wide shareholder dividend increases the iconic motorcycle company was touted by both president trump and speaker of the house paul ryan as examples of businesses which would be big beneficiaries from the tax cut law and this is it appears that the benefits from the new law are being used to outsource jobs and pay shareholders in a contract in market. or not to tax was once upon a time undoubtedly the question but as a civil society we've want to go past the point of if there will be taxes the question by most policymakers is who or what will be taxed and how much and here to provide his seasoned and professional perspective we are joined an honored to be joined by richard wolffe a professor emeritus on economics at the university imagine here's the thing and her professor thank you again for being with us i'm very grateful for your time is there a perfect tax

a tax that is really fair and provides good for all the people. i doubt it i think that taxes have been with us for a long time and that they are basically a way that we hold ourselves together as a community. taxes are a recognition that some things are better done if we pool our resources together and if we go you know individually let me just give you the simplest examples if we want to have a lovely wooded area in our community to have picnics to go with our children we could each strider somehow i maintain a plot of wooded land but the absurdity of the expense is silly and so we get together pooling our resources so that we can have a central park in the middle of your or a prospect park in brooklyn or

a golden gate park in san francisco that we can all enjoy and so we all kick in a little bit of money far far less than we unify ourselves in order to have a collective resource we couldn't otherwise really afford at least many of us could most of us and the same in. applies to roads and highways an arborist and national defense and a whole lot of other things so that once you explain to people what the taxes are out basically building the institutions that serve us as a community of people they understand the logic of it and even when the paying full bill comes to pay it and the struggles begin about who should pay what only should of it that's when things get dicey and in their upset about not wanting to pay some groups begin to question the whole notion of the tax itself but as i say

that's a kind of point of view that does not bear any serious investigation. what do you think professor are sort of let's accept that there were going to be taxed at the question of who are water how much what or what are you in your view are you looking around the world and look at the neck not economic for your whole career what are the most unfair types of taxes and where in the world do they exist today . well for me from my perspective one of the things a tax can do besides providing us collectively important resources like parks like highways like schools and all the rest of that one of the other things a tax could do is go somewhere toward alleviating aspects of our economic system that are no good in other words we can fix the broken aspects of

our economy by the means of taxes and for me one of the most importance in holding any community together is to avoid extreme has a wealth on the one hand coupled with extremes of poverty on the other so for me one of the extra benefits of a tax is that it can do something to lessen the inequality of a society so for me the most unfair tax is that time x. that not only doesn't lessen inequality but actually makes it worse and let me give you an example here in the united states and we're not the only country of course that does this we rely on many many of our states on something called a sales tax that's for example taxing a shirt you might buy in a department store by adding five percent to whatever the price of the sugar is

when you do that you charge exactly the same amount of money but say it's one hundred dollars sure so then it's five percent that would be a five dollar tax you're charging the same five dollar tax to a person who has a very low income as you would to a rockefeller are jeffrey b.'s ost who with who counts his wealth in the billions i think that's. unfair that's a situation in which a broken part of b. economy that lends some people have more money than they know what to do with while other people don't have enough food or shelter ok and pay their kids' way to college etc this isn't an unfair tax which by the way was recognized here in the united states one hundred years ago when we began the income tax and we structured it as what we call eight progress of tax and what that simply means

there's the higher your income the larger the percentage of it you are required to pay in tax because you can know for more you are asked to give more and the logic of that is again to use that tax system to offset any qualities that if you don't offset them will destroy your community create tension within it and eventually blow it up. we've just got about sixty seconds but i want to try to squeeze in one more question so when you talk about wealth inequality and then various tax provisions like in the the recent tax reform law that was passed some would argue that well the wealthy are going to make all these profits and they will therefore buy a lot of shirts or buy a lot of gasoline and then the people that make the shirt for help get the ghastly they will ultimately trickle down to them how that's how is that working out so far

professor that's not work at all because it was never true it was just a rationalization invented by rich people so that they could continue to get a disproportionate amount of the wealth by telling us that if you do that it will trickle down to you because they will buy more the thing about rich people is they are already couldn't sue me more than most of the rest of us care like imagine and by giving even more money and then you're not going to get them to consume more you're going to get them to make a lavish investments in other parts of the world you're going to get them to do it best in harebrained schemes a bit coin or god knows what ever is speculation that's what we've seen the tax cut the end of december for example gave more wealth to big companies or using it to distribute to their shareholders they're not hiring workers the way they promised they would they're not giving iowa wages the way they promised those promises are

