Tag Archives: Tax

In the FT, John Kay points out that basic income proposals have one major drawback: They are very—expensive. Not everyone agrees. Switzerland will hold a national referendum on the introduction of an unconditional basic income on June 5th, 2016. The supporters of the proposal write: A basic income already exists today. Everyone obtains one from somewhere; otherwise we would not be able to live. In our society today, no one can survive without an income. The level of a basic income is...

In Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe, Kenneth Scheme and David Stasavage explore the intellectual and political debates surrounding the taxation of the wealthy while also providing the most detailed examination to date of when taxes have been levied against the rich and when they haven’t. Fairness in debates about taxing the rich has depended on different views of what it means to treat people as equals and whether taxing the rich advances or...

The average tax wedge in OECD countries has been stable over the last 15 years, at roughly 36 percent. OECD data. From The Economist, a decomposition in the cross section: