Congress! Congress! “Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree.” ~ U.S. Senator Russell B. Long
Regarding taxing the other guy, “Most people have the same philosophy about taxes,” says U.S. Senator Russell B. Long, (D-LA), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles tax legislation.
“All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working or investment?” – Lawrence Summers
Making federal tax policy is hard work because virtually any path chosen by Congress will have different impacts on sectors, regions, and tax payers no matter how hard one tries to make it as even-handed as possible.
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates.” – John F. Kennedy
In recent years, governments seem to have even stopped trying for tax policy neutrality and instead have embarked on tax policy competitiveness—using it as a bribe to entice companies to locate in their territory and as a weapon to punish companies that are either out of favor or attractive targets for easy money, writes William Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – Winston Churchill
Recently, the European Union has begun to weaponize its tax policy as a search for easy money from foreign (almost entirely American)—marks and a way to disadvantage foreign companies in areas where the Europeans are having a hard time competing. The best current example of this is EU efforts, as well as those of individual member states, to impose a digital services tax (DST), according to Reinsch.
References:
- https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/04/tax-tree/
- https://www.csis.org/analysis/dont-tax-me-dont-tax-thee-tax-fellow-behind-tree