After hearing The Orange Man, the Turtle, and right wing talkers mantra of a "spending problem", this is obvious and nice to hear from the IMF.

I think most everyone loves the Interstate Freeway System - a system made possible in the fifties because under Eisenhower, a republican, the highest marginal tax rate was over 90%.

It's past time for new revenue. If we can somehow get back the House maybe we can get real again.

I can't believe the IMF would pull the rug out from under their own sponsors so thoroughly

state than we thought.

Isn't the IMF usually more about privatizing resources? Like water systems?

And not taxing the rich has failed.

shockwaves!

Taxing the rich & corporations more is simply never, ever going to happen.

They'll shroud it in "Everybody needs to tighten their belt" bullshit.

These are, after all, the same nutbars who managed to turn the innocuous Agenda 21 into a sinister UN plot to take away their guns and impurify their precious bodily fluids.

If EVERYONE raises taxes on the rich at the same time.

Besides, they aren't going to walk away from their mansions to go to some third world country.

What they save in taxes they'll pay in private security to keep their kids from being kidnapped for ransom.

eom

now realizes that the poor can't be squeezed any harder or the whole house comes down.

Simply claiming that the IMF recommends "taxing the rich" misses the point of what was so shocking about this report.

Specifically, the IMF is suggesting a "wealth tax" (as opposed to an income tax). An example of how this would work would be for a government to simply withhold 10% from every savings account in the country.

A passage from the report:

The sharp deterioration of the public finances in many countries has revived interest in a “capital levy” - a one-off tax on private wealth - as an exceptional measure to restore debt sustainability. The appeal is that such a tax, if it is implemented before avoidance is possible and there is a belief that it will never be repeated, does not distort behavior (and may be seen by some as fair).

Very interesting. Is this from the actual IMF report? I only got to the Crooks & Liars article.

IMF report is here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fm/2013/02/pdf/fm1302.pdf

Quote is on the page numbered 49 (page 59 in the adobe reader).

Probably good reading for my insomnia too, I'll check it out.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/to-cut-corporate-taxes-a-merger-abroad-and-a-new-home/?nl=technology&emc=edit_tu_20131009&_r=0

snip

Reincorporating in low-tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or Ireland — known as “inversions” — has been going on for decades. But as regulation has made the process more onerous over the years, companies can no longer simply open a new office abroad or move to a country where they already do substantial business.

Instead, most inversions today are achieved through multibillion-dollar cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Robert Willens, a corporate tax adviser, estimates there have been about 50 inversions over all. Of those, 20 occurred in the last year and a half, and most of those were done through mergers.

When Applied Materials announced its deal for Tokyo Electron, it said that its effective tax rate would drop to 17 percent from 22 percent as a result. For a company that had nearly $2 billion in profit in 2011, that amounts to savings of about $100 million a year.

Last year, the Eaton Corporation, a power management company from Cleveland, acquired Cooper Industries, based in Ireland, for $13 billion, and reincorporated there. The company expects to save $160 million a year as a result of the move.

In July, Omnicom, the large New York advertising group, agreed to merge with Publicis Groupe, its French rival, in a $35 billion deal. The new company will be based in the Netherlands, resulting in savings of about $80 million a year.

Also in July, Perrigo, a pharmaceutical company from Allegan, Mich., said it would acquire Elan, an Irish drug company, for $6.7 billion. Perrigo will also reincorporate in Ireland, bringing its effective tax rate to 17 percent from 30 percent, and saving the company an estimated $150 million a year, much of it in taxes.

Ireland’s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate is a big draw for some companies. Earlier in the year, Actavis, based in Parsippany, N.J., bought Warner Chilcott, a drug maker with headquarters in Dublin, and said it would reincorporate in Ireland, leading to an estimated $150 million in savings over two years.

It's all legal. It may be immoral, and it may starve the US Treasury, but it's legal. And that's what has to change.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/tax-rich-imf-report-shocks-establishm

The 188-nation IMF said that it did not want to enter into a debate on whether the rich should pay more taxes.

But, it said: "The chance to review international tax architecture seems to come about once a century; the fundamental issues should not be ducked."

The IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, kept up the sales pitch for a more just fiscal policy.

"It's clearly something finance ministers are interested in, it's something that is necessary for the right balance of public finances," said Lagarde, a former French finance minister, in a panel discussion Wednesday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde

Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (French: [kʁistin madlɛn ɔdɛt lagaʁd]; née Lallouette, IPA: [laluɛt]; born 1 January 1956)[1] is a French lawyer and Union for a Popular Movement politician who has been the Managing Director (MD) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 5 July 2011. Previously, she held various ministerial posts in the French government: she was Minister of Economic Affairs, Finance and Employment and before that Minister of Agriculture and Fishing and Minister of Trade in the government of Dominique de Villepin. Lagarde was the first woman to become finance minister of a G8 economy, and is the first woman to head the IMF.

A noted antitrust and labor lawyer, Lagarde became the first female chairman of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. On 16 November 2009, the Financial Times ranked her the best Minister of Finance in the Eurozone.[2] On 28 June 2011, she was named as the next MD of the IMF for a five-year term, starting on 5 July 2011,[3][4][5] replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Her appointment is the 11th consecutive appointment of a European to head the IMF.[6] In 2011, Lagarde was ranked the 8th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.[7] On 29 October Lagarde accepted an honorary doctoral degree from the KU Leuven, in Courtray.

From other info on her wikipedia page she looks like a deficit hawk, though one that also believes in a more equitable distribution of assets and income.

Hard to believe a "noted antitrust and labor lawyer" is running the IMF, and pushing proposals of a one-time wealth tax, but it appears to be true. I know little on this subject, maybe someone more knowledgeable will chime in. Definitely an interesting development.