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tv   The Five  FOX News  April 12, 2014 2:00pm-3:01pm PDT

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>> it's that time again. they want your money. >> americans who can afford it should pay their fair share. >> but what is fair? these people say we should allsh pay more. the first country in the world to impose a fat tax.o >> the media applaud new taxes and things they don't like. >> basically you go to the supermarket, you buy a food that has above a certain level of fat. >> but we could all pay less if politicians didn't get special breaksf to certain people. >> $8,000 this year.re >> finally, you'd be surprised at the size of a sneaky tax uncle sam imposes. >> this adds a nickel to each pack of cigarettes and two cents
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to each bottle of beer. >> so many taxes. i need a break. that's hour show tonight. >> our tax system is awful. the tax code, part of it, is unreadable. this a third of it. this is just the beginning of there regulations that go on to explain these three books total 75,000 pages. now, some taxes are necessary. there is a cost to government and we need to pay for that somehow. but it's outrageous that we have to spend endless hours figuring out what we owe.s and the taxes are so complex, most americans now pay someone for help. and it's outrageous that this is filled wit hh special breaks for certain politically connected
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people. and those breaks make our economy less healthy and lessope fair. we should just throw out the whole tax code and start over with something simpler, something understandable. forbes has tirelessly pushed that idea for years. and you failed miserably. >> we're still trying to persuade, and every s april 15 e get more support. i think in the 2016 elections, it will be at the forefront. there is a growing con send cess. i think it willfo be on the tabe in 2017 in a way it hasn't been for almost 30 years. >> what makes you say you're getting more support? >> even democrats realize this code is indefensive, even on the simpson bowls commission. they bought on the idea if you declutter the code, you can cut tax rates across the board. there is no groups in america, other than the lobbyists, who defend this code. >> not even tax accountants but the simplele, i get. but why flat?hn: flat means that everybody pays after a certain point.r
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poor people don't pay income tax. but that everybody pays the. same. but that's notot the most complx part of the code. >> well, if you have more than one tax rate, then you open itav up for politicians to clutterte the code again. after 1986 where they made a stab at simpleification, two tax rates, 15 and 28%, four years later, there is a third rate. bill clinton added two more and we're off to the races and we s have 14,000 changes since 1986. so with a single rate, everyonee knows if you're doing something. today you can make a change in the code, six months later,e, people may discover what actually happened. >> you say if we had a flat tax, this was -- this would help charitable giving. but i would lose the deduction for charitable giving. how would that help? >> because americans, one, don'i need to be bribed to give.br and history shows when americans have more, they give more.he charitable giving in terms of dollars, not in terms of hours volunteered. roughly 2% of gdp. that way before we had the
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income tax. in the 1980s when the top rate got cut from 70% to 28%, institution, especially colleges, went berserk. what happened was not only did charitable giving go up, but the rate of growth went up when people have more, they give more. >> even though people say,g ohi get a deduction for this, i'm going to give this to charityom and i take my deduction, they give anyway without it? >> sure, they do. it's been that way, go back to the 19th century. we've always been doing this. >> you say it would encourage homeownership. not that i'm certain that's good, but the real estate lobby is wedded to these mortgage deductions because they say that encourages homeownership. you get rid of that, it will hurt it. >> if you have lobbyists in i washington, they have to have a rationale. when people have more, they will buy a house. they don't need to be bribed by the government to do it. and we've had growing homeownership in this country for a long time. when you try stimulate homeownership artificially, youu get the kind of disaster we had several years ago.
