Unjerked E35 Taxes Part 1

William Henderson and B. McGraw talk about taxes in the United States. Why do we have them? What are the different types of taxes? What are the best tax policies? This is part 1 of 2 episodes.

First we talk about the reason why taxes exist and an international comparison of rates. Then, we talk about trends in federal rates over time. During the 19th century, the US had an extremely low rate, consisting mostly of tariffs. This changed with the introduction of the amendment allowing for a national income tax, with additional increases during the New Deal era. Interestingly, a much larger percentage were paid by high income earners and by corporations. Over time, this has shifted more towards a higher share being funded through payroll taxes and by lower income earners.

We then talk about the various federal taxes in the United States, to include the income, payroll, excise, capital gains, estate, and more. Finally, we discuss some of the state taxes which exist, and what those rates look like. Overall, there is no clear trend in terms of which states have higher rates than others. Oftentimes, when a state has a lower rate in a certain category (e.g. property), they will have a higher rate in another (e.g. income).

2:22 Intro

3:45 Why taxes exist

11:06 Public goods

11:23 Wealth redistribution?

12:13 International comparison

13:30 Global corporate tax

15:36 Federal tax over time

16:07 shift in percentage types of tax (tariff, etc) (2)

19:15 effective rates by income (2)

23:02 Actual effective tax rate in the 1950s

24:38 Deadweight loss vs social services

28:10 Federal tax types (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)

32:37 State taxes (1) (2) (3) (4)

 

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