Oh Dear! Did the Trump Tax Cuts Really "Pay For Themselves"?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by lustylad

https://eccie.net/showpost.php?p=106...&postcount=148

https://eccie.net/showpost.php?p=1062827930&postcount=1

https://eccie.net/showpost.php?p=1062827938&postcount=2

So post pandemic numbers after 5 trillion was added into the economy. You're like Trump....you just throw a bunch of numbers out and declare victory

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020...ay-for-itself/

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The most appropriate test of the revenue impact of the TCJA is to compare actual revenues in FY2018 with predicted revenues in FY2018 assuming Congress had not passed the legislation. In fact, the actual amount of revenue collected in FY2018 was significantly lower than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projection of FY2018 revenue made in January 2017—before the tax cuts were signed into law in December 2017. The shortfall was $275 billion, or 7.6% of revenues that were expected before the tax cuts took place. Given that the economy grew, and in the absence of another policy that could have caused a large revenue loss, the data imply that the TCJA substantially reduced revenues (Figure 1).


These effects are accentuated if one looks at taxes as a share of GDP (Table 1). In 2017, before the tax cuts were considered, the CBO estimated that total revenues would be 18.1% of GDP in FY2018. With the TCJA, revenues were only 16.4% of GDP. Similar patterns hold for individual income taxes and (in more extreme form) for corporate income taxes. Due to data limitations, the revenue numbers in Table 1 are on a fiscal year (October 2017–September 2018) basis. As a result, 2018 data include the three months prior to the act’s enactment. If the values were instead on a calendar year basis so that 2018 only included post-TCJA revenues, the revenue declines would be even larger.

[WTF]

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[winn dixie]

,

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

So you think Trumps tax cuts slowed inversion? Hmmmmmmm


Center for Economic and Policy Research ESMenu
> BLOG > THE GREAT FAILURE OF DONALD TRUMP’S BIG TAX CUT
• ARTICLE CoronavirusHealth and Social Programs Beat the Press

The Great Failure of Donald Trump’s Big Tax Cut
03/19/2020 12:00AM

DEAN BAKER

The fact that Donald Trump’s tax cut did not produce the investment and growth that was promised is widely known. There was a modest uptick in growth in 2018, from 2.4 percent the prior year to 2.9 percent in 2018, but this pace fell back to 2.3 percent last year. Virtually, all forecasts showed the growth rate falling still lower in 2020, even before the coronavirus began to impose large economic costs.

This is well below the 3.0 percent growth, for as far as the eye can see, promised by the Trump administration. In fact, the 2.5 percent average growth rate for the first three years of the Trump administration is only slightly better than the 2.3 percent average growth rate for the last three years of the Obama administration.

More important than the growth figures is the fact that there is zero evidence that it gave any substantial boost to investment. The investment share of GDP crept up slightly from 13.2 percent of GDP in 2017 to 13.5 percent in 2018, but it was back down to 13.4 percent last year. And, in the fourth quarter of 2019 it was back to 13.2 percent. The investment share never got as high as the 13.7 percent reached in 2014 under Obama. There certainly is not much of a boom story here.

Some tax cut proponents insist that the tax cut would have led to the promised boom had it not been for Donald Trump’s trade war. While there is little doubt that the trade war has had a negative effect on investment and growth, the impact would have to be far larger than any models project in order for the trade war to have been the only thing that stifled an investment boom. Also, from the standpoint of touting Donald Trump’s economic record, it is a bit hard to maintain that his tax cut would have led to a great investment boom, if not for damage caused by his ill-conceived trade war.

The story of the tax cut and the economy is simple. We gave a large tax cut, a bit less than $200 billion a year (around 0.9 percent of GDP), with the main beneficiaries being rich people. And, the rich spent a reasonable portion of their tax cut, leading to a boost in consumption and a boost to growth. This proves the old theory that if we give people more money, they will spend more. Of course, that is more true if we give the money to low and middle income people, but even high income people will spend more when they have more money.

The tax cut did lead to a large increase in the budget deficit, which is not necessarily a problem, except that we could have instead done things with this money like provide free child care, extend health care coverage, provide large subsidies to promote clean energy and conservation. In effect, we targeted increasing consumption by the rich instead of these alternative uses of resources.



The Tax Gaming Continues!

While the investment and growth failures of the tax cut are widely known, there is another failure of the tax cut which has gotten less attention. The main selling point of the corporate tax cut, which was at the center of the Trump plan, was that it would lead to an investment boom, leading to more rapid productivity growth and higher wages, but there was another more plausible story they also pushed.

The pre-Trump corporate tax rate was 35 percent, but few businesses were paying taxes at anything close to this rate. The overall average was close to 21 percent. The 35 percent statutory rate put us at the top of the OECD. However, our actually tax collections were slightly below the median.

The Trumpers argued that they would lower the rate, but would eliminate the loopholes, so that we would actually collect something close to the new 21 percent statutory rate. If this were true, it would actually be a change for the better.

The point is that whatever our tax take actually is, we want to minimize the resources involved in collecting this tax. When corporations employ elaborate tax avoidance or evasion strategies to get their tax rate down, they are employing considerable resources in this effort. This is a complete waste from an economic perspective. We have highly educated people working as tax lawyers and accountants instead of engaged in work that could have social benefits, such as improving medical technology or teaching.

These tax avoidance and evasion strategies also contribute to income inequality, since there is big money in designing them. If a clever accountant can find a way to save Apple or Google $400 million on their taxes, then these companies would come out ahead paying them $399,999,999. We shouldn’t design our economy so that tax gaming is one of the best ways to make a big fortune.

Anyhow, whether or not their promises on eliminating tax gaming were ever sincere, it is now clear that they were not accurate. We have lowered the tax rate, as they intended, but tax gaming continues to be as robust as ever.