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>> in your ideal world with the flat tax, it would be on a postcard. just fill out one postward? >> one sheet of paper, postcard or few key strokes if you're ont your pc.ew k >> and a couple -- >> or apple. >> couple countries have this.s estonia has a flat tax of 21%. the form is one page long. l takes five minutes to complete. but estonia is a new country.ni >> over 30 countries around ther world. vladimir putin, who peaked early, put this in 13% rate in 2000 when russia had a tax code that made ours look simple. within a few years, revenues doubled. hong kong, even though it was dirt poor, 60 years ago, now booming. >> you're fighting history pushing this.push the first -- >> existence was fighting history. we're the only invented nation on earth. so it's part of our tradition to
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fight what everyone else does.jn >> i look at how this stuff -- i threw on there more to come, how it's grown. the first 10, 44 pages. it's 176 pages. the tax rate, 1% in today's dollars if you made $500,000. 6% if you made $11 million. we've come a long way.rn >> it went berserk almost from the beginning because of the first world war. even after two world wars, politicians have discovered an income tax is a money machine. they're not going to give it upn easily. so let's go and have a simplified code. that would be a huge step in the right direction. stop theou lobbying in washingtn that revolves around this piece. kill it and start over and tod i show how stupid it is, john, dave camp, who is now leaving, the house of representatives, heads up the tax writing committee. he tried to simplify the code,rd using existing code, using thosd books you have there, 1,000
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pages that shows how bad this thing is. it took 1,000 pages to try to simplify it.y >> and it wasn't really received and he's leaving congress, i guess in frustration. thank you, steve forbes. >> thank you. >> i'm too scared to do my taxes. i'm sure i'll get something." wrong and my enemies i government will prosecute me. so i hired bob. he's myxe accountant. i don't want to have to have anm accountant. i don't want to spend time talking to bob. w but i have to. and i have to pay him, what, several thousand dollars a year? >> that's nobody's business. >> probably true. but what a waste! think of what i could do with the money. i can have this delicious steakb dinner 200 times a year. i can buy this cool motorcycle. i couldd take this cruise ship all the way from new york to venice and back. or better yet, i could do some y good for the world. the same money i waste on bob, i could buy two habitat for humanity homes overseas. or i could pay three kids'
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tuition at this catholic school. i could go on torturing myselfin about the good things i could do with that money, but instead, let's move on to the size of the tax bite. former "new york times" reporter david k. johnston just wrote a b book called "divided, the perils of our growing income inequality." he wants to address that with higher taxes on rich people. will mcbride, tax foundation, does not want too do that.t david, you want higher taxes? >> i want higher tax rates. here is what i want, the thing you talked about just now with steve forbes, it's not the ratei that make the system complex. you do that on a postcard. it's all those rules unreadablee that allow people to make money they don't pay taxes on. so the very wealthiest people it this country can literally live tax free. i've shown this in my books and elsewhere from the law. >> not many do. >> yes. many of them do. >> live tax free? >> yes. >> how? k >> well, let's do warren buffet.
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okay? his wealth is $64 billion. the year he released his tax return he said he made 64 million. you think his return was 1,000th of his wealth? then he's the worst investor in. america. >> he's not tax free. he pays something. he gets dividends that have already been taxed. >> wait a second. what you're missing is warren buffet's income is seen in the tax system as a tiny, tiny s portion of his actual wealth increase. that's how we need to fix the i system. the reason taxha code is so thik is all of these rules that alloa people to not have to recognizem income for tax purposes. >> it's all for good reason, to encourage certain good social behavior. >> let's have the market take care of that.re o >> will? >> i think what we're all describing here is the tax system that's broken.ke there has always been loopholes and people that slipped through the system. there has been lots of evasion and the biggest problem is that it's really suppressed investment, savings.
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steve forbes was explaining apla flat tax, which is getting away from this idea of taxing income. i think it's a very sound -- >> it's one rate for everybody.e >> well, what is different isife that it doesn't tax investment, doubly, triply as our income tae does. so that's the problem. we're really suppressing investment in this country through multiple layers of tax. you described the corporate tax, dividend tax, capital gains tax, tabsing the same tax twice, three times. >> it sounds like we're all in agreement, we need simplicity. how can this be? you've got david way over on the left. he worked for the "new york times." he's probably practically a socialist and you're on the right. >> also a business founder. >> the tax foundation, you r represent the rich people. where is the difference? start you, will. >> we're concerned about workers and the poor, general welfare.
