Press: 2019
The Washington Post (December 19, 2019)
Ed Kleinbard was quoted in a Power Post blog item about conservative economists who feel President Trump’s tax cuts fell short of expectations. “There’s just no shortage of business capital. You can see that by looking at interest rates. In a world where we are awash in capital, to say we now have a tax environment that’s friendlier to business investment is no more convincing than pushing on a string,” he said.
ITEP Just Taxes Blog (December 19, 2019)
Ed Kleinbard was quoted in an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy blog on corporations, taxes and an ITEP study on how much corporations pay in federal income taxes. “To say that corporations are acting ‘legally’ when they take steps to slash their tax bills betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. Corporate tax law, particularly international tax law, is an area filled with ambiguities in the law, the relevant facts, and how those facts apply to the law. Corporations thrive in this fog of uncertainty, because they control not just the facts, but how those facts are presented to the IRS, and because they can afford armies of experts to shape the narratives and argue their cases. The results might be ‘legal,’ but they often are far afield from what Congress expected,” Kleinbard said.
The Wall Street Journal (October 14, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted on how to distribute taxes across income group. He commented on Messrs. Saez and Zucman’s book on this topic. “Book is best appreciated as a window into the burdens imposed at the very top end and there, of course, the book is devastating” in showing low tax rates, said Kleinbard. “It’s simply not asking or answering the separate question, which is: What is the net well-being of America’s lowest-income people?”
The Hill (September 29, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed on the different ways to think about the impeachment of President Trump. “We no longer allow defendants in criminal rape trials to argue that the victim’s previous sexual conduct excuses the defendant’s violation of the victim. The same is true here,” said Kleinbard. “Even if the allegations against the Bidens were true, for which no reliable evidence exists (and for which exculpatory evidence does exist), that is irrelevant to the proceedings at hand. The only issue is whether the president applied the power and authority of his office to dig up dirt on an opponent.”
Los Angeles Times (July 30, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted about a GOP complaint to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that capital gains tax is not indexed to inflation. “Indexing capital gains for inflation by administrative fiat is plainly an unlawful overreach of regulatory authority and will be struck down,” said Kleinbard.
The Guardian (July 3, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard’s book, “We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money,” was cited to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of American consumerism.
The Hill (June 28, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed discussing Senator Chuck Grassley questioning the reliability of the Congressional Research Service’s analysis of the 2017 tax act’s supply-side economic effects. “Sen. Grassley’s agenda is plain – to follow the 2012 playbook and force CRS to withdraw this report. His motivation is equally plain, and is identical to that underlying the ugly 2012 incident: the supply-side story remains at the heart of the Republican credo, no matter how many tax cuts may have preceded this one, and all research that comes to a contrary conclusion must be eliminated,” said Kleinbard.
Los Angeles Times (June 5, 2019)
Kimberly Clausing and Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed discussing the negative impact that President Trump’s trade wars and tax cuts have on U.S households. They argued that all the benefits of 2017 tax cuts that millions of U.S. household had would pay for the tariff increase on China. “Most Americans will pay for the trade war twice: once as consumers, and again as taxpayers funding farmer bailouts,” they added.
The Hill (May 17, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard and Sam Erman’s op-ed, which suggested that Congress use its power to but the burden of subpoena enforcement on the courts rather than on Congress itself, was quoted. “Congress should not be required to go cap in hand to go to the judicial system,” explained Kleinbard.
The Atlantic (May 6, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed encouraging voters to “…set aside charged and unfocused terms such as capitalism and socialism, and simply recognize that private markets are necessarily incomplete in areas that directly touch their welfare, they may then appreciate the need for greater involvement by the state in the form of public investment or insurance.” Kleinbard stressed the importance of addressing these incomplete markets in order to put conversation regarding tax policy into the proper context. “Voters can make better political decisions, and encourage a better direction for the country, by asking whether proposed policies will lead to business-friendly markets,” he said.
The Hill (April 28, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was cited for his op-ed about the impact of the new the tax code on pass-through businesses. “In the absence of any giveaway, the top marginal tax rate imposed on individual owner-entrepreneurs in pass-through companies therefore also would be 37 percent,” Kleinbard wrote.
Politico (April 25, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was cited for his comments on whether Congress has satisfied the constitutional requirements to request President Donald Trump’s tax returns. “I believe that the committee must make a facially plausible case for getting the returns, and that the committee has more than met that standard,” Kleinbard wrote. “Courts cannot and do not look behind Congress’s stated objectives. To do so would be to substitute the opinion of the judiciary for that of the legislative branch in the conduct of the legislature’s agenda, in clear contravention of the constitutional separation of powers.”
The Wall Street Journal (April 23, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted about the legal standard Congress must meet to request President Trump’s tax returns. “He’s more than cleared any conceivable bar to obtain the returns and hold them in executive session,” Kleinbard said.
The Hill (April 22, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted about the standoff between Congress and the White House regarding the release of President Donald Trump’s tax returns. Typically, when an administration doesn’t want to provide information sought by Congress, there is usually an attempt at negotiation. But that hasn’t been the case with the tax-returns battle, Kleinbard said
The Week (April 15, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted on the issue of releasing President Trump’s tax returns to the public, saying “the only thorny legal question arises if the full Ways and Means Committee, after debate and a vote in executive session, were to authorize the dissemination of Trump’s tax return into the public record of the House.”
Fact Check (April 11, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted on tax law as it pertains to President Trump, arguing that “the President is the Taxpayer in Chief. We have a tax system in which we each assess tax against ourselves – that’s what you do when you file a return.” Kleinbard continued that “The Taxpayer in Chief needs to set a standard of compliance to which we all should aspire. For him to abdicate that responsibility threatens the integrity of the income tax system, which surely is something that should concern W&M [the Ways and Means committee].”
The Hill (April 11, 2019)
Ed Kleinbard was quoted in an article about a tax deduction loophole in the coronavirus relief bill. Kleinbard described the tax deduction for funds contributed to donor-advised funds as “a fraud on the American taxpayer.”
Los Angeles Times (April 9, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed on whether the House Ways and Means Committee has the authority to subpoena President Trump’s tax returns. In Kleinbard’s interpretation of the law, the committee can request the returns, but the legal question becomes more complicated when assessing if the committee can then in turn make the returns public. Kleinbard also addressed President Trump’s threats to request, and presumably release, the tax returns of top Democrats.
The Hill (March 25, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard published an op-ed discussing Congress’ ‘qualified business income’ tax subsidy. “New data from Congress’ own tax watchdog, the Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), confirms what many of us suspected all along: The subsidy isn’t targeted to small business, or yeomen farmers,” he wrote. “But rather simply excuses the affluent from taxes imposed on the rest of us.”
Politico’s “Morning Tax” (February 6, 2019)
Edward Kleinbard was quoted about the Dual Business Enterprise Income Tax and how it can act as a wealth tax without any constitutional concerns like shrinking the economy’s capital stock or entrepreneurial innovation. “Pairing that kind of tax on capital with a robust estate tax,” Kleinbard said, “would be the most straightforward method to attack accumulated wealth.”