect on the rest of us. In the 1960s and '70s, organized crime exploited high cigarette taxes at our expense. Today we face an even deadlier adversary.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121012081570272357.html

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Friday, May 9, 2008 ~ 5:41 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Investor's Business Daily Eviscerates Statist Energy Plan Concocted by Senate Democrats. The good news is that big-government Republicans lost control of the Senate in 2006. The bad news is that big-government Democrats took over. One of the worst proposals developed by the new majority is an energy bill that combines bad tax policy and bad economic policy. Investor's Business Daily shred the economic illiteracy of the proposal:

In their ongoing war against U.S. oil producers, Senate Democrats say they'll slap Big Oil with a windfall profits tax and take away $17 billion in tax breaks, among other punishments. The planned 25% tax on windfall profits would be imposed on oil company earnings above what the Senate's wise members decided was "reasonable."  ...Senators also want to impose steep penalties on "price gouging" - despite the fact that some 17 separate studies have found it doesn't exist. The plan amounts to little more than an attempt to impose price controls - a socialist tool dressed up in populist garb. ...As any student who's taken Econ 101 at the local junior college can tell you, higher taxes don't encourage production; they discourage it. ...They should at least have read the report from their own nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2006. ...Over the entire 1980-1986 period," the study said, "the (windfall profits tax) reduced domestic oil production from between 320 million barrels . . . and 1,268 million barrels." The study also concluded: "The effect of reducing domestic oil production was to increase the level of imported oil." ...Revenues from the windfall tax were far less than expected, because producers pumped less and nontaxed imports flooded our market. Compared with a forecast of $393 billion in windfall tax revenues from 1980 to 1988, Congress got a mere $80 billion.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295139502258630

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Thursday, May 8, 2008 ~ 9:27 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Hungary Moves Closer to a Flat Tax? According to an English-language Hungarian website, three parties all agree on some form of flat tax. This theoretically means tax reform is possible at some point this year, but it remains to be seen whether there will be agreement on the details:

A flat income tax rate may replace the current 18% and 36% rates within a few years or as early as next year, as three opposition parties are making recommendations for its introduction, writes Vilaggazdasag. MDF is proposing an 18%, flat income tax in it "National Tax Freedom" ("Nemzeti adószabadság") program, while the Liberals have repeated their recommendation of a 20% income tax. Last week, Fidesz joined those proposing tax reforms, but the party's proposals are more geared towards supporting families. Details and the exact rate of tax - between 15% and 20% - are expected to be worked out by the fall. However, even if opposition parties agree that a flat tax system is necessary, fierce debate can be expected on the details.
http://www.realdeal.hu/20080505/opposition-parties-push-for-flat-income-tax

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Thursday, May 8, 2008 ~ 8:55 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
United Kingdom Paying a Heavy Price for Bad Tax Policy. The geese that lay the golden eggs are not happy with the UK's oppressive and anti-competitive tax system. Tax-news.com reports that another major company is poised to escape the UK tax net while the Business Spectator looks at how tax competition is forcing policy makers to recognize that taxpayers no longer are fatted calves waiting for slaughter:

...it has emerged that yet another FTSE100 firm is considering switching its corporate HQ abroad in protest at the UK's increasingly burdensome corporate tax regime. Sir Martin Sorrel, head of WPP - the world's second largest advertising firm - told the BBC on Monday that if the Treasury introduced proposed rules to tax dividends earned by companies overseas in the UK, it could tip the balance in favour of relocating the firm's tax residence to a jurisdiction which does not tax such income, with Ireland likely to be top of the list. ...Sorrel's comments come hot on the heels of decisions by Shire Pharmaceuticals and United Business Media to set up holding companies in Jersey and relocate their corporate HQs to Ireland to cut their UK tax bills. He went on to point out that WPP already pays a significant sum in tax to the Treasury each year - about GBP200mn (USD394mn) - and the proposed new rules could add tens of millions of pounds to the company's annual tax bill in the UK. ..."Firms are seriously concerned about the high level and rising complexity of taxation in the UK and are increasingly prepared to vote with their feet. The Treasury cannot ignore this issue or argue that companies are crying wolf," said Richard Lambert, Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
http://www.tax-news.com/asp/story/Another_FTSE100_Firm_Threatens_To_ Quit_UK_Over_Tax_xxxx30899.html