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and the thing is that the best thing for the poor is to stop this excessive tax burden onn investment. >> you don't have a difference here? >> i think wee disagree on that. >> one thing we disagree perhaps is i think the current taxnt system basically protects existing wealth and holds back strifers. if we want to have a system that will make us more prosperous in the future, it's the strivers, the people that create new s fortunes. if you go down the road we're things like dynstic wealth. we end up like france. >> are you saying donaldhn trump or charles koch, i think they're strivers. >> what about their re grandchildren? should they be able to inherit everything? >> inheritance tax is not a bigi factor in the tax revenue. >> all the tax playing that's done to help people avoid the estate tax involves enormous things with the income tax. in fact, the gift tax is to back up the income tax. and part of the problem here is
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that the political power thatr, you're seeing that's distortingg the system is really focused on protecting the existing wealth, not promotingwe the creation of new wealth. if we had integrity in the h system and simplicity and we focused on the strivers, we would be much better off in the long run.eufe >> you buy that? the- strivers?ve >> i absolutely buy that. we have multiple layers of tax on the strivers right from their first dollar of income there is a payroll tax issue then the income tax kicking in at all sorts of levels and loop holeses built into that. we need have something that's comprehensivible, something like a flat tax. >> this isn't comprehensible? >> not to me. i'm an expert. >> this is also so reasonable. why can't it just happen? why didn't it happen last time y when they had tax reform? >> incentives for politicians. what are their insiptives for them to do this? what is your incentive if you're a senator and you have to raise thousands of dollars a week to get elected to address the
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problems in a way we're talkingo about, whatever minor differences we have? >> if you have a special break, then people have to come to you and kiss your ring and beg you for special breaks.yo powerful. thank you. will and david. keep this conversation going, or twitter #taxtime. let people know what you think. coming up, to lower their tax te bills, thousands of americans move to different states. we'll tell you which ones. but next, how government uses this book to manipulate us. >> the federal governmentvi provides tax credits, subsidies in order to help the individual and families purchase qualified health insurancequ plans.
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i get tax deductions 'cause i give a lot to charity and i have a retirement account whiche let's me defer some taxes. the less i have to pay toef politicians, the better. of course, taking deductions makes my tax more complex.ti so i waste money on an accountant and i have to do more record keeping. my guest says we should focus on
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another reason why they're not a good thing. they're a way the government manipulates people. >> what the tax code is doing is trying to choose our values for us. it's telling us charity is goodo maybe it is. >> protect our values? i thought government's role was to protect our persons and property. >> not trying to steer us in the direction of particular goals, particular ideas. they decide i need a solar panel, so they're going to give you a tax credit for solar. they want me to buy a house, so they're going to give me a tax deduction on a mortgage. i but if i pay cash, i don't get any benefit because somehow they want me to take on debt. >> most people don't pay cash for a house and they've decided, hey, if people own their housesr they'll take care of them. i they'll build communities. that's better for america. >> maybe that's true. tha none of the government'sha business. it's not of the government's business to dictate my behavior. >> they're encouraging.
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>> encouraging, but it's encouraging by use of coercion. if i don't do what they tell me, buy a house, they steal more of my money. they take more of my money. so goes a gun behind this encourage. >> and a carrot on the other ends. look at thisre disgusting commercial from the real estate lobby. >> honey, there is $8,000 in here ♪ >> the national association of realtors wants you to take advantage of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit. >> just so brazen uncle sam winking and -- >> this is who benefits from this. there is ara pressure group behd each one of these deductions that are benefitting directly. >> rich bankers association,e association of home builders, association of realtors. >> they benefit 'cause home prices go up and they're moreo u and more of these deductionsed 'cause there are more and more of these pressure groups that get formed just for the purpose of getting these tax deductions. >> all right. take my biggest deductions.
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a pension.. government decided we want to encourage people to save for the future, then maybe we won't have to take care of them.o i get to defer some taxes. >> it's the maybe we don't get o take care of them which i don'te find funny. 'cause they never shrink that. but whether i save or not at any given point in my life should be my decision free of government o coercion, free of government involvement. yeah, absolutely, save for retirement is a good thing. everybody should do it. i don't need government to give' me atn incentive. i want much lower taxes, then i'll have more money to save. >> you say you don't need this incentive, but i think a loft americans say, what is government for except to steer people to better activities for the good of the whole country? >> this is how we lose ourn freedoms. when government starts steering people in a direction of whater they should eat, what they should consume, what they can or cannot buy, what investments they can or cannot make, what's
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bad retirement plan, these exactly are the freedoms we're losing in america every single day. as paternalistic government starts managing our lives and manipulating our behavior. >> all right. take charity then. i don't see how i lose freedom. i freely choose which charities i give to. every buck i give to centralen park conservancy is 50 cents less that i give to uncle sam. >> absolutely. given the tax code, go crazy withaz it. but as you know, i'm less charitable than you andle therefore, i ain't paying moreax tax than you. why? why is the fact that you're more charitable? change this. what i'd like to see is -- >> charity is good. >> who says?an >> we shunned explain --ha >> we're not against charity. it's how important it is that we might disagree. but the point is, again, government has no role here.
