How much do billionaires really pay in taxes?<\/span><\/p>\n

“Today, the superrich control a greater share of America’s wealth than during the Gilded Age of Carnegies and Rockefellers,” said Gabriel Zucman<\/a> in a recent <\/span>New York Times <\/span><\/em>opinion piece entitled, “<\/span>It’s Time to Tax the Billionaires<\/span><\/a>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Zucman is an economist at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, and a frequent collaborator with superstar economist Thomas Piketty<\/a>, author of the extremely influential book on wealth inequality, <\/span>Capital in the Twenty-First Century<\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But today’s guest, Phil Magness<\/a>\u2014an economic historian, author, and the David J. Theroux Chair in Political Economy at the Independent Institute<\/a>\u2014says the work of Piketty and his circle of inequality-obsessed colleagues is deeply flawed and sometimes outright deceptive. He points out<\/a> that billionaires do pay taxes…a lot of taxes. And the inequality literature is riddled with errors and bad statistics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch the full conversation on\u00a0Reason<\/em>‘s\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a>\u00a0or the\u00a0Just Asking Questions<\/em>\u00a0podcast feed on\u00a0Apple<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>, or your preferred podcatcher.<\/p>\n

Sources referenced in this conversation:<\/p>\n

\n
1. Magness’ viral post debunking Zucman<\/a><\/li>\n
2. Zucman’s article discussed in the introduction<\/a><\/li>\n
3. CBO: Tax credits awarded by quintile<\/a><\/li>\n
4. Zucman’s explanation for excluding the Earned Income Tax Credit<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(p. 19)<\/li>\n
5. Tax Foundation: Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2024 Update<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
6. Piketty’s inequality U-graph<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
7. Auten-Splinter adjustment, after-tax income for top 1 percent<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
8. Piketty: “r > g”<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
9. Piketty: Capital income has increased as labor income has fallen<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   Time stamps:<\/p>\n

   \n
   • 00:00\u00a0Introduction to Just Asking Questions<\/em>: Billionaires and Taxes<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 01:38\u00a0Unpacking the Misleading Tax Rate Graphs<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 06:38\u00a0The Political Motivations Behind Misleading Tax Narratives<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 15:39 Analyzing the Impact of Tax Credits on Lower-Income Earners<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 22:32\u00a0The Real Tax Burden: A Closer Look at Wealthy Americans’ Contributions<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 27:05 Countering Piketty’s Inequality Data With Accurate Accounting<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 34:58 The Practical Problems With a Wealth Tax<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 40:04\u00a0Piketty’s Inequality Narrative and Its Flaws<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 48:50\u00a0Global Financial Transparency and Taxation Proposals<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 54:40\u00a0The Moral and Economic Case Against High Taxation<\/span><\/li>\n
   • 57:48 Listener Q&A: Defending the Show’s Title<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
     \n
     • Producer:<\/strong> John Osterhoudt<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       The post Phil Magness: Who Really Pays the Most Taxes?<\/a> appeared first on Reason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

       Economist and author Phil Magness debunks a recent New York Times piece and shoddy academic work about the rich and their taxes. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-102208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-policy","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}