The hottest Tax policy Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top U.S. Politics Topics

Why Your Boss Can Block Your Unemployment Benefits

Can We Still Govern? • 133 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. The experience-rating system ties employer taxes to benefit claims, so employers have a strong financial incentive to contest and sometimes block workers' unemployment claims. This incentive has even spawned a claims-management industry that helps firms fight benefits.
  2. Employer pushback is common — about 26% of applicants reported contestation — and it disproportionately affects less-educated workers; contested claimants were much less likely to receive benefits and reported greater material hardship and stress.
  3. Because contests can deny legitimate claims and worsen hardship, policymakers should rethink the employer role in UI by limiting contestation, changing tax incentives (for example, taxing layoffs instead of claims), or strengthening worker supports and data collection for appeals.

Energy Policy | Lunch Money with Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American • 8 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Economics and politics used to be closely connected and were openly debated by politicians, editors, and everyday people.
  2. Since World War II, politicians have often disguised or misdescribed the real economic effects of policies, which has made it harder for the public to see how politics affects the economy.
  3. Clear, expert conversations can help untangle big-picture policy changes and make economic debates easier for ordinary people to follow.

How About "No Tax on Anyone Who Nails a Shot From Half Court"?

I Might Be Wrong • 8 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Politicians are pushing narrow, populist tax cuts that reward specific groups and create a messy, unfair patchwork instead of simplifying the system.
  2. Replacing serious tax policy with a chance-or-skill-based gimmick (like a half-court shot that cancels all taxes) is a satirical way to show how arbitrary and theatrical current tax giveaways have become.
  3. Unpaid-for tax cuts can fuel deficits and inflation, creating a cycle of more gimmicks instead of real solutions like increasing supply or responsible budgeting.

Lessons for Debt Control from Clinton's Success in the 1990s

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
💰 Finance Tax policy
  1. When fiscal consolidation is credible and the central bank supports demand while technology cuts the price of capital, private investment can be crowded in and overall growth can accelerate.
  2. The 1994 bond-market selloff reflected unexpectedly strong tech-led growth and mortgage-backed‑security duration effects, not a market fear that deficit cuts would wreck the recovery.
  3. The 1993 deficit‑reduction package paired tax increases with spending caps and expanded the EITC, which helped working families and long‑run growth, while much of the political opposition was partisan theater rather than a unanimous professional economic judgment.

DeSantis is Half-Right About Property Taxes

Progress and Poverty • 1885 implied HN points • 16 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. DeSantis wants to remove property taxes, but he should keep the tax on land. Building taxes can hurt investment and should be removed since they don’t help with housing affordability.
  2. Land taxes are important because they make sure the community benefits from land value. If landowners aren't taxed, they might just sit on land without developing it, which can hurt the economy.
  3. DeSantis has a chance to be a leader in property tax reform, but he needs to understand the difference between building and land taxes. Removing just the building tax but keeping the land tax could lead to better development and growth.
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Zohran Mamdani's Budgetary Buffoonery

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 45 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A nearly 10% property tax increase runs against the mayor's affordability promises and shifts a big bill onto homeowners and landlords.
  2. Property taxes are a blunt tool that often lead owners to pass costs to renters or cut maintenance, which undermines housing affordability.
  3. Relying on repeated large tax hikes risks eroding political support and could drive wealthy residents and businesses away, shrinking the city's tax base.

Tariff Refund Delays Could Cost Taxpayers $700 Million A Month

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 13 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Delaying refunds on the Supreme Court-invalidated tariffs adds about $700 million in interest every month — roughly $23 million per day — and could total around $25 billion if litigation is dragged out to the end of the president’s term.
  2. About $175 billion in tariff payments is tied up in bonds, so slow refunds hurt importers by freezing capital they could use to run their businesses.
  3. The Justice Department asked for a 90-plus day pause in the remand process (which the appeals court rejected), and continuing to fight refunds would waste government resources and force taxpayers to pay needless interest.

Why everyone is mad at California voters, and the impolite fiction of the Nvidia-Groq deal

Alex's Personal Blog • 164 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Tax policy
  1. A proposed one-time billionaire wealth tax in California looks fair politically and could raise a lot for healthcare, but it's impractical because much billionaire wealth is illiquid and would force asset sales or borrowing to pay.
  2. Wealth taxes run up against mobility and incentives: the very rich can move or shift investments to lower-tax states, so the measure would likely cause capital flight and reduce long-term business activity and revenue for California.
  3. Nvidia's deal with Groq risks undermining competition in AI inference hardware by neutralizing a potential challenger, which could concentrate market power and make it harder for smaller firms to compete.