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if you want to give to a t charity, great. iar want to invest rather than give o a charity, good for me. it's not government's job to i decide if i should start a business right now or if irn should give the money to charity. there are lots of things that might postpone whether i give ti charity or whether i want tot po give to charity. t i may be invest not guilty at, business that's more important. >> any politician who challenges hurts himself politically.lf during the last presidential election, mitt romney suggested taxd deductions for wind power were excessive and they are. but then wind power advocates ran this commercial.n >> until a few weeks ago, i hadi a job building windore pines. i got laid off because mitturbi romney and his friends in come wanted to eliminate tax creditst for wind industry. >> he wants to take this guy's job away. >> what you don't see, of course, are the jobs not created elsewhere 'cause investment is. flowing into a ridiculous
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industry like wind power that really is so economically inefficient that makes absolutely no sense, rather than into industries that make profits, that can grow, that n actually create lots moreo employment than the wind farmmo ever will. this isam the problem, again, wh the government trying toicro micromanage the economy, micromanage our lives. they're lousy at it because they can't replace the value choices that each one of us makes for ourselves.ef only we can do that and we need to be left free to do that. y >> given they'll run ads like that, can you blame politicians for chickening out? >> you have to blame o politicians. we don't elect them to chicken out. but no, this is the way the system is built. it was built to perpetuate this and expand it.d you'll see more of these kind of -- and when republicans getw in, they give it to their g favorite groups and when democrats get in, they give itor to their favorite groups. >> thanknk you., coming up, taxes on sin. did you sin this week?
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and also how the tax code screwt the little people.
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want to start a small business? in some ways that's easier than ever today. interest rates are low and the internet now allows us easier access to potential customers. but business professor brianbut says what makes it harder to b start a business is the tax code. it kills little guys. but what do you mean? because the code applies to bige guys and little guys equally. >> it does apply to big guys and little guys equally. the problem is big guys have a lot more resource to throw at these 75,000 pages than small guys do. take g.e., wouldn't vies me if they have 500 to 1,000 people working for them that they can have sifting through this. >> we actually checked that in the year 2011, according to a report they had about 1,000
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employees just doing this. >> right. >> instead of producing lightan bulbs or whatever they do. >> right. in theory, everybody is looking at this at the same time, in thi same way.am but the truth is ge is finding lots andnd lots of ways to make this work it to their advantage. small businesses cannot do that. >> the national small business association polled businesses and found that they spend morend than 80 hours a year on federal taxes. that's two work weeks at payroll tacks, two work weeks, saleswork taxes one workweek. >> you're talking about one month of work devoted to not b even paying taxes, just trying to comply with the tax code.ng o and you're spending time workind on tax, you're not spending time improving products, investing iv your employees, expanding your business, creating job, which is what the economy needs. >> you can't have a tax code that says okay, we'll give small guys a break and g.e., you can afford it.e >> no, give them the same thing. create a level playing field.