We can see this clearly from the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projections on corporate tax collections. In April of 2018, after the tax cut had been passed into law, CBO projected that we would collect $307 billion in corporate taxes this year. In January of this year, it projected that we would collect $234 billion in corporate taxes, a difference of more than 20 percent. This comes to less than 11 percent of projected profits.

The failure to limit tax gaming is also apparent in the continuing growth in the foreign share of corporate profits. The simplest and most common form of tax gaming is to have profits recorded in a tax haven like Ireland or the Cayman Islands. It is very difficult for governments to determine where profits were actually earned. For this reason, companies would rather have their profits booked in a country with a very low tax rate.

The latest data on profits from the Federal Reserve Board show that the tax cut did not discourage companies from booking their profits abroad. In fact, the foreign share of corporate profits rose from 21.3 percent in 2017, the last year before the tax cut, to 26.1 percent last year.

I was discussing your post with a friend who knows as much about finance and economics as anyone on here. He tells me Dean Baker is an Elizabeth Warren fluff boy. Then there was the post where you wanted to do away with the billionaires. I fear you’ve gone full fledged Bernie Sanders on us. I will pray for you WTF.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

So post pandemic numbers after 5 trillion was added into the economy. You're like Trump....you just throw a bunch of numbers out and declare victory

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020...ay-for-itself/

.

The most appropriate test of the revenue impact of the TCJA is to compare actual revenues in FY2018 with predicted revenues in FY2018 assuming Congress had not passed the legislation. In fact, the actual amount of revenue collected in FY2018 was significantly lower than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projection of FY2018 revenue made in January 2017—before the tax cuts were signed into law in December 2017. The shortfall was $275 billion, or 7.6% of revenues that were expected before the tax cuts took place. Given that the economy grew, and in the absence of another policy that could have caused a large revenue loss, the data imply that the TCJA substantially reduced revenues (Figure 1).


These effects are accentuated if one looks at taxes as a share of GDP (Table 1). In 2017, before the tax cuts were considered, the CBO estimated that total revenues would be 18.1% of GDP in FY2018. With the TCJA, revenues were only 16.4% of GDP. Similar patterns hold for individual income taxes and (in more extreme form) for corporate income taxes. Due to data limitations, the revenue numbers in Table 1 are on a fiscal year (October 2017–September 2018) basis. As a result, 2018 data include the three months prior to the act’s enactment. If the values were instead on a calendar year basis so that 2018 only included post-TCJA revenues, the revenue declines would be even larger.

I’m no expert on the Laffer Curve. But wouldn’t it take some time from between when a tax cut occurs and when pre-tax income increases? It takes a while to hire more people and do the other things you need to do to grow the business and create more income. This paper looks at 2018 income, the first year of the tax cut. LustyLad’s looking farther down the road.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by Tiny

I was discussing your post with a friend who knows as much about finance and economics as anyone on here. He tells me Dean Baker is an Elizabeth Warren fluff boy. Then there was the post where you wanted to do away with the billionaires. I fear you’ve gone full fledged Bernie Sanders on us. I will pray for you WTF.

oh and what are to do with people like Soros who create mischief with their money; he's not the only one doing it tho.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Tiny

I’m no expert on the Laffer Curve. But wouldn’t it take some time from between when a tax cut occurs and when pre-tax income increases? It takes a while to hire more people and do the other things you need to do to grow the business and create more income. This paper looks at 2018 income, the first year of the tax cut. LustyLad’s looking farther down the road.

A couple more points. Companies brought large amounts of money back to the USA that they had stashed overseas, as a result of the 2017 TCJA (the tax cuts bill.) it took a while to put this money to work, making more taxable income. Also the GILTI tax, also a part of the 2017 TCJA, encouraged American companies to generate more income in the USA and less in tax haven countries. The effects of that also took time to kick in. The companies had to start allocating more assets and people to the USA, instead of low tax countries.

Finally, about your comment that 5 trillion was added to the economy, I don’t believe that money disproportionately benefited corporations, versus individuals and unincorporated businesses. If you’re looking at corporate profits as a percentage of GDP, then what Texas Contrarian describes as the “helicopter drops of money” may have increased GDP proportionately more than corporate profits. So maybe the effect of the COVID relief was to lower corporate profits as a % of GDP.

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Originally Posted by Tiny

...I fear you’ve gone full fledged Bernie Sanders on us. I will pray for you WTF.

Wouldn't prayers for rain be more likely to deliver something more tangible and desired?!?

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do

Wouldn't prayers for rain be more likely to deliver something more tangible and desired?!?

No WYID, WTF’s immortal soul is more important than rain. Unless we’re in a really bad drought.

I’d hate to see him end up in hell with Bernie Sanders.

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

oh and what are to do with people like Soros who create mischief with their money; he's not the only one doing it tho.

Continue to cry about boogie men?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

No WYID, WTF’s immortal soul is more important than rain. Unless we’re in a really bad drought.

I’d hate to see him end up in hell with Bernie Sanders.

We're in a really bad drought and I'm soulless!

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

Finally, about your comment that 5 trillion was added to the economy, I don’t believe that money disproportionately benefited corporations, versus individuals and unincorporated businesses.

Where do you think all that free money flowed to?

Individuals?

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

Where do you think all that free money flowed to?

Individuals?

A lot more flowed to individuals than corporations.

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by WTF

We're in a really bad drought and I'm soulless!

We will recover from the drought, but you'll never recover your lost soul.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by lustylad

We will recover from the drought, but you'll never recover your lost soul.

Be careful, I heard they were taking all the pigs to market because you didn't have anymore slop to roll around in....similar to the forum.

And you can't lose something you never had...unless of course you still believe in the Easter Bunny