made to get the money into their hands and then they're just as quickly forgot professor emeritus in economics at the university of massachusetts richard wall we're always smarter after you have joined us our thanks thank you very much glad to do it. some companies treat their employees to perks such as sports tickets other luxury items however after passing of a new tax law some corporations are having to cut back on their gifts or take it in that workers are to correspondent actually banks with the latest new tax laws will soon either a limit or eliminate al many capitals game tickets and your employer will provide in the near future changes in the law eliminate deduction for sports tickets concerts other client entertainment and employee meals these changes were designed to help offset corporate tax cuts according to

a survey done by wall street journal including eight hundred sixty five firms forty five percent of those firms say they will be affected by the new tax laws forcing them to cut spending or make adjustments which will impact their employees big corporations will not feel the impact as much the cut in the corporate tax rate of twenty one percent lower the deductions value and as for small businesses their tax higher between twenty nine percent and thirty seven percent small firms also operate with thinner margins and are usually more sensitive to tax rate changes some businesses have annual client appreciation day at sporting stadiums however they may have to cancel this year due to the tax laws because under williams chief executive of a tech consulting incorporated says quote we have season rams tickets the invoice is sitting on my desk do we do this or do we not what is our return on investment

joseph hine c.e.o. of voice and data networks incorporated says he had to sell off the company's extra seats because most of the company's owners could no longer deduct the expense as a result some teams are exploring options as to how they can help companies claim deductions tony not c.e.o. . of ticket manager incorporated which manages and track sports tickets for businesses says usually when we hear teams talk about an increase in non renewables winning teams and big markets are immune we're getting calls from teams that are winning that have huge fan bases saying we're losing customers because of the deduction sports teams aren't the only ones taking a head restaurant and catering businesses are suffering as well so much so businesses are cutting back on and plea dinners and events the owner of do par and company says we had an absolutely dead january february and march some businesses have also had to stop reimbursing employees for commuting expenses because they too

were no longer deductible these new laws are set to take us back to this year possibly changing the perks that businesses on earth to their employees and washington actually banks are it's. time now for a quick break but hang here because when we return henry ford which the c.e.o. of droll mark looks at the highest and lowest tax rates around the globe plus we have a special panel to discuss the new u.s. tax law and the current implications plus alex my height which tells us about a tiny u.s. tax provision that might impact life love and finances as it goes or we do go to break here's a quick question for you which of the following us states have no individual income tax the last the forego the vital stuff that go to texas washington or wyoming which ones have no state individual tax the answer right after a break we'll be back.

with kind of the goal and direction you need to add to the generation of ultra independents that's what the top ten can push away that is the beginning and the nightmare that we have how effective for. in some american cities the police have built themselves cling to refutation of people who walk on the streets of the united states are at risk from the very people who are supposed to protect that were people are no more afraid of the police than of us in the us. you can see something happening and this is like i don't want to call the cops let that happen rather than call the cops in those young black men lose their lives chasing the. same goes on the trigger you never know better safe than sorry i don't know that someone else is going to die so. fortunately around around here we end up killing our guns on

the dentist told from such preclusion this place to. welcome back the answer to our quiz question which of the following states have no income tax alaska florida vattel south dakota texas washington or wyoming the answer is actually all of the seven listed none of them have individual income taxes did you get it right it's sort of a trick question. and now we focus on tax rates around the world to lend us

a hand we're joined by our friend the c.e.o. and founder of stroll mark world which hilary thanks for being with us first of all wonder what's the best place to live from a tax perspective well around the world i think is an interesting question and good to be back again by the way i have a county out for that state which has you know tax rates might be low and they might. to be low and broadcast to be low but when you actually live there or do something there you find that the government gets your taxes no matter how margaret thatcher used to say there's no such thing as a free lunch i've got two tons of examples i bought a bottle of champagne before christmas in washington d.c. . and then coincidentally i happened to be in texas a few weeks later and took a bottle of piper heidsieck that i bought locally to a family seven dollars difference tex's a non-tax state but they sure got you on the sales tax also i lived in the netherlands of the global headquarters of k.p. and she was based in amsterdam and of course the taxes there astronomically high in america is i'd never want to live in one of those high tax countries meanwhile no

one's paying for their kids' college education when you're not paying for kids' college education and you're not paying for health care out of pocket that makes a lot of difference the government gives you a lot more in those countries so there is a lot to consider and there are a great many nuances to that credit it's a zero sum game unless the same way every whenever we talk about gas prices in the us which states are the highest because of the state tax and then when you talk about international petrol prices you look at france and it's you know what it's actually dollars a gallon really a leader or whatever it is just because the taxes when you're going to match up to the gallon let's go to which are your car via my caviar which are the lowest individual tax rates playing the planet where you will where you want to live if you want to just go and also that means that never go shopping never if you want to live in somewhere with a.