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the point is to not put small businesses at a disadvantage. you want to create an equality of competition or the opportunity to compete, soh create a tax that both can comply with. >> what are the odds of that when politicians receive suchewr reward for favoring certains c people? the last fiscal cliff bill, o we're out of money, but somehowd tv and film producers, everybody wants to be friends with them, this got a special credit. owners of nascar racetracks, wind turbine makers, ge. >> of course.ot the odds aren't good. s as you talked with steve forbese people have been at this a long time. onnee thing i i think we haven'd done is frame this debate in terms of some of the words of some of the language that i think is very popular now. when i look at this, i see institutionalized inequality and opportunity. if you're big, if you're if wealthy, you're connected, this can work in your advantage. but if you're the small guy,nta then you're at a severe
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disadvantage. and if we think about inequality in the united states, why not start attacking it by takingit this thing down from 75,000 pages to something thatha everybody can deal with? >> i should say that the 75,000 is beyond this. that's the explanation. e >> right, exactly. >> but the movement is to add more. >> right. yeah. >> read the paper, it'ss a litte adjustment here, a tweak there. what's really so -- >> why this is really an issue is actually today it is probably more than ever easier for your average person to be an entrepreneur, to start something.o web platforms, pay pal, theseee things allow you to put autopsy store front, reach customer, ship a product, bill them and t collect money in an easier way than ever before.nd so we have the opportunity to encourage entrepreneurship andtu we throw a tax code at entrepreneurs that says don't evenp, try. don't even try. that's absolutely notn what we want to be doing. >> and you hear from people whoy
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say, hey, i got the internet, great new stuff. but because of this, i'm not going to try? >> i had a conversation thisn t afternoon. not that i'm not going to try, but i'm going to get into it ani realize v quickly, i don't know how to handle this. and you do one of two things. you either pay somebody a lot of money to do it for you, right,t or -- >> or you buy this complicated c software.so >> or -- the truth is, or you roll the dice. who is going to roll the dice t and hope nobody is check us all that closely? and i can go on with my business? if you want to put people in a position where they're rolling t the dice? i don't want to put people in that position. i want them thinking about their business and creating great products and jobs for people. >> thank you, brian. b coming up, a cool way to understand how high taxes persuade some people to just pack up and move somewhere else up and m [ male announcer ] hands were made for playing.
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you're stuck with your federal taxes. in america, you have to pay. but america is having 50 different states, means you can avoid some taxes if you live in the right state. that's a good thing 'cause it creates competition. if your state does somethinging stupid, you can leave. take your talent and money elsewhere. millions of people do. travis brown invented a clever way to document who is moving where. here it is. >> we're looking at the movement ofof americans and their income, measured by the internal revenue service taxpayer data files since 1992 to 2010, the largest -- >> track it by time? >> that's right. we can go right up here. >> you can maybe. >> we can do it from this entire period and show from where andhe to where americans have beenam voting with their feet and taking their wallet. >> these red states, people have left and gone often to florida. >> that's right. >> or texas or north carolina.
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>> america's biggest winning state is the sunshine state of florida. a gain of $10,000 a minute, every minute of every day on average for the last 18 years. there are nine states, likes florida, that do not penalize thatot work. and as a group, tend to do very well in our analysis. >> and the analysis shows people leave the income tax states for no income tax states? >> the nine states of differents locations in weather and climate as a group over the 18-year period have collected over $166 billion from the other 41 states. the reverse is also true by correlation that nine states with the highest income tax rates have lost nearly 150 billion. nearly $19 billion has been going straight out of new york for florida. in new england, there is one state that stands out, like new hampshire. live free or die is their motto
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and they show a gain with a verw different weather climate of 3 1/2 billion dollars. >> it does show that it's notut just about weather. california always seems to be red here. >> california, these states inre green, are receiving california income from taxpayers that have chosen to leave the golden beard state and force neighbors like nevada are showing gain of, $18 billion, ten of which is coming straight out of places. like lake tahoe. >> the biggest per capita winners. losers, new york, alaska, washington, d.c., illinois, maryland. >> that's right. if you look at the total tax burden as a percent of your income and the high tax states t are giving their income away and lower tax states are doing better and better and better. >> and people watching now canno download their own version of this by going to this web site? >> that'sw right.