Politicians fear loss of jobs and tax revenues when companies move their headquarters. ...Over the last decade, 6 per cent of multinationals have relocated, partly for tax reasons, according to research from Oxford University's Centre for Business Taxation. Companies competing with rivals based in lower-tax regimes are under pressure to cut their tax bills. ...UBS, the investment bank, predicts a "gradual erosion of governments' ability to tax". ...there is little reason for governments to panic about the threat of shifting headquarters. Companies will still pay tax on the factories, sales and other profitable activities in the countries where they operate. ...Kraft, Google, Electronic Arts and Yahoo have all recently switched their European headquarters from the UK to Switzerland. Ebay, Amazon and Microsoft have moved to Luxembourg. The Netherlands boasts names such as Cisco Systems, Nike and Starbucks. ...Ireland's success at attracting knowledge-based companies is seen as overly aggressive by some rival governments. Arnauld Montebourg, a French politician, last year accused low-tax Switzerland of "predatory practices". The Netherlands – which attracted Ikea from Sweden and Gucci from Italy – was lambasted for its approach to taxing mobile income by the Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, a non-profit research group. "All the empirical evidence indicates that the Netherlands is a tax haven," it said. These criticisms are shrugged off by tax competition advocates, who believe tax competitiveness encourages investment. ...Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI, the British employers' federation, says companies "are seriously concerned about the high level and rising complexity of taxation in the UK and are increasingly prepared to vote with their feet". ...more big companies are considering leaving the UK. International Power, WPP, AstraZeneca and GSK have all hinted that the matter is under review. ...The UK has also promised to cut the corporation tax further, following a 2 percentage point fall to 28 per cent this year. Gordon Brown last week told business leaders that one of his aims as prime minister was "to reduce corporation tax even further when we can afford to do so". Some businesses are clamouring for radical cuts. A recent CBI taskforce called for the corporation tax rate to fall, over time, to 18 per cent. ...if countries such as Britain become reconciled to losing headquarters to lower-tax rivals, they will pay a price. As well as shedding well-paid jobs and advisory work, they risk a decline in influence and investment as decision-makers go elsewhere. When world-leading businesses uproot themselves, more is at stake than national pride.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Taxed-out-of-the-country- ECRBV?OpenDocument

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008 ~ 5:31 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
More Mandates Equal Higher Insurance Costs. A column in the Wall Street Journal comments on the intellectual absurdity of Senator Obama supporting for health insurance mandates while also complaining about high costs for health insurance:

As a state senator in Illinois, he voted to require that dental anesthesia be covered by every health plan for difficult medical cases. Today, the requirement is one of 43 mandates imposed by Illinois on health insurance, according to the Illinois Division of Insurance. Other mandates require coverage of infertility treatments, drug rehab, "personal injuries" incurred while intoxicated, and other forms of care. By my count, during Mr. Obama's tenure in the state Senate, 18 different laws came up for a vote and passed that imposed new mandates on private health insurance. Mr. Obama voted for all of them. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama says people lack health insurance because "they can't afford it." He's right. But he is also partly responsible for why health insurance is too expensive. A long list of studies show that mandates like the ones Mr. Obama has championed drive up the cost of insurance for the very people priced out of coverage. A 2008 study by an insurance-industry supported research organization, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI), estimates that mandates increase the cost of basic health coverage by 20% to 50%, depending on the state. Average policies in high-mandate New Jersey cost about $4,000 according to a 2004 insurance survey, much more than the $1,200 charged in low-mandate Wyoming. ,,,The burden of paying for state mandates is usually borne by individuals who buy their own insurance, small employers and others not covered by ERISA. In total, about half of the people who have insurance bear the brunt of the cost of state mandates. ...If insurers were allowed to offer "bare-bones" plans – which would be cheaper because they would cover just essential care – many consumers who are priced out of health insurance now would likely buy these plans instead of living without insurance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120995014765166523.html

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008 ~ 11:47 a.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Radical Anti-Tax Competition Agenda Unveiled by Summers. In a depressing preview of likely policies if Senator Obama wins the White House, Bill Clinton's former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, openly admits in a Financial Times op-ed that he would like a global cartel of governments to curtail tax and regulatory competition:

