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In Point of Fact |
from NewsLink, Vol. 2, No. 4, Summer 1998
Just what small business needs: A Big Brother approach to what ails the IRS
“Taxing small business is always a problem, because you don't have anybody looking over their shoulder,” said Bob McIntyre, tax policy specialist for the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice. McIntyre draws a connection between this noncompliance and the small businesses' disdain for the IRS. “Because they cheat more, and they get into more disputes with the IRS, they dislike the IRS more,” he said.
“Foes of tax code sound off,” Associated Press, June 6, 1998In pursuit of taxes, lost in cyberspace
“What happens if I log in from San Antonio, sell some of my bits to a person in France, and accept digital cash from Germany, which I deposit in Japan? Today the government of Texas believes I should be paying state taxes, as the transaction would take place (at the start) over the wires crossing its jurisdiction. Yikes. As we see the mind-set of taxes is rooted in concepts like atoms and place. With both of those more or less missing, the basics of taxation will have to change. Taxes in the digital world do not neatly follow the analog laws of physics, which so conveniently require real energy, to move real things, over real borders, taxable at each stage of the way....Looking ahead taxes will eventually become a voluntary process, with the possible exception of real estate -- the one physical thing that does not move easily and has computerable value. The US has a jump start on the practice, in that 65 percent of local school funds come from real estate taxes -- a practice Europeans consider odd and ill advised. But wait until that's all there is left to tax, when the rest of things we buy and sell come from everywhere, anywhere and nowhere.
Nicholas Negroponte, “Taxing Taxes”, Wired, May 1, 1998A mixed bag for Massachusetts
“In its third annual Small Business Survival Index the Small Business Survival Foundation ranked the 50 states and Washington D.C. in terms of their respective environments for entreprenuership. Massachusetts ranks 25th. Mass. entrepreneurs and investors do benefit from no capital gains taxes on long-held investments, low general sales taxes, no death taxes reaching beyond the federal pickup amount, and fairly low workers compensation costs (which, relatively to other states, dropped considerably from 1986 to 1995. ) The commonwealth's competitive position is damaged, though, by a very high corporate income tax, fairly high property taxes, a very high unemployment tax rate, a fairly high health insurance tax, and a lofty electric utilities tax.”
“Small Business Survival Index 1998: Ranking the Environment for Entreprenuership Across the Nation”, July 1998.More money for schools, not so fast!
It's a pity American kids aren't as good at math and science as the education establishment is at making excuses. The establishment's favorite line is that the schools' aren't to blame for poor academic performance; rather, kids fail because of factors beyond their teachers' control such as poverty or deteriorating families. The second-favorite rationalization: Americans are stingy with their tax dollars and refuse to pay the price for excellent schools. No doubt these arguments are comforting to those who make them. But recently analyses by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development demonstrate that both claims are false. Indeed, the OECD data make it painfully clear that U.S. schools are the least efficient in the industrial world: This country spends more per pupil than almost any other nation, yet its year-to-year gains in student academic achievement are among the smallest. U.S. schools add less value than the schools of other lands and do so at greater cost.
“The World's Least Efficient Schools”, Chester Finn Jr. and Herbert J. Walberg," Wall Street Journal,June 22, 1998
Yes, that's just the point: economic freedom leads to others
“Housing reform will also have political ramifications, by limiting people's dependence on their work unit, and thereby removing the government one step further from their lives. It will enable people to change jobs, even marry someone from another city, both of which were nearly impossible when welfare benefits were tied to one's work unit. The mere fact of home ownership is likely to breed a sense of responsibility and personal freedom that could prompt demands for things such as legal rights to hold property developers accountable.”
Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, “Private housing may be China's new revolution,” Boston Globe, July 1.Consumer Sovereignty
Most investors seem to believe that the Internet will someday produce unusually rich returns because it is a cheaper way to reach customers, without onerous expenses such as paper record-keeping, brick-and-mortar shops and piled up inventory. Yet the very things that attract users to the Internet -- speed, convenience and unlimited breadth -- make it treacherous for profit hungry merchants. With just a few keystrokes, consumers can play business rivals against each other. That ability is turning the Net into a relentlessly efficient market in which vendors will be hard-pressed to win, and defend, any lasting competitive advantage.
“Comparison shopping is the Web's Virtue -- Unless You're a Seller,” George Anders, Wall Street Journal, July 23, 1998.
NewsLink is the quarterly newsletter of the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University. © 1996-2002. All rights reserved.
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