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howmanywalks.com. you can have this information for your city, i county and stae available in your smart phone,ta downloading the app or surfings this web. >> useful. u i like it that states advertise their tax advantage. florida and texas ran these adsp >> 0% personal income tax. that's right. zero.the the best place to get away froms it all is also the best place to get it all done.pa grow your business in florida. >> if you're tired of the same old recipe of overtaxation, overregulation, and frivolous litigation, get out before you go broke.go texas is calling.alli >> texas governor rick perry escalated the tax competition b, naming other states, bashing other states. >> if youth justem took the book rules and regulation in new york state, 49,000 pages. >> why have more jobs andge businesses moved to texas? we have no state income tax. >> i love it that he points outi the greed of my state's
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politicians. >> it makes perfect sense why: governor perry is in new york to recruit and get more business. >> and my politicians feeling the pain of losing people and money to states like texas haveo started running this ad. >> new new york is our new yorke open to innovation, that's why new york has a new plan. dozens of tax free zones alls across the state. e move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years. >> but that's not just lower- taxes. it sounds -- certain tax free zone. this is the classic case, i think $140 million of promotionf of that kind of ad, but itou requires you to be selected by your state government as a w winner in a particular zone and there are a lofton conditions tn would apply there. >> apparently you have to be near the state university of new york and some other private colleges, retailers are excluded, so are law firms,ir hotels, medical offices, power
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plants. it just sounds like arrogants politicians saying, i'll takeol that one, i like this one. >> by the time you fill out allm that paperwork, you might haveou had enough time just to move to palm beach or austin.ti >> i still think it's weather. this is ne ww york. they're going to florida. most of the green is down here.h >> well, we certainly see e evidence that for texas, tennessee and florida, they do very well. but take a state like wyoming where it's still snowing in this environment. we have a gain of 1.42 billion. the state that are now calling the digital prairie, if you want a job with an area in south and north dakota, they're doing very well in upper tier great plains states. and you haveta other -- >> the weather is really lousy u there. >> well, not if you're a pheasant. >> this looks this way because you break it down county by county where people are. >> that's right. for example, we know that chicago is a big part of thet $29 billion loss to the state o
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like illinois. we can zoom in and look particularly on where that stats loss is, even within the state by going in to cook county. and that's what allows us to see the relationship of how muchli responsibility a city may have for governing their state correctly or incorrectly. >> thank you, travis. again, you can download this ann inspect it d yourself. coming up, sin taxes. you want to smoke? eat junk, food? different states have different plans for takingg your money. that's next. ed
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want a beer? you must pay extra for it because in addition to sales tax, states impose a sin tax on products like this. when i bought this, bottle of whiskey, i had to pay anna additional two bucks beyond sales tax to the sin of jac daniels. and if you smoke cigarettes, you must be really sinful because this carton costs almost 60 bucks more 'cause politicians tax you to save you from yourself. and what's wrong with p that? f
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don't we want government to discourage destructive behavior? no. says reason tv nick. why not? >> if i want to hear about sin, i'll go to church or an anthony wiener press conference. when i turn i to politician, whs i wantin is fair laws that apply equally to all people and all products. >> who cares what you p want? >> that roux. >> the wise politicians decide it's better for the country if we're not all drunk or smoking cigarettes and progly is.s. >> there is a case that says cigarettes impose cost on peoplc in terms of health care. you can say there should be a tx tax on that to cover those clearly identifiable links at health conditions that get pushed onto other people. but that is -- when new yorkd city charges $5 in sin taxes for a pack of significant coats or chicago $6, they're going far beyond that. this is what's odd about$6 t
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sintaxes. they're supposed to be high, but then they're used for revenue. >> as fewer people smoke, the politicians are more >> that's because people who are fat, people when are smokers, a they're minorityre groups and ty can beth demonized and you can start ratcheting up the cost they have to pay for the things they want. >> but the tax has a cost, too, in that it encourages people to cheat, go to the black market. one study found that most of thl cigarettes sold in new york wer state were sold legally. >> right. 57% of cigarettes used in newed york state were brought in illegally or in an unauthorizedl way. and that's because new york hasa very high cigarette taxes. >> we have a new form of organized crime. >> that's right. or a life line for the old formd of organized crime. going back hundreds of years in america getting around excise taxes and sin taxes on things like cigarettes, smokes and booze basically. >> i think most americans like
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the idea of our electeled officials manipulating us in ani good way. for a while, we had luxury tax, another form of sin tax. we had a tax on private planes and on cars valued over $30,00 . boats over $100,000. that seems fair.ot rich -- >> nothing underscores more m clearly how sin taxes are often symbolic gestures. those types of taxes become biga luxury taxes during recessions. you're looking to scapegoat somebody. this happened in i guess the early '90s where people were like okay. let's go after luxury yachts. these billionaires who -- let's screw them by taxing them on that. what that does iys reduces the demand for yachts and the people who make yachts are not billionaires and you had lots of people thrown out of business. same thing happened with -- >> thehey lobbied and repealed n within three careers. >> yeah.
