Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Epstein on the IRS and more

Richard Epstein has a lovely essay, "The Real Lesson of the IRS Scandal" As lots of commentators left and right are realizing, this kind of outcome is baked in to our regulatory system. A small excerpt:
The dismal performance of the IRS is but a symptom of a much larger disease which has taken root in the charters of many of the major administrative agencies in the United States today: the permit power. Private individuals are not allowed to engage in certain activities or to claim certain benefits without the approval of some major government agency. The standards for approval are nebulous at best, which makes it hard for any outside reviewer to overturn the agency’s decision on a particular application.


That power also gives the agency discretion to drag out its review, since few individuals or groups are foolhardy enough to jump the gun and set up shop without obtaining the necessary approvals first. It takes literally a few minutes for a skilled government administrator to demand information that costs millions of dollars to collect and that can tie up a project for years. That delay becomes even longer for projects that need approval from multiple agencies at the federal or state level, or both.

The beauty of all of this (for the government) is that there is no effective legal remedy. Any lawsuit that protests the improper government delay only delays the matter more. Worse still, it also invites that agency (and other agencies with which it has good relations) to slow down the clock on any other applications that the same party brings to the table. Faced with this unappetizing scenario, most sophisticated applicants prefer quiet diplomacy to frontal assault, especially if their solid connections or campaign contributions might expedite the application process. Every eager applicant may also be stymied by astute competitors intent on slowing the approval process down, in order to protect their own financial profits. So more quiet diplomacy leads to further social waste.
Richard goes on to skewer the FCC, the EPA, and the FDA. The fight over approval of liquid natural gas exports, which Richard doesn't mention is a perfect example.

I think the point is larger still. The ACA (Obamacare) under Health and Human Services and financial regulation under the Dodd-Frank act are even more stark instances of the phenomenon.  The regulations are immense, vague, contradictory, and demand discretionary approval by regulators.  For a company to speak out against those acts is very dangerous.

India's sclerosis was once described as the "permit raj." That describes our future well.

But at least Americans are still outraged at this sort of thing. At least, unlike most other over-regulated countries, regulatory discretion is still traded for political support, not suitcases full of cash. However, what Epstein makes clear is, a witch-hunt at the IRS won't solve the problem.

The larger answer here seems pretty clear to me too. Why do we have tax-exempt status for any political groups? Actually, why do we have tax-exempt status for any groups at all? It's easy to be a non-profit -- just don't make any money.  When you look at what a lot of "non-profits" do, how efficiently their money is used, the idea that we should be subsidizing most of them seems pretty silly. If we chucked out the whole tax-exempt business entirely, and allowed people to give money to any group they feel like giving it to without tax preference one way or another, the whole temptation for the IRS to hand out this subsidy in nefarious ways would vanish.

10 comments:

  1. I certainly agree with you that we should end tax exemptions for non-profit businesses as well as tax deductions for charitable donations. But, just purely looking at the IRS "scandal," why is it considered so outrageous that the IRS would scrutinize more heavily groups that are known to fundamentally disagree with the current tax code? It strikes me as the same reasoning behind putting more police in high crime areas, or as a friend of mine put it, "why you double team Lebron James, because he's more likely to score."

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  2. I certainly agree with you that we should end tax exemptions for non-profit businesses as well as tax deductions for charitable donations. But, just purely looking at the IRS "scandal," why is it considered so outrageous that the IRS would scrutinize more heavily groups that are known to fundamentally disagree with the current tax code? It strikes me as the same reasoning behind putting more police in high crime areas, or as a friend of mine put it, "why you double team Lebron James, because he's more likely to score."

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    Replies
    1. JG: "just purely looking at the IRS "scandal," why is it considered so outrageous that the IRS would scrutinize more heavily groups that are known to fundamentally disagree with the current tax code? It strikes me as the same reasoning behind putting more police in high crime areas..."

      Because fundamentally disagreeing with our tax code is not a crime. It is protected speech under the First Amendment. Furthermore, it is none of the IRS's business. We can change the tax code anytime we want- the job of the IRS is to implement it.

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  3. I think the critical point is the negative impact on future economic growth from this creeping regulatory mindset. I am an American who worked in Japan for eight years. It seemed to me then that Americans could do as they wished unless an activity was prohibited by law, whereas the Japanese could do only what was specifically permitted by law. This is obviously over-simplified but I think accurately reflected the mindset of both the government and the governed. Now, think about which environment can possibly foster innovation.

