Tag: tax policy
-
Elite universities are hedge funds with classrooms attached
America’s wealthiest universities now operate more like investment firms than schools. The endowments, the tax status, and the priorities tell the story.
-
Donor-advised funds are warehouses for billionaires’ guilt
Donor-advised funds offer instant tax breaks but no obligation to ever give the money away. Here’s how they became the favored parking lot for billionaire philanthropy.
-
The child tax credit should be universal cash, and means-testing ruined it
The 2021 expanded child tax credit cut child poverty nearly in half. Means-testing didn’t make it fairer — it made it weaker and easier to kill.
-
Audits target the poor more than the rich, and the IRS knows it
Low-income filers face higher audit rates than millionaires. The reason isn’t fraud frequency — it’s that auditing the rich is harder and slower.
-
The rich don’t pay taxes headline is technically true and rhetorically dishonest
Headlines about billionaires’ low tax rates compare unrealized gains to income tax owed. Both the headline math and the policy debate it shapes deserve scrutiny.
-
The marriage penalty is real and we keep ignoring it
Two earners, one tax return, higher bill. The marriage penalty quietly costs millions of couples thousands a year — and the policy debate has stalled.
-
Sales taxes are a tax on being poor
Sales taxes hit lower-income households hardest as a share of income. The regressive math of consumption taxes is well-documented and rarely contested.