...the US should take the lead in promoting global co-operation in the international tax arena. There has been a race to the bottom in the taxation of corporate income as nations lower their rates to entice business to issue more debt and invest in their jurisdictions. Closely related is the problem of tax havens... an increased focus of international economic diplomacy should be to prevent harmful regulatory competition. In many areas it is appropriate that regulations differ between countries in response to local circumstances. But there is a reason why progressives in the early part of the 20th century sought to have the federal government take over many kinds of regulatory responsibility. They were concerned that competition for business across states, and their ease of being able to move, would lead to a race to the bottom. Financial regulation is only one example of where the mantra of needing to be "internationally competitive" has been invoked too often as a reason to cut back on regulation. There has not been enough serious consideration of the alternative – global co-operation. 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/999160e6-1a03-11dd-ba02-0000779fd2ac.html

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008 ~ 11:03 a.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
More Entrepreneurs Escaping Germany's Punitive Tax Laws. A news report from the Wall Street Journal notes that, thanks to bad changes in tax law, there will probably be an increase in the number of successful Germans escaping to low-tax jurisdictions:

Thousands of wealthy Germans are considering exile as an alternative to seeing their assets eroded by Germany's first capital-gains tax and a proposed inheritance tax. Most of those concerned are industrialists -- successful members of the Mittelstand. The exodus bears comparison with the crisis in the U.K. over taxing nondomiciled residents, who comprise a large proportion of the country's financial-services community. ..."Up to 500 of the wealthiest people in Germany are leaving for Switzerland, Austria and the U.K. each year for tax reasons. A few years ago that number might have been just 100," according to Stephan Scherer, a partner of international law firm Shearman & Sterling in Mannheim, Germany. Capital-gains taxes, which can be as high as 25%, will come into force in Germany at the beginning of 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120967748812460725.html

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Monday, May 5, 2008 ~ 7:02 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Another Company Escapes Gordon Brown's Tax Prison. Ireland and Switzerland are big beneficiaries of the United Kingdom's punitive tax system. Another company has announced that it is expatriating from England, and this time Ireland is the winner. The UK's 28 percent corporate tax rate is part of the problem, but the real burden is that the rate is imposed on non-UK income (a mistake also present in America's tax system):

United Business Media plc (UBM) has announced plans to relocate its tax residency from the UK to the Republic of Ireland to take advantage of the latter country's "less complex system of taxation". Under the proposals, a new UBM holding company would be created which is UK-listed, incorporated in Jersey, but resident for tax purposes in Ireland. If the plan is approved by shareholders, UBM will be following in the footsteps of drug maker Shire, which on 15th April announced proposals for a similar corporate structure to "protect the group's taxation position". ...For historical reasons, the United Business Media group's parent company has been tax resident in the UK. However UBM has been progressively disposing of its UK media businesses, including the Anglia, HTV, Meridian and Channel 5 television franchises, Express Newspapers, NOP market research and Exchange & Mart. "Consequently, the Board of UBM now believes that the long term interests of UBM and its Shareholders are best served by the adoption of an international holding company corporate structure that domiciles UBM's parent company in the Republic of Ireland, which has a less complex system of taxation," the company's statement explained. It continued: "In contrast, the UK tax system imposes tax on all companies in a worldwide group, and consequently UBM has had to manage the interaction between the UK tax system and the tax systems of the multiple countries in which UBM operates. This has given rise to both significant compliance costs and risks of inadvertent tax charges arising."
http://www.tax-news.com/asp/story/UBM_Opts_To_Pay_Tax_In_Ireland_xx xx30857.html

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Monday, May 5, 2008 ~ 6:23 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Korean Tax Rate Reductions. The first phase of South Korea's corporate tax cut will take effect in June, dropping hte rate to 22 percent. As Tax-news.com reports, the goal is to bring the rate down to somewhere between 10 percent and 20 percent:

It was announced on Thursday that the Korean government's first phase of corporate tax cuts will be coming into force next month. In a radio interview, Vice Finance Minister, Choi Joong Kyung announced that the corporate tax rate would be cut from 25% to 22% in June, in a move designed to assist in the government's drive to improve the business environment in Korea. There are plans to cut the rate still further in coming years, bringing it down to between 10% and 20% by 2013. According to regional media reports, Choi observed that: "A high corporate tax rate scares away investors, takes away chances of creating new jobs."
http://www.tax-news.com/asp/story/Korean_Tax_Cuts_Coming_In_June_xxx x30893.html

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Sunday, May 4, 2008 ~ 2:25 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Polish Flat Tax Delayed until 2011. The good news is that Poland's government has announced it will introduce a flat tax. The bad news is that investors and entrepreneurs will have to wait for three more years:

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced that the government will introduce the flat rate income tax in 2011. "The aim of this government is to simplify and lower taxes" - Tusk declared in an interview for "Polityka" weekly. He emphasized that the bill on flat tax, according to an "initial agreement" between coalition parties: PO and PSL will be debated by the Polish Parliament after the presidential elections in 2010 - in the last year of this parliament's term.
http://www.polishmarket.com.pl/document/:16868?p=%2FMONITOR+GOS PODARCZY%2F

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Saturday, May 3, 2008 ~ 7:24 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Montreal Gazette Urges Flat Tax for Canada. Canada's tax code is probably not as complicated as America's internal revenue code, but it shares many of the same flaws. The answer, as the Montreal Gazette opines, is a simple and fair flat tax:

Canada's 1917 income-tax act was just 10 pages long; today's comprises more than 1,100 pages in each language. The forms and publications (www.cra-arc.gc.ca) are trackless thickets of legalese. Even the simple basic personal tax form (due today!) is a challenge, so most of us need professionals to fill it out. Very few corporations can do without tax pros. ...Income tax is so complicated because the system does so many things. Home-relocation loans, "grubstakers' shares," northern residents, "ecological gifts," the list of special deals goes on and on. ...the Canada Revenue Agency needs 44,000 employees, to joust with the countless expensive private-sector tax wizards who help corporations and the rich exploit every loophole and argue for more. None of them creates any wealth; they just haggle over the wealth others create. There is a better way. Imagine everyone paying at one rate, on every dollar earned. You could "do your taxes" on a postcard. About 20 versions of the flat tax exist already, many in ex-communist countries where a new tax system was designed without kowtowing to special interests. Alberta has it.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=07e0e0a a-3978-4c3c-b823-f9037d1c4ba0

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Friday, May 2, 2008 ~ 4:16 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
Airline Safety Regulation Based on Silly Premise. In his Townhall.com column, John Stossel notes that airlines would have an obvious incentive to follow appropriate safety rules even if the Federal government stepped out of the picture:

Unless the government watches closely, the airlines will kill you. That seems to be what many reporters and politicians believe. ..Let me get this straight. The only reason airlines care about safety is because of the FAA? So without government, multibillion-dollar companies would jeopardize millions of passengers by unsafely flying $50-million airplanes? The media and politicians suggest that airlines would cut corners to make money, but how would that work exactly? Crashing airliners is a route to bankruptcy, not profits. ..Populists in politics and the media get attention by scaring people into thinking the skies are dangerous. The politicians want more power and attention; the clueless media are genuinely scared. The latest "crisis" was launched when the FAA fined Southwest Airlines, which has an excellent safety record, $10.2 million for missing inspection deadlines. When Rep. Oberstar criticized the FAA for being too close to the airlines, the agency sprung into overreaction. "An industry-wide 'audit' commenced, and FAA inspectors set about finding something -- anything -- to show Mr. Oberstar and other Congressional overseers that the agency was up to the job of enforcing federal maintenance requirements to the letter," said The Wall Street Journal. One result was the cancellation of 3,300 American Airlines flights and the stranding of 250,000 passengers over several days... We need to rethink the premise that government inspections keep us safe.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2008/04/30/the_conceit_of_t he_regulators

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Thursday, May 1, 2008 ~ 6:17 p.m., Dan Mitchell Wrote:
The Smuggler as Hero. Walter Williams explains that high taxes sometimes lead to smuggling, and that this sometimes is a noble pursuit:

While it's politically popular to impose confiscatory taxes on America's 40 million tobacco smokers, there are a number of consequences one might consider, but let's start out with a quiz. If a carton of cigarettes sells for $160 in New York City, and $35 in North Carolina, what do you predict will happen? If you answered tons of cigarettes will be going up I-95 from North Carolina to New York City, go to the head of the class. ...Some smugglers are good people who differ little from the founders of our nation such as John Hancock, whose flamboyant signature graces our Declaration of Independence. The British had levied confiscatory taxes on molasses, and John Hancock smuggled an estimated 1.5 million gallons a year. ...Like Hancock, some of today's cigarette smugglers are providing a service to their fellow man caught in the grip of confiscatory taxation. ...People in government or those in pursuit of a do-good agenda think they know better and think they have a right to use government's brute force to hinder peaceable voluntary exchange. In comes my hero the smuggler to the rescue. ...The easy solution to cigarette smuggling, and its attendant activities, is to eliminate the confiscatory taxes.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/04/30/cigarette_s muggling

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