The lie of the tax holiday

Paul Krugman delivers again.

Commenting on the “new” plan being pushed to have a tax holiday for corporations, Krugman points out that it is again being sold as an answer to our job problems.

Cutting taxes for corporations does not and never has led to more jobs.

The cuts are never really designed for small businesses, and are the worst kind of trickle down wishful thinking.

Krugman:
 

As opponents of this plan point out, we’ve already seen this movie: A similar tax holiday was offered in 2004, with a similar sales pitch. And it was a total failure. Companies did indeed take advantage of the amnesty to move a lot of money back to the United States. But they used that money to pay dividends, pay down debt, buy up other companies, buy back their own stock — pretty much everything except increasing investment and creating jobs. Indeed, there’s no evidence that the 2004 tax holiday did anything at all to stimulate the economy.

A nice piece on what really happens when we cut taxes on corporations, and the disincentive it is for them to invest in infrastructure and employees.

-Chris

Related articles

• Avoiding taxes the way big corporations do it (thehill.com)

The numbers don’t lie

Mother Jones had a set of charts in their March/April Issue that I have just gotten to:

It’s the Inequality, Stupid

They tell the story clearly:

Go look at the rest.

– Chris