Global Tax Revolt

Introduction -- Capital explosion -- Tax cut revolution -- Flat tax club -- Mobile brains and mobile wealth -- Taxing businesses in the global economy -- The economics of tax competition -- The battle for freedom and competition -- The moral case for tax competition -- Options for U.S. policy.

Tax evasion is not a victimless crime. Throughout the world, a thriving underground economy threatens to crush compliant and captive taxpayers. It is much bigger than just a few "off-tile-books" transactions and the occasional charging of a personal expense against your business. It touches every corner of our economy and it is growing at a rate at least three times faster than the formal economy. The moral and social implications of activities such as illicit drug trade, money laundering, people smuggling, and tax havens are more than just government issues; they affect every "good" citizen who ends up paying more taxes because others are finding ways to evade their "fail" shine. In everyday language, with liberal use of humor, this book will give you a clear understanding of the problems of the UgEcon, along with an exploration into some of the possible answers to this great economic plague that affects each and every one of us.

This observation, largely true but nevertheless unsettling, cost billionaire New York real-estate tycoon Leona Helmsley a 4-year jail term, 90 days of public service, and a $7-million fine for tax fraud. So if the rich don't pay their share of taxes -- and the poor certainly can't pay their share -- who is left? The middle-class taxpayers who are trapped in the system by withholding taxes. Systematic tax avoidance and evasion is flourishing in all business sectors in the world. It is creating an Underground Economy that defies detection and, in most cases, goes unpunished. The reality is that virtually everyone participates in the Underground Economy -- the only difference is to what extent. Hiding income or burying non-business expenses in your business used to be silent sins -- things that you simply did not talk about. Now people chat about these schemes as casually as they do the weather. Tax evaders have come out of their closets and aggressive withholding of taxes is a warning signal to government that they are withdrawing the consent to be governed. Whether you are scrimping to make ends meet, trying to save for retirement, wondering how to shield an upcoming inheritance, or just sick and tired of government waste, this book is an invitation to you to join this New Tax Revolt. Together, we can force governments to be smaller, more efficient and, above all, truly accountable to taxpayers. This book is about understanding why we must starve the beast.

Watergate, inflation, government spending, and Proposition 13 are among the topics considered in a study of the causes and proposals of the American people's tax revolt of the 1970s.

This book explores one of the most dynamic and exciting aspects of globalization—international tax competition. With rising mobility and soaring capital flows, individuals and businesses are gaining freedom to work and invest in nations with lower tax rates. That freedom is pressuring governments to cut taxes on income, investment, and wealth. In Global Tax Revolution, Chris Edwards and Daniel Mitchell chronicle tax reforms around the world in recent decades. They describe the dramatic business tax cuts of Ireland, the flight of successful people from high-tax France, and the introduction of simple “flat taxes” in more than two dozen nations. Like other aspects of globalization, tax competition is generating intense political opposition. Numerous governments and international organizations are fighting to restrict tax cuts. Edwards and Mitchell challenge those efforts, arguing that tax competition is helping to advance prosperity, expand human rights, and rein in bloated governments.The authors argue that the U.S. economy can be revitalized by embracing competition and overhauling the federal tax code. They discuss how current tax rules suppress wages and investment and describe the tax changes needed for workers and businesses to succeed in the fast-paced global economy. Rather than idly complaining about jobs and capital moving offshore, this book argues that policymakers need to embrace major tax reforms to ensure rising standards of living for Americans in the years ahead.

A World History of Tax Rebellions is an exhaustive reference source for over 4,300 years of riots, rebellions, protests, and war triggered by abusive taxation and tax collecting systems around the world. Each of the chronologically arranged entries focuses on a specific historical event, analyzing its roots, and socio-economic context.

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.