What don’t we know about LVT? Research that could advance Georgism.

Progress and Poverty • 1116 implied HN points • 09 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Land Value Tax (LVT) is still a bit of a mystery, and more research is needed to understand its effects better. Many researchers are eager to explore how LVT can work in different areas.
  2. There are some real-world examples of LVT that can be studied, like in Pennsylvania or New Zealand. Looking at these places can help us understand how LVT impacts housing and land prices.
  3. Understanding how to assess land values for taxes is very important for LVT's success. This means researchers need to figure out ways to accurately determine what land is worth.

What have we learned about child poverty in America?

Can We Still Govern? • 145 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A near-universal expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021 sharply reduced child poverty, roughly halving the rate and lifting millions of children out of poverty.
  2. Much of the federal spending on the CTC and EITC did not go to children in poverty—only a small share reached kids below the poverty line while over half of the dollars went to families above 200% of the poverty line.
  3. The 2021 payments were delivered accurately and reached most children with minimal short-term effects on parental work, but making such expansions permanent would likely reduce parental employment more, raise fiscal costs, and still pose access gaps for some groups.

Should We Eliminate the IRS?

Points And Figures • 772 implied HN points • 12 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Many younger people, especially those in their 30s and 40s, really want to change how taxes work. They're often paying a lot on things like equity gains, which feels unfair to them.
  2. A lot of Americans support switching from an income tax to a spending tax. This means instead of taxing what you earn, you’d get taxed on what you buy.
  3. Politicians and some powerful groups might fight against changing to a spending tax because it takes away their control. But many believe it could make the system fairer for everyone.

LVT Landscape #3: LVT Momentum is Worldwide

Progress and Poverty • 846 implied HN points • 24 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Land value tax (LVT) is gaining traction worldwide, with countries like South Korea, Wales, and New Zealand considering its implementation.
  2. Cities like Bogota and Saudi Arabia are using innovative tax strategies to encourage land development and discourage land hoarding.
  3. In the U.S., several states are exploring or introducing legislation for land value taxes, indicating a growing interest in this tax approach.

Is the One Big Beautiful Bill a Masterstroke—or a Disaster?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 709 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Congress recently passed a major bill that includes tax cuts and changes to Medicaid, which could significantly impact low-income Americans. This law will also add $3 trillion to the national debt.
  2. Republicans believe this bill will lead to a prosperous future, but Democrats see it as an attack on vulnerable communities. There will be a big political battle over its effects leading up to the next elections.
  3. The bill also raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion and introduces new work requirements for programs like Medicaid and food stamps, while reducing some green energy tax credits.

Congress, Please Do Not Pass the SALT Deduction

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 760 implied HN points • 25 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. The SALT deduction is a tax break that benefits wealthy people in Democratic areas. It could influence how a major tax bill gets passed in Congress.
  2. Some Republicans are threatening to vote against a tax bill if the SALT deduction isn't included. This shows how important it is to certain lawmakers.
  3. There's a debate about whether passing a bill with the SALT deduction is worse than not passing the bill at all, which could affect other crucial tax cuts.

The LVT Landscape #1: Movement Across the U.S.

Progress and Poverty • 1270 implied HN points • 03 Mar 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Land value tax (LVT) is becoming popular in various states in the U.S. as a way to manage property taxes more fairly.
  2. Cities like Baltimore and Spokane are making efforts to adopt LVT to deal with issues like vacant properties and encourage development.
  3. Legislation supporting LVT is being introduced and discussed in places like Minnesota and New York, indicating growing interest in this tax reform.

Federal Government Spending $20,474 Per Person, 98 Times More than in 1916

OpenTheBooks Substack • 108 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Federal spending per person hit about $20,474 in 2025, roughly 98 times the inflation‑adjusted per‑person spending in 1916, and now amounts to nearly a whole four‑person household's pre‑tax income.
  2. Spending has trended steadily upward for a century with big spikes during crises like World War II, the 2008 mortgage crisis, and COVID, and it hasn’t returned to prior lows after those shocks.
  3. Most recent growth is driven by Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, rising interest costs, and large deficits that require heavy borrowing, so taxpayers face higher obligations and need more transparency and accountability.

