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Tesla still relies on the taxpayer
Much has been made of Tesla’s repayment of its DOE loan. There has been much crowing. Finally a DOE loan which didn’t implode into a black hole. And we are very happy that the loan has been paid back, and ahead of schedule.
At $62,000 I am actually of the opinion that given the competition the Tesla Model S, which I’ve examined first hand, is pretty competitive. (The Porsche Panamera is about $100,00 well equipped and the Maserati Quattroporte another 4 seat rocket starts at $135,000.) It’s a neat car – so long as it doesn’t get too cold outside and one need not drive longer than 200 miles at a time.
But let’s not pretend that Tesla isn’t still supported by the American taxpayer.
(From The Daily Beast)
In addition, government regulations require the production of a certain number of alternative vehicles per year. Rather than build green cars themselves to meet mandates, some manufacturers simply purchase credits from companies that make zero-emission vehicles—like Tesla. In fact, as I noted recently, Tesla has a nice side business selling those tax credits. In the first quarter Tesla said sales of such credits amounted to $68 million, or 12 percent of revenue. Without the sale of those credits, Tesla would not have been profitable.
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Art, Religion, and Taxpayer Funding
David Boaz
In Germany enrolled members of a church must pay a tax for the support of the church. I’m sure a lot of American churches would like to have such a revenue source. How’s it working out in Germany? Well, Marketplace radio reports:
Christians – Protestants and Catholics combined – are leaving their churches at a rate of about 300,000 people a year.
No doubt tax avoidance isn’t the only reason for that. But really, if you simply become less interested in religion, why bother to formally renounce your membership? The tax saving is an obvious reason. Marketplace’s John Laurenson talks to one ex-church member:
Stefan, though, no longer pays the church tax that used to gobble up four percent of his salary.
Was it really the money, I ask. Or was it loss of faith? No, he says, it was the money.
Back in April 2000 I attended a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution by Richard Dawkins. Afterward I wrote this to him:
I was struck by your answer to one question. A member of the audience asked why the United States has a stronger movement for religious fundamentalism than other countries even though it has separation of church and state. You replied that you didn’t know; it might be just a coincidence. I was surprised that you didn’t offer what I think is the clear “Darwinian” answer: competition makes individuals and enterprises stronger, while subsidies and protection make them weaker. As I wrote in Libertarianism: A Primer, “businesses coddled behind subsidies and tariffs will be weak and uncompetitive, and so will churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Religions that are protected from political interference but are otherwise on their own are likely to be stronger and more vigorous than a church that draws its support from government.”
And indeed scholars of religion often comment that American churches tend to be more vibrant and more robust than European churches, with far more Americans actually in church on Sunday morning than Europeans. Perhaps a guaranteed source of income isn’t all that helpful in the long run.
I was particularly amused by this comment in the Marketplace report, from a businessman who
travels quite a bit in the U.S. and doesn’t much like what he’s seen of the way they fund churches there.
In the States you see churches that sometimes “look a little like they have too much of a consumer orientation,” says Wendland. “Where they play rock music and do all sorts of crazy stuff. I have nothing against rock music but I would (prefer) a church that is doing the right thing for the community and for God but not do stuff to attract a sort of clientele.”
It strikes me that that’s just the argument made on behalf of tax funding for the arts. We have more arts in America than in any country in history. But much of it is labeled “entertainment” and disdained by those who “have nothing against rock music but would prefer arts organizations that are doing the right for the community” rather than having “too much of a consumer orientation.”
Which is why my argument that “Because art is just as spiritual, just as meaningful, just as powerful as religion, it is time to grant art the same independence and respect that religion has. It is time to establish the separation of art and state” seems entirely on point here.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
The ‘National Taxpayer Advocate’ at the IRS Is Advocating for the Government, not Taxpayers
Daniel J. Mitchell
I’m not a big fan of the Internal Revenue Service, though I try to make sure that politicians get much of the blame for America’s convoluted, punitive, and unfair tax code.
Heck, just look at these three images—here, here, and here—and you’ll find startling evidence that politicians make the tax system worse with each passing year.
But there is an office at the IRS that ostensibly exists to defend the interests of taxpayers. The Taxpayer Advocate Service is, according to the government website, “an independent organization within the IRS and helps taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS and recommend changes that will prevent the problems.” The head of this office, Nina Olson, has the title of National Taxpayer Advocate.
