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Failure of High Marginal Rates

Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office produced a report reviewing tax rates on labor income since 1962 that includes some important lessons for tax policy folks.

The first lesson is that nothing replaces a really cool chart.  Take this heat map, for example.  What a great way to convey a lot of information all at once.  If you’re a taxpayer, the simple way to view it is lighter colors good, darker colors baaad.

Our second lesson is how much more progressive the tax code has become since the 1960s.  Back then, nearly

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2019-08-28T16:43:54+00:00September 3, 2019|

Treasury on 199A Guardrails

Remember this JCT chart from earlier this year?  It garnered lots of attention and called into question how the 199A pass-through deduction was structured.  If only 9 percent of all pass-through income was disqualified from getting the deduction, what was the point of having all those complicated rules?

We wondered about the estimate at the time, as it didn’t comport with our member’s experience.  In our S-CORP survey this year, only half of our members expected to get the full deduction, while rest expected just a partial deduction or no deduction at all.

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2021-08-16T14:01:00+00:00August 27, 2019|

S-Corp Member Survey 2019

S-Corp sent its members a new survey this Spring.  The goal was to follow up the survey we did just after tax reform was enacted to see how things had evolved.  Now that our members had a year to digest the new rules, where did they stand?  Here are the key takeaways –

  1. Seven out of ten say their taxes went down or stayed about the same;
  2. Four out of five say making permanent the 20-percent 199A deduction is a priority; and
  3. Seven out of ten plan to remain S corporations in the near future.

That’s not bad, considering where we

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2019-07-30T15:41:30+00:00July 30, 2019|

The Myth of Corporate Decline

The visual economist issued another great chart last month, this time showing the largest public companies by market cap.

Our first reaction is, wait, Microsoft is number one?  When did that happen?  All the focus on FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) and stodgy old Microsoft is bigger?  Go figure.

Our second reaction is “Gee Grandmother, what big market caps you have.”  These companies are huge!  And that’s not limited to the ten companies illustrated here.  Measured against GDP, the market cap of all public companies in the US has

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2019-07-26T16:50:37+00:00July 26, 2019|

Joe Biden’s S-Corp

What is it about Presidential candidates and S corporations?  First John Edwards made the practice of abusing the S corporation structure infamous back in 2004.  Then we learned Newt Gingrich did the same thing when he ran in 2012.  And now Joe Biden.  At some point, these candidates are going to realize that saving 3.8 percent on your taxes isn’t worth the political pain it will cost you.  (Hat tip to Bernie Sanders and former President Obama.)

For those not up to speed, the former Vice President and his wife released their tax returns this week.  Focusing on his 2017 return,

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2021-08-16T14:01:51+00:00July 11, 2019|