Physiocratic Platform: Transaction Tax

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1266 implied HN points • 11 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Transaction taxes are small fees added to all money exchanges, helping to fund government services. They can be applied to everything from buying groceries to trading stocks.
  2. A broad transaction tax could simplify the tax system by ensuring everyone contributes, especially from financial activities that often go untaxed. It aims to promote fairness among all economic participants.
  3. The proposed tax system would lower the overall tax burden for most people while ensuring that the rich and businesses pay their fair share, potentially reducing unfairness in current tax practices.

The Physiocratic Platform: Taxation

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1560 implied HN points • 11 Oct 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. There are many types of taxes in the U.S., which can make the system very confusing. The government collects money through taxes like income tax, sales tax, and property tax to fund its activities.
  2. A proposed way of understanding taxes is to link them directly to the services the government provides. For example, taxes could cover the cost of maintaining order and protecting citizens.
  3. One suggested tax is a poll tax, which would be paid by everyone, regardless of income. This tax could help fund voting processes and personal protection, though it might be seen as unfair for low-income households.

DOGE In the States

Points And Figures • 879 implied HN points • 18 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Many government programs aiming to help entrepreneurs are seen as wasteful and do not deliver real results. It's often just a way to create jobs for government employees.
  2. Entrepreneurial ecosystems work best when driven by the private sector rather than government involvement. Government interference tends to complicate matters and can limit growth.
  3. Accountability in the private sector is focused on solving customer problems efficiently, while government often prioritizes expanding control and influence, resulting in wasted resources.

New York’s Death Wish

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 41 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Progressive economic policies like rent controls, higher taxes, and city-run enterprises are likely to reduce housing quality and drive wealthy residents and businesses away, which could shrink tax revenue and strain the city’s finances.
  2. Softer policing combined with rising poverty is likely to increase crime, pushing more people toward private security or even vigilantism when public safety feels inadequate.
  3. If these trends repeat past urban declines, New York’s cultural and economic vibrancy could erode and the poorest residents will suffer the most, with hope for outside intervention but a pessimistic near-term outlook.

The Physiocratic Platform: Tariffs

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1153 implied HN points • 19 Oct 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Tariffs can help raise money for government services, especially for defense and border security. By applying a uniform tariff on imported goods, it aims to make the tax system fairer for everyone involved.
  2. Historically, high tariffs were essential for the growth of the U.S. economy and protecting local industries. Examples from the past show that many countries successfully used tariffs to develop their manufacturing sectors.
  3. While tariffs might increase the cost of living, they can also boost domestic production and potentially lead to higher wages. The idea is that by protecting local jobs, the overall economy can become stronger.

The Physiocratic Platform: Land Tax

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1108 implied HN points • 27 Oct 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A land value tax (LVT) is different from a property tax because it only taxes the value of the land itself, not any buildings on it. This means it encourages landowners to use their land efficiently.
  2. Implementing a 2% LVT could raise a lot of money for government services while avoiding economic issues that other taxes might cause. It's seen as a less harmful option for funding government needs.
  3. There are ways to protect homeowners from being forced out of their homes due to rising land taxes, like exemptions for primary residences or allowing tax deferrals until the property is sold.

Tax Breaks for the Rich

Fake Noûs • 572 implied HN points • 25 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. The current tax system in the U.S. is very progressive, meaning the rich pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes, but some believe it's still not fair for the wealthy.
  2. There are different arguments about how taxes should be distributed, like paying based on ability, benefits received, or costs incurred, but many don't support the idea of higher tax rates for the rich.
  3. Some argue that high taxes on the rich hurt economic growth by discouraging investment and productivity, suggesting that everyone, including the middle class, should contribute to taxes more fairly.

Trump Should Finish What He Started

Cremieux Recueil • 658 implied HN points • 26 Nov 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A Destination-Based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT) can simplify the tax system by making it easier to track consumption rather than complicated income measurements. This means businesses won't need to navigate through complex deductions and depreciation rules.
  2. Switching to a consumption tax can help encourage saving and investment, making the economy grow better over time. It treats current and future consumption equally, which can make people want to invest more.
  3. Taxes influence how businesses choose to finance themselves, often making debt more attractive than equity. A neutral tax approach would allow businesses to pick the best financing method without extra costs from tax rules.