Sounds good, right?
Well, not so fast. The TAS does some good things, but Ms. Olson spends at least part of her time advocating for the government.
The TAS just released its annual report, and here’s some of what the bureaucracy recommended, according to a Bloomberg story.
Among the other problems Olson identifies in the report are … the underfunding of the Internal Revenue Service … The IRS, which Olson compares to the accounts receivable department of a company, should be fenced off from more budget cuts by Congress, she writes in the report.
Don’t rub your eyes or clean your glasses. You read correctly. The folks at the IRS who supposedly are advocating for you are instead advocating for a bigger IRS budget.
I debunked this silly argument last year, explaining why Congress should reject the Obama Administration’s assertion that more money for the IRS would be an “investment” that would yield big returns.
But I want to be fair. Some of what the TAS does is worth applauding. The report also discusses the grotesque levels of complexity in the code. Here’s more of the Bloomberg story:
The U.S. tax system’s most serious problem is the 4-million-word code’s excessive complexity that makes it tough for taxpayers to comply with and difficult for the government to administer, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson wrote in an annual report to Congress. The tax code cost taxpayers and businesses $168 billion in compliance in 2010… “Lowering rates in exchange for broadening the tax base would be an excellent bargain,” says the report, released today in Washington. “We are confident that in the end, public support for a simpler code will be strong and deep.”
The TAS also produced this very depressing infographic. It’s absolutely disgraceful that complying with the tax code requires the equivalent of 3 million full-time workers. It’s a vast understatement to call this a counterproductive misallocation of labor.
Or how about the fact that just the guidance for the income tax, when printed out, creates a stack of paper more than 12 inches high? And what about the nauseating little tidbit that the tax code has been changed more than once per day since 2001?
No wonder it’s such a corrupt mess. Isn’t it time we rip up the entire tax code and put in place something simple and fair like a flat tax? Here’s my case for real tax reform.
By the way, I’m also more than willing to replace the tax code with a national sales tax, perhaps something like the Fair Tax. I’ve given speeches, testified to Congress, appeared on TV, and done all sorts of things to promote that idea.
But the one huge caveat is that we need to make sure that the politicians don’t pull a bait and switch and stick us with both an income tax and national sales tax. Which is what happened in Europe when governments implemented the value-added tax without repealing income taxes.
That’s why we would first need to get rid of the income tax and repeal the 16th Amendment. But then, because I don’t trust the Supreme Court (gee, I wonder why?), I would also want to replace the 16th Amendment with new language that would be so ironclad that even Chief Justice John Roberts couldn’t fabricate reasons why an income tax could ever return to plague the nation.
But since we can’t even get the votes to approve a watered-down balanced budget amendment, I’m not holding my breath for the day that the Constitution is amended to permanently kill the income tax.
And that’s why I think the flat tax is a safer option.
The worst thing that happens if we get a flat tax is that politicians change their mind and we degenerate back to the current system.
The worst thing that happens if we get a national sales tax is that politicians “forget” to eliminate the income tax, we wind up with both, and become France.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
American • Summary of American Taxpayer Relief Act
Summary of American Taxpayer Relief Act
http://www.grandich.com/2013/01/summary … ch+Blog%29
SUMMARY OF AMERICAN TAXPAYER RELIEF ACT OF 2012 (H.R. 
AMERICAN TAXPAYER RELIEF ACT OF 2012
Courtesy of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc
President Obama has signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. that allows tax rates to rise on the nation’s highest earners while also extending dozens of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. Specifically, the bill:
•Raises the top tax rate to 39.6% for married couples earning $450,000; single taxpayers earning $400,000. These amounts will be indexed for inflation.
•Raises long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends tax rate to 20% (from 15%) for taxpayers in the 39.6% tax bracket for regular and alternative minimum tax.
•Permanently extends Bush-era tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 for all other taxpayers.
•Reinstates phaseout of personal exemptions and overall limitation on itemized deductions for married couples filing jointly earning over $300,000 and single taxpayers earning over $250,000.
•Raises the maximum estate tax rate to 40% but keeps the exemption amount at $5 million, adjusted for inflation.
•Extends for 5 years (through 2018) the American Opportunity Tax Credit to pay for higher education, and special relief for families with 3 or more children for the refundable portion of the child tax credit and increased percentage for the earned income tax credit.
•Patches the AMT for 2012 and adjusts the exemption amount for inflation going forward.
•Extends through 2013 the following individual tax benefits: above the line deduction for teacher expenses, relief from cancellation of debt income for principal residences, parity for employer-provided mass transit benefits, deduction for mortgage insurance premiums as interest, election to deduct state and local sales taxes in lieu of income taxes, above the line deduction for qualified education expenses, tax-free distributions from IRA accounts for charitable purposes.
•Extends through 2013 certain business tax provisions that expired at the end of 2011 including: the research credit, the new markets tax credit, railroad track maintenance credit, mine rescue team training credit, work opportunity credit, the Section 179 asset expensing at $500,000, Section 1202 stock exclusion at 100%, and empowerment zone incentives.
•Extends 50% bonus depreciation through 2013.
•Extends through 2013 certain energy tax incentives that expired at the end of 2011 including: energy efficient credit for existing homes, alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit, biodiesel and renewable diesel incentives, wind credit, energy efficient credit for new homes, and credit for manufacture of energy efficient appliances.
This entry was posted on January 8, 2013 at 5:28 AM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
Statistics: Posted by DIGGER DAN — Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:30 am
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Don’t Rebuild Beach Houses With Taxpayer Money: The Case of Dauphin Island
Dauphin Island after Hurricane Katrina
We have written before about the fact that beach houses, at least those right on the beach, make no sense from an environmental or economic standpoint.
Houses built right next to the ocean will fall into the sea sooner or later. In the meantime, however, some people, usually quite wealthy people, enjoy the unobstructed view of the Great Blue. When the houses do finally tumble into the ocean—these houses are literally built on sand—the tax payer bails them out.
Between federal flood insurance and something called the Stafford Act, homeowners who enjoy being right next to the ocean (when the weather’s good) are largely indemnified in the event of a loss.
If a loss occurs these homes are often replaced with even larger homes, which in turn increase erosion that much more. Then another hurricane or nor’easter comes through and the cycle is repeated. On your dime.
This is a classic case where free marketeers and environmentalists can come together. It makes no sense to subsidize the building of homes on top of dunes, that is of course unless one happens to own one of these homes, and many a state legislator or congressman probably do. Not to mention the people who contribute to their campaigns.
(From the New York Times)
Like many other beachfront towns, Dauphin Island has benefited from the Stafford Act, a federal law that taps the United States Treasury for 75 percent or more of the cost of fixing storm-damaged infrastructure, like roads and utilities.
At least $80 million, adjusted for inflation, has gone into patching up this one island since 1979 — more than $60,000 for every permanent resident. That does not include payments of $72 million to homeowners from the highly subsidized federal flood insurance program…
People here have formed strong emotional attachments to their island. “There’s a lot of wildlife and a lot of bird life, and it’s just a great place to relax,” said Jay Minus, a lawyer in Mobile who owns two homes on the western end. “You can sit on the porch and watch the dolphins swim past your house.”
That’s great Mr. Minus. But don’t make me pay for your view of the dolphins.
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Canadian • Re: Alberta premier’s sister used taxpayer money to host Tor
Expense claims just the beginning of troubles for Premier Alison Redford’s sister Lynn
Back a day early.
Back to the Land of Ugly.
The mayhem begins Monday when the paper trail puts Lynn Redford, the premier’s sister, into a limelight where you don’t come out looking like a star.
Receipts show Redford, while a bigwig with the done-and-dusted Calgary Health Region from 2005 to 2008, charges up more than three grand in taxpayer dough on good times with the Tories.
You know, booze, mix and bug spray for a Tory MLA barbecue in Bragg Creek she helped plan on health region time.
Tickets to Tory fundraisers including premier’s dinners and a golf tourney. Hotel room for a Tory convention. Mileage to Tory shindigs.
The amount is small, the principle is not.
The revelation sparks a war of words on the floor of the legislature.
Those bankrolled by the public, like the health-care system, can’t be donating to political parties.
It is against the law.
The Wildrose call for a look-see into all health-care executive expenses back to 2005.
The province say they have new rules and they’re good and they’re being followed.
Alberta Health Services, now running the show, says past policies were “not well defined and were open to interpretation.”
Don’t look back.
Oh well.
Redford is now a bigwig involved with special projects for AHS.
