TJN Admin ■ The Curse of Laffer: Trump’s tax cuts see revenues plunge 25 percent

We’ve previously blogged on Donald Trump’s plans for cutting corporate income tax, and now they’ve come to fruition we can see the results as far as the USA is concerned. Tax receipts are plummeting, despite the economic boom stimulated by his predecessor’s QE programme. Commentators have widely predicted that this will inevitably lead to a widening deficit, greater inequality, and harmful impacts on other countries as tax competition pushes the race-to-the-bottom, but these are just details!
Trump is not the first politician to be seduced by the alchemy of Arthur Laffer’s phoney curve, and he won’t be the last, but it’s not encouraging that they just keep on doing this despite the mountains of evidence refuting the idea that tax cuts yield higher long-term revenues.
Meanwhile, and notwithstanding the calamitous harm inflicted on the state of Kansas, which took the tax cutting route to its logical conclusion, some politicians just keep lapping up Laffer’s snake oil.
Related articles

Data havens: how to tackle the new digital race to the bottom

Taxing Wall Street: the Tax Justice Network December 2020 podcast

How to fight inequality: a chat with Ben Phillips

Online Conference: How to Pay for the Climate Transition

Women need real social protection that goes beyond the aspirational

New book provides practical solutions to make tax work to reduce poverty

$427bn lost to tax havens every year: landmark study reveals countries’ losses and worst offenders
The State of Tax Justice 2020
20 November 2020

Systemic racism and tax justice: the Tax Justice Network podcast, July 2020