My Neighbor Pays $1,000 in Taxes on a $2M Home

Jay's Data Stream • 11 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
💰 Finance Tax policy
  1. Property tax rules like Prop 13 (and the partial change under Prop 19) create perverse incentives that can keep homes empty and distort the housing market, because low assessed taxes make owners reluctant to rent or sell.
  2. Buying a home is highly timing-sensitive and can be very costly when plans change — mortgage interest, taxes, transaction fees, and the lost investment opportunity can make ownership much worse than renting and investing instead.
  3. San Francisco looks bullish over the long run because supply is effectively frozen by regulations while tech/AI-driven wealth is likely to boost demand, so buying only makes sense with a 10+ year horizon.

The Rich and the Cheap

Bet On It • 392 implied HN points • 29 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. High taxes or regulations on wealthy people might not work out as planned. Just because the rich can afford it, doesn't mean they will stick around to pay it.
  2. Many wealthy individuals are also frugal. When taxed more, they might choose to earn less or stop certain activities to avoid those costs.
  3. Large companies may appear to afford extra taxes and regulations, but they can choose to cut back on what they do instead. This means the burden of such policies can end up hurting regular folks more than the rich.

Will AI Prove Piketty Right?

Economic Forces • 18 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
💰 Finance Tax policy
  1. Getting labor's income share down to near zero is a knife-edge that needs extreme assumptions: either machines must be perfect substitutes for all human tasks, or capital must forever earn returns above depreciation plus what savers require. Without those extreme conditions, capital's share can rise a lot but will still hit a finite steady state.
  2. Whether capital's share rises or goes to infinity depends on supply and demand for capital: easier substitution flattens demand and raises capital's share, but faster technological progress also increases obsolescence and depreciation, which raises the hurdle savers need and can stop unbounded accumulation. These opposing forces determine if capital simply grows a lot or truly outstrips labor forever.
  3. A global progressive tax on capital may backfire: if capital is mobile and supply is elastic, owners can avoid the tax and its burden falls on wages, shrinking output; even coordinated taxes can't force savers to invest if after-tax returns fall below their patience threshold.

#33 Episode - QSBS 2.0 is Here

Law of VC • 134 implied HN points • 08 Jul 25
💰 Finance Tax policy
  1. The new QSBS rules allow taxpayers to earn up to $15 million tax-free on small business stock if held for just three years instead of five. This makes it easier for investors and founders to cash out sooner.
  2. Companies with gross assets below $75 million can now qualify, up from $50 million. This change helps more young businesses benefit from the QSBS tax advantages.
  3. Investors now have better chances to benefit from tax-free gains as early exits are encouraged. This can lead to more investment and innovation in startups.

Newsom’s Rule: Rights Deferred, Authority Expanded

Who is Robert Malone • 16 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Newsom has expanded executive and public-health power since COVID, normalizing emergency authority and helping create a West Coast Health Alliance that centralizes vaccine policy and reduces local and legislative oversight.
  2. California is facing economic strain from rising housing costs, higher taxes and fees, growing homelessness, and a proposed one-time 5% billionaire wealth tax that critics say is accelerating capital and business flight.
  3. The state’s policies are described as driven by 'suicidal empathy'—a belief that excessive compassion and guilt have led to decisions that trade personal rights and long-term stability for short-term social aims.

The Affordability Equation

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 20 implied HN points • 06 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. How affordable a good is depends on how much output each hour of labor produces (labor productivity) multiplied by a discount factor that reflects time preferences and production delays, so higher productivity and faster production make things cheaper in labor-hours.
  2. Affordability rises when labor becomes more productive — through better technology, skills, more capital and natural resources, or a smaller labor supply — and when people save more so investment can finance longer production processes.
  3. Government actions like taxes, large spending, regulation, and state-run production tend to reduce affordability by lowering wages, discouraging investment, bidding up prices, and misallocating resources, so cutting taxes/spending and removing restrictions is presented as the way to improve affordability.

Thoughts on Megachurches and Taxes

I Might Be Wrong • 11 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. If the government gets to decide which groups count as "real" religion, it gains dangerous power to reward or punish beliefs, so religious neutrality is essential.
  2. Tax-exempt status for churches and nonprofits is messy because "doing good" is a vague category that can be gamed, and strict enforcement would force the government to make value judgments it shouldn’t have to make.
  3. A more consistent tax approach would be to tax individuals rather than organizations, but shifting taxes onto people would be politically unpopular because it removes the hidden costs voters currently accept.

