Trickle-down tax cuts make the rich richer but are of no value to overall economy, study finds
Data spanning 50 years and 18 countries shows lowering rates for the wealthy increases inequality
December 23, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/23/tax-cuts-rich-trickle-down/
https://archive.ph/4rwan

President Trump sold his 2017 tax cuts as
rocket fuel for the economy, arguing that
freeing up money for the wealthy would allow them to hire more workers, pay better wages and invest more. The tax savings, in other words, would trickle down from the rich to everyone else.
But, just as many economists predicted, slashing individual, corporate and estate tax rates was mostly a
windfall for big corporations and wealthy Americans. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
did not pay for itself,
failed to stimulate long-term growth and
did not lead to sustained business investments.
According to
one of the most comprehensive studies to date on tax cuts for the rich, this should come as no surprise. A
London School of Economics report by David Hope and Julian Limberg examined five decades of tax cuts in 18 wealthy nations and found they consistently benefited the wealthy but had no meaningful effect on unemployment or economic growth.
The researchers started by constructing
a composite measure of tax cuts on the rich encompassing a variety of taxes, including the top tax rate on personal income, the estate tax and the tax on capital gains. Because these taxes are levied predominantly on the wealthiest members of society, the wealthy stand to gain the most when they are cut.
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