Should-Read: Dan Shaviro: Another new publication!

Should-Read: Dan Shaviro: Another new publication!: “‘Evaluating the New U.S. Pass-Through Rules’…

…The pass-through rules that the U.S. Congress enacted in 2017-permitting the owners of unincorporated businesses in favored industries to escape tax on 20 per cent of their income-achieved a rare and unenviable trifecta, by making the tax system less efficient, less fair, and more complicated. It lacked any coherent (or even clearly articulated) underlying principle, was shoddily executed, and ought to be promptly repealed. Given the broader surrounding circumstances, the mere fact of its enactment sends out a disturbing message about disregard among high-ranking US policymakers for basic principles of competence, transparency, and fair governance….

This article is a bit on the candid and unvarnished side-even though it’s been toned down significantly from earlier drafts. But I think the tone is justified given the passthrough rules’ egregiousness-at least leaving aside the old maxim that, if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. (That maxim would tend to hold down the quantity of writing about the passthrough rules.) It also addresses the 2017 act’s negligence or worse (it appears to have been deliberate) in cutting the corporate rate without addressing the use of C corporations as tax shelters that can be used to lower the rate on labor income. Read the article and you’ll find a few well-chosen (I’d like to think) words about that…