A Taxing Proposition Redux

This post is not about supply-side economics.  It's Tax Day, so let's talk about that.

People have been protesting all weekend.  And why shouldn't they?  Our corporate tax rates are uncompetitive, costing us jobs and tax revenue.  (How does a 35% tax rate cost us revenue, vs. lowering the rate to, say, 20%?  Simple math: if companies shift operations and park profits overseas because other countries' corporate tax rates are lower than ours, we get no tax revenue.  If they were to move those operations and profits back to the U.S. because we lowered our corporate tax rates to be more competitive with those other countries, we'd get 20% of their income.  And 20% of something is greater than 35% of nothing.)

Our individual tax code is overly burdensome and complicated.  The IRS itself has estimated that it takes six billion man-hours for all Americans to complete their taxes (this is not a hard number, but most experts believe it to be reasonably accurate).

Six. Billion.

It took 22 million man-hours to build the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building.  So more than 272 times as many man-hours are spent doing U.S. income taxes as it would take to build the world's tallest building.  That's an awful lot of wasted productivity filling out unnecessary paperwork.

And Americans will have to work until April 23 to pay all their federal, state and local taxes - in other words, every dime you've earned thus far this year is Uncle's.

So yes, there's lots to protest.  But wait -

That's not what these people were protesting.  The people protesting probably believe our corporate tax rates should be higher, not lower, because they don't understand the simple math presented above and they think corporations are evil, even though they're inanimate.  They apparently don't care that the tax code is a discombobulating hydra, nor that they still haven't earned a penny for themselves this year.

What has them so up in arms that they spent their weekend waving signs and yelling at the top of their lungs?

President Donald Trump (who, by the way, was elected 161 days ago) has not yet released his taxes.

O, the horror.

Not only was Trump elected President without releasing his taxes, he's also not the first President to not do so - far from it, in fact.  However, these ranting buffoons are ignorant of that latter fact (and in denial about the former one).  To set the record straight, let's provide a little history (not that those protesting will read this blog).

• There was no federal income tax prior to 1861.
• There have been 30 Presidents since that time (counting President Lincoln, who signed the Revenue Act of 1861 into law).
• Only ten of those Presidents' tax returns have ever been released, and only nine were released by the President himself, either in office or while a candidate.
• The first President whose tax returns were released was FDR, a Democrat.  But FDR didn't release his returns - they were released after his presidency by his presidential library.
• (In case you wondered, four Democrat presidents did not release their tax returns between 1861 and when FDR left office in 1945.)
• Harry Truman (D), who followed FDR in office, released his tax returns, the first to do so himself.
• Dwight Eisenhower (R), who followed Truman, did not.
• Nor did JFK (D), who followed Eisenhower.  (Most Dems to this day consider JFK or FDR the greatest President ever.)
• Next up was LBJ (D).  He didn't release his tax returns either.
• Then Richard Nixon (R) did.
• So did, in order, Gerald Ford (R), Jimmy Carter (D), Ronald Reagan (R), Bush I (R), Clinton (D), Bush II (R) and Obama (D).

Granted, every President since Nixon has released his tax returns.  But not doing so is far from unprecedented, and clearly unnecessary to get elected to the highest office in the land.

If Trump were to release his tax returns today, so what?  He'd still be President, unless he's committed outright tax fraud (and he's currently under audit, so if he had committed fraud, we'd know about it).  It's doubtful that any American, upon seeing Trump's returns, would spot something that made them say, "OMG!  I wish I hadn't voted for him!"  (Especially since none of the protesters voted for him.)

Mainly because most Americans wouldn't understand his tax returns.  In fact, they wouldn't even look at them.  Those protesters, instead of going to the source document to learn the truth, would let Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, or some other left-wing talking head tell them what to think.  And those folks are a tad less than impartial, so the likelihood of them finding a molehill to make a mountain out of is pretty darn high.

Trump's 2005 return has already been leaked to the media, and all it showed was that a) he made a lot of money and b) he paid a lot of taxes.  Shocking.

I'd much rather see these people devote their seemingly endless protesting energy to a worthwhile cause that might change something, like simplifying the tax code, instead of tilting at the windmill of demanding that an already-elected President release documents that won't change the fact of his presidency.

And even if they did that, I would not want to see them get violent, as happened in Berkeley, CA, the epicenter of liberalism in the United States.  (Who'd have guessed the snowflakes in Berkeley would be capable of violence?)

So protest away.  Meanwhile, the administration of the man you're all railing against will be working to simplify the tax code, to try and gain back some of the productivity you're wasting by waving your signs and shouting your slogans.  You're welcome.