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that's kind of good, but this impulse to say certain things are sinful and wrong in colonial america, you could be taxedco heavily for dressing above your station if you wore fancy ribbons. >> leather? >> leather boots were -- if they were extravagant were taxedo heavily. that's not what america is about. it was what america was about, but we live in a secular society. we don't even have an official category of sin in the political arena other than whatol politicians do on a daily basisu so let's tax -- tax politician, tax the laws. put a tax on new laws. but leave the candy bars alone. >> but we revere the founders and when george washington was president, they passed the tax on whiskey. alexander hamilton said whenn people drink too much, theyn often do things they regret.y >> right. that is one of the very few things i think that everybody will agree.yo alexander hamilton was right drunk and it often leads to bad behavior. there was also a whiskey
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rebellion against that and it didn't stamp it out, but it'st y clear that the -- i think ald government would be better if it taxed everything equally, as long as we're talking about activities or goods that consenting adults are freely choosing. >> researching this you found there was a tax on importing slaves?a >> yeah. it was an excise tax, just like there was on tea. it's kind of disturbing that colonial protesters protested taxes on tea, but not quite on slaves in the same way. >> moving to present day,s after the newtown tragedy. law maker proposed a sin tax on violent video games. >> even though there is absolutely no serious research that shows playing violent video games -- >> not even not violent. much more in japan where therei. is less crime. s >> this underscores the kind ofg scapegoating that goes on when there's a problem, throw a law a or tax at it and demonize video gamers are a demonized outgroup.
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>> colorado is excited about the money they'll get from a marijuana. >> a way it's good becausero that's the upside of sin taxes is that cash-strapped governments everywhere, they always want more revenue. and suddenly they're willing toy say something, like maybe it's not such a bad thing if adults can legally smoke pot instead of going on the black market. we'll tax it. people are happy to play that tax for a while at a higher rate. i think it should be taxed at the same as milk essentially. but that is one of the ways that sin taxes can be i think a powerful agent for liberalizing good policies. >> thank you, nick. next, how complex taxes like what we have in here invite politicians to use this to punish their enemy. that's next. about
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done your taxes yet? be careful because what you think is legalal may not be. you have good reason to be confused because who can understand this stuff? three examples.n an ortho done insist suggested someone take clarinet lessons to correct an overbite. when a psychotherapist recommended them to relaxre someone, they were denied.
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court said the cost of a pool and its upkeep are deductible. but when a doctor told a fat patient to exercise, the court, ruled the home gym that he got is not deductible. finally, if you own a junkyard and you want to get rid of mice, you can deduct the cost of foo you give to feral, with you mayu not deduct the cost of a watchdog that guards your home office. did you get the difference? i d don't either. but that's what you get with garbage like this. chunk it alle? and start over wh something much simpler. of course, that would justus address the income tax. the politicians grab almost as m much moneyuc from sneaky taxes that you may not even notice. you and i pay them awe day longa from the moment i wake up and turn on a light. >> i pay more when i brush my
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teeth. so many taxes. i need a drink.e multiple and complex taxes are a threat not just because they take more money from them. but because they give the ruling class power to punish their critics. learned about one campaign to do that. >> the internall revenue service practice of targeting conservative groups. >> they would look for key words like tea party or patriot. >> at least we found out about that one. but how many other times has this happened that we don't know about? complex tax rules are an't k invitation to the ruling class to abuse its power.ti our best protection is simplicity. if everyone understands the rules, it's hard to manipulate them. of course, even better protection would be smaller, limited government, is it too late to wish for that? i hope not because that's why wn
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do this show. that's all for tonight. see you next week. fox news alert on the heated battle between a nevada rancher and the federal government over grazing rights. federal agents deciding to call off efforts to seize the cattle rancher's herd after a very tense stand-off. welcome to brand-new hour inside of america's news headquarters. i'm arthel neville. >> i'm gregg jarrett. certainly a roller coaster chain of events as protesters who supported the rancher blocked a section of this interstate earlier today and some of them even brought guns. william lajeunesse joins us now live from nevada. william? >> reporter: gregg, as arrest

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