IRS Archives - Econ70

Number Games

By Econ70 | 03/08/2013

The Friday File: Despite being spectacularly counterintuitive, Benford’s Law states that leading digits (the number 8 in 8,456) are unevenly distributed. Benford found that one is the leading digit 31% of the time, two 17% of the time, three 12.5%, four 10%, five 8%, six 6%, and the other numbers 5% each. Antitrust economists are…

Tackling Taxes

By Econ70 | 04/18/2012

With tax reform in the air here are three principles economists want reform based on. 1) Broaden the base and lower rates. Lower marginal rates distort behavior less. 2) Tax consumption not income. Taxing income discourages savings, investment and work. 3) Tax what you don’t want because taxes reduce the supply of whatever is taxed.…