The 80 Percent Fallacy: Why Fixing the Corporate Tax Base Does Not Justify Confiscatory Rates

WASHINGTON — In the ever-evolving debate over international tax reform, a seductive economic theory has steadily gained traction among legal scholars and progressive economists: if a government fixes its corporate tax base—most notably by implementing full expensing and closing profit-shifting loopholes—the economic penalties of high tax rates effectively vanish. This conceptual framework has now been…

Read Full News

The Fallacy of Percentage-Based Excise Taxes: Why Global Health Targets Miss the Mark

For years, international health organizations and policymakers have operated under a seemingly simple, yet deeply flawed, fiscal assumption: that the most effective way to reduce the consumption of specific goods—most notably tobacco—is to ensure that taxes account for a fixed percentage of the retail price. The World Health Organization (WHO), in particular, has championed a…

Read Full News

The Tariff-Expensing Fallacy: Why Full Expensing Cannot Offset Protectionist Costs

In a recent contribution to The Wall Street Journal, former White House Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran presented an intriguing, albeit mathematically flawed, defense of the Trump administration’s trade policy. Miran argued that the administration’s aggressive tariff regime is not merely a protectionist tool but a functional improvement to the U.S. tax landscape….

Read Full News