The Republic of Walmart

Diane Francis • 619 implied HN points • 26 Apr 21
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Big corporations in America often find ways to avoid paying taxes, leaving regular individuals to pay more. This creates an unfair burden on the average taxpayer.
  2. Janet Yellen is working on a plan to make sure that these big companies pay at least a minimum tax, no matter where they operate. This could help level the playing field for everyone.
  3. Tax havens and loopholes allow companies to dodge paying their fair share, which hurts the economy and public services. Reforming these systems is important for financial fairness.

Tax Policy: Breaking the Impasse

Comment is Freed • 93 implied HN points • 16 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Tax reform in the UK is really hard because changes lead to public outrage, making it tough for politicians to make sensible decisions. Politicians often focus on how changes will be viewed rather than on what makes sense.
  2. The current tax system is too complicated and has become a way to solve a variety of issues, leading to confusion and resistance. There needs to be a clearer and simpler approach to tax policy that takes all aspects into account.
  3. Creating a separate office for tax policy could help develop better ideas and solutions without getting caught up in daily politics. This could support governments in making more informed decisions about tax reform.

Kishida May Raise Corporate Taxes, Part II

Japan Economy Watch • 139 implied HN points • 30 Nov 22
🌍 World Politics Tax policy
  1. The Kishida administration is considering raising corporate taxes to double defense spending, which could impact pro-entrepreneur tax breaks.
  2. There is uncertainty around how different government entities, like METI and the Prime Minister's Office, will negotiate on tax policies amidst concerns and objectives.
  3. Japanese corporations have a significant surplus in cash and securities, leading to questions about the necessity and use of low taxes and potential changes in government deficits.

Should we tax realized gains?

The Pursuit of Happiness • 1 HN point • 03 Sep 24
💰 Finance Tax policy
  1. The tax system should focus on consumption instead of income. Taxing what people spend rather than what they earn could simplify things.
  2. A consumption tax could be fairer and encourage saving. It would tax money used for living expenses while allowing people to keep their investments untouched.
  3. Real-world issues with a consumption tax should be dealt with through thought-out adjustments. Instead of going back to an income tax when problems arise, we should refine the consumption tax system.

June 30, 2025

Letters from an American • 27 implied HN points • 01 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A new bill is cutting healthcare for millions and giving tax breaks to the wealthy, which many senators are calling immoral and cruel. They argue this will lead to more children going hungry and losing essential healthcare.
  2. Senator Angus King shared a personal story about how health insurance saved his life, emphasizing the importance of access to healthcare for everyone. He criticized the push to take away health insurance from people who need it.
  3. The recent tax cuts mainly benefited the rich and led to increased national debt, while the government is now trying to cut social support for the needy. Senators are speaking out, calling the legislation corrupt and harmful to the public.

On the Election

Philip’s Newsletter • 78 implied HN points • 06 Nov 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. Inequality is growing because free markets and low taxes let wealth concentrate in a few hands. Over time, this leads to more people feeling left out and unhappy.
  2. Different countries face a tough choice between low taxes to drive growth or higher taxes to support fairness. These choices impact how people feel about their economic opportunities.
  3. Creating strong local communities where people support each other can help address the issues caused by inequality. Togetherness and compassion will be key to moving forward.

July 5, 2025

Letters from an American • 23 implied HN points • 06 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Tax policy
  1. A new budget bill was signed into law, making tax cuts for wealthy people permanent, even though most Americans don't support it.
  2. The law cuts important programs like Medicaid and food assistance while giving a lot of money to immigration enforcement, making ICE a very powerful agency.
  3. There are concerns that the law could lead to unfair treatment of people in detention and increase national debt without helping the economy.

Subsidies, External Costs, and Deadweight Loss

Knowledge Problem • 39 implied HN points • 27 Jul 23
💼 Business Tax policy
  1. Understanding economic analyses of power markets is crucial for applied economics.
  2. Federal subsidies for wind and solar impact wholesale power markets by creating inefficiencies and distorting outcomes.
  3. Tax credits like the PTC/ITC are costly ways to encourage renewable energy generation, and a carbon tax might be more efficient.