4.4. Taxation
Contents
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Online Quarantine Lecture 8
Readings
There is no reading for today. However, you may be interested in some of the articles mentioned in the slides/videos, linked below.
- Bellafiore, 2018, “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2018 Update,” Tax Foundation
- Huseman, 2017, “Filing Taxes Could Be Free and Simple. But H&R Block and Intuit Are Still Lobbying Against It,” Pro Publica
- Michell, 2018, “Government Privilege: Using and Abusing the Tax Code,” Mercatus Center: The Bridge
- Myers, 2019, “Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit for 2018,” Yahoo Finance
- Nocera, 2019, “The Golden Age of Hollywood Tax Avoidance,” Bloomberg Opinion
- Rubin, 2019, “Democrats’ Emerging Tax Idea: Look Beyond Income, Target Wealth,” Wall Street Journal
Class Livestream/Lecture Videos
Slides
Interactive Visualization
This is a visual example of how taxes alter market surpluses. Based on the elasticity of the curve in equilibrium, a tax will both shift some of that surplus to the government (as tax revenue), and some of it is thrown away as deadweight loss. The curve with a lower elasticity bears more of the tax burden and loses more surplus. Think of elasticity as the ability to evade the tax - a more elastic curve has more options and will change their buying/selling behavior a lot to a price change (from a tax), and thus will bear less of the tax burden!
Discussion Thread
The weekly discussion thread is posted on Blackboard.Go to this course on Blackboard, and on the blue toolbar on the left, go to Discussion Board.
You will have until Sunday 11:59 PM to comment on this week’s topics (based on lectures and readings), at which point I will evaluate your contribution for the weekly discussion grade. See my introductory post on the discussion board’s thread for more information.