That’s not all.
Then we find out on Tuesday the Wildrose will ask the judge heading up an independent probe on queue-jumping for medical care to have Lynn Redford testify when the hearings begin in a couple weeks.
Danielle Smith, the opposition leader, says it’s clear Redford was the go-to person connecting the Calgary Health Region with politicians.
And an exchange in the legislature in the spring of ‘09 convinces Smith that Redford needs to be asked a few questions.
In the to-and-fro, Harry Chase, then a Calgary Liberal MLA, asks former health minister Ron Liepert who he can contact to have his concerns about health care heard.
When Chase mentions he had gone to Lynn Redford in the past, Liepert says Chase still can.
Chase goes all gushy, saying Redford is “absolutely wonderful” in handling things.
Liepert’s response? “Good blood lines from the Attorney General.”
That is, her sister Alison.
Last year, Stephen Duckett, the former AHS boss, said when he took over there were designated go-to people for “discreet waiting list adjustments on request from MLAs.”
“I think it’s pretty clear she should be the first witness to tell us what she knows,” says Smith.
As for the expenses, Patti Grier, now chief of staff for AHS, a former Calgary alderman once touted for big things in Toryland before landing a plum post at the CHR and then AHS, gave the green-light to many Redford tabs.
The practice stopped when former AHS head honcho Duckett came aboard.
But in 2011, reports showed the new AHS prez Dr. Chris Eagle put in expenses for a premier’s fundraising dinner including a limo and airfare.
Ex-AHS board chair Ken Hughes said sorry for approving the billing.
He is now the energy minister.
Lynn Redford also inked her approval to the spending.
In the legislature, Smith pushes AHS to come clean and release all health exec tabs going back seven years.
Also under the Dome, NDP leader Brian Mason asks the Watergate question.
“What did the premier know and when did she know it? The premier tries to hide the truth and when that doesn’t work anymore the government hides the premier.”
The premier is in Ottawa.
Thomas Lukaszuk, the deputy premier, after calling the Wildrosers “bottomfeeders” looking for dirt, says “the most recent scandal” is from Smith.
She paid $100 for two tickets to a federal Tory fundraiser. Her people say they caught the clerical error before it was submitted as an expense.
Smith’s office in High River did bill taxpayers $125 for membership to the High River Chamber of Commerce. That’s it.
It is interesting while a few brave souls (hi, mom!) slammed the Calgary Health Region, many who now support Wildrose at that time still lived in Toryland.
Some attacked critics who dared speak against the party line. This scribbler was accused of picking on the Tories and being a communist.
They have seen the light, better late than never.
Smith says few knew at the time about over-the-top expenses or illegal donations from school boards, universities and local governments to the Tories.
What does Smith think as she looks over at those who stayed on the Tory Good Ship Lollipop?
“The arrogance is overwhelming,” says Smith.
“They either don’t think they’ve done anything wrong or they don’t think the public will care and they’ll get away with it.”
Are they right?
http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/11/19/e … nn-redford
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:34 am
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Taxpayer Money Should Not Be Diverted To Partisan Political Use
In all the post election noise, it is worth mentioning that the union attempt to kill right to work forever in Michigan failed.
The problem here( from an anti-crony capitalist perspective) is that union employees are paid by the taxpayers. If a portion of their wages is collected by the public employer and, regardless of the wishes of the employee, handed over to the union to be used for partisan political campaign purposes, that is really diverting taxpayer money to partisan politics.
This referendum didn’t end the corruption of using taxpayer money in politics in Michigan. But at least it leaves open the possibility that this corruption can be stopped sometime in the future.
The post Taxpayer Money Should Not Be Diverted To Partisan Political Use appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
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The Taxpayer Subsidizes Those Houses Falling into the Sea
Don’t build your home on sand, especially shifting sand.
A little over a year ago I wrote a piece about how the homes of millionaires are subsidized by the American taxpayer through the Federal Flood Insurance program. I made the point that the homes one sees up and down the East Coast of the United States which are built right on top of beach protecting, and erosion reducing sand dunes, would not be there if it was not for lobbying by powerful industries and individuals for such a program.
As someone who has lived much of my life in and around the ocean these homes which stand like sentinels on the shore have always blown my mind. Having watched home after home fall into the sea on the local news, year after year, I often wondered how it was even possible to build a home so close to the ocean. It made no economic sense. These big rental houses sit perched right next to the mighty Atlantic Ocean on a sand bar. Sand bars are not stable. How could people afford to lose these homes, even very wealthy people? Then as an insurance underwriter after college I leaned. The homeowner mitigates almost all of his risk with insurance that is subsidized by you and me.
For those who don’t know much about beaches, they are very dynamic areas. Inlets emerge and then go away. A barrier island which one day could be 1000 feet wide could be gone in a hurricane or a solid nor’ easter. It is sand. It is meant to move. It is not meant to be built on. It is not wise to build any structure which one wants to last on sand, especially sand which is often wet.
But thanks to the Federal government we make it economically viable for people to construct massive buildings on areas of the coastline which should be inhabited by nothing more than pelicans, sandpipers, and ghost crabs. And I am not making an ecological argument here, I’m making an economic one. If it were not for the rest of America backstopping a relative few very wealthy homeowners and developers building on sand dunes would be in no way economical and our beaches would be much more healthy to boot. Yet President Obama and Congress don’t see things as I do as Reason reports.
(From Reason.com)
“Four months before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, President Obama quietly signed legislation expanding the federal program that offers taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance to ocean-front homeowners.
The law extended the National Flood Insurance Program for five years while also opening the program for the first time to multi-family properties like beachfront condominiums. The flood insurance provisions were part of a bill known as the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act that passed the House 373 to 52 on June 29 and the Senate by 74 to 19 the same day. President Obama signed it into law on July 6 with remarks that dwelled on the transportation spending and student loan-related language in the Act, but made no mention at all of the flood insurance.”
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Another Executive Out at Brand USA (Taxpayer Funded Party Circuit Takes Some Lumps)
Brand USA was created as a public-private corporation in 2010 to promote tourism in the United States. It also is a nice way to reward campaign contributors it appears.
In June members of the Senate started to look into the corporation after it became apparent to some that the Brand USA was more about partying on the taxpayer dime than promoting tourism.
Check out this shindig in London Brand USA threw. Now this my fellow Americans is what tax dollars are for to be sure. Forget roads—we need servants twirling umbrellas while drunk and well-heeled political donors stumble their way to their limousines.
Some members of the Senate however insisted on being sticks in the mud and now the marketing chief at Brand USA is out, on the heels of the CEO. Word is they are now planning weddings.
(The Washington Free Beacon, 10-15-2012)
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International News • Banks received ‘implicit’ taxpayer subsidy of up to £220bn,
A paper published by the Bank argued that major banks and their investors would have received the subsidy by benefiting from the state guarantee that large institutions would not be able to fail. As such, the financial system was being “distorted”.
One of the major benefits to banks was lower borrowing costs, because the paper argues that without Government backing they would be considered a far riskier, and therefore costlier, investment.
The subsidy could prove controversial because it has allowed banks to generate profits and pay at levels they would otherwise have been unable to.
The paper, written by Joseph Noss and Rhiannon Sowerbutts of the Bank’s financial stability division, also concluded that bailouts could raise the likelihood and cost of future crises, by allowing banks to take greater risks.
“ The implicit guarantee reduces market discipline, which distorts banks’ risk-taking incentives as investors no longer fully price the risks they are aware the banks are taking, allowing banks to take more risk.
“A pernicious spiral can develop, where the existence of an implicit guarantee encourages banks to take more risk, raising the likelihood and cost of bank failure, thus increasing the subsidy.
“The resulting cost to society of financial crises, not least the reduction in GDP, could far exceed the original implicit subsidy.”
The authors said that while it was difficult to quantify the implicit subsidy received by Britain’s banks during the crisis, the Bank had estimated it at £100bn in 2009. For 2010 it said estimates varied from £30bn to £120bn, depending on the methodology used .
“All measures point to significant transfers of resources from the government to the banking system,” they added.
The Bank has long warned of the burden to the taxpayer of having financial institutions that are deemed “too big to fail” .
The Bank’s Governor, Sir Mervyn King, addressed the idea in his BBC Today Programme Lecture this month. “In good times, banks took the benefits for their employees and shareholders, while in bad times the taxpayer bore the costs. For the banks, it was a case of heads I win, tails you – the taxpayer – lose.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news … -says.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon May 28, 2012 12:35 pm
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