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  4. One account I've heard is that there was never a risk that the IRS would make them pay taxes on non-existent profits. The status at risk as 501(c), a "social welfare" organization which means it doesn't have to deal with donor disclosure and the like to make sure it's not really engaged in electioneering or some self-interested pursuit.

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  5. “When you look at what a lot of "non-profits" do, how efficiently their money is used, the idea that we should be subsidizing most of them seems pretty silly.” - Dr. Cochrane

    -Or-

    “Under a capitalist economy, even the most profitable business can lose its market if it doesn’t’ keep innovating, in order to avoid being overtaken by competitors. The fact that most goods are available more cheaply in a capitalist economy implies that profit is less costly than inefficiency. Or, profit is a price paid for efficiency. The
    greater efficiency must outweigh the profit or else socialism in practice would have lower prices and greater prosperity, which has never happened“.

    “Efficiency is the difference between having the necessities, comforts and amenities of high-income countries and suffering the hunger and deprivations too often found in poorer countries“. - Thomas Sowell.

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  6. We bumped up against this when we opened our physician-owned hospital. When we had our state licensing inspection we sailed through every item except for an ambiguous sentence in a policy manual. The lead inspector pounced on that as an excuse to deny approval. It was completely outrageous and we were stunned. We suspected, but couldn't prove, that one or more of the local big box hospital systems pulled strings at the regulatory level. Fortunately we had strong support from our state reps and we were granted a second inspection that we easily passed.

    Of course, under ObamaCare we are still prohibited from expanding our beds. When we saw that legislation coming we had to do a full court press to add some beds before it passed. ObamaCare provisions purchased by the hospital lobby have ensured that no new physician-owned hospitals will be built.

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  7. While you make a nice point about regulation and the problems it causes, I think you miss the point of the IRS scandal. It is one thing for government regulation to slow the economy. Bad, but the world is not perfect. It is quite another thing for a major government agency to try effect the democratic process itself.

    You point as to why we grant tax exempt status is that as a country we have decided certain things benefit the country, like the University of Chicago for example, and gifts or earning from endowments are not subject to tax (because if they were, it would reduce the funds available for these worthwhile things by about half, given current tax rates). Now, I might argue most universities do not merit tax exempt status, as the spread harmful liberal ideas while leaving students saddled without the means to make a living.

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  8. Prof. Cochrane,

    You make an excellent point. Political groups could theoretically organize as regular "for-profit" corporations and just not make any profits, i.e., spend everything they take in. They would then incur no federal income taxes (I don't know what the consequences would be for state or local taxes). There are several problems with this. (1) The compliance burden of filing a tax return for a "for-profit" business may be substantial compared to the returns for a "non-profit" corporation. (2) Generally speaking, a "for-profit" corporation can only deduct expenses if the business is operated to make a profit. The reason for this is to prevent people from putting their hobbies into corporate form and deducting all the expenses relating to their hobbies. So you could end up with all the contributions being deemed income and only some of the expenses being deductible. (3) Corporate law generally imposes on directors a fiduciary duty to maximize returns for the residual interest holders. The way around this might be to organize the corporation as a Delaware "public benefit" corporation which can pursue non-monetary, non-profit seeking goals.

    If the goal is to eliminate taxable revenues (which is what 501(c)(4) status does to contributions - makes them non-taxable to the corporation) another option would be to give donors non-voting common stock in the corporation in exchange for their contributions. The contributions would then (arguably) be capital contributions and not taxable as income. The problem with this solution is that it would only work for groups with a small number of rich contributors, otherwise they would have to register their stock under the securities laws and comply with a huge regulatory burden.

    Alas, I am not a tax lawyer and can't offer more definitive guidance on these points.

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  9. Hi John -

    On the topic of regulation, the program of sugar quotas and price supports have been a perennial poster child for Olson's theory of public choice. I wasn't sure if you'd seen the 2 stories below.

    George Will had a nice column about the program with the line:

    "...they illustrate the only law Washington can be counted on to respect. It is the law of dispersed costs but concentrated benefits."

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-sugar-subsidies-are-immune-to-even-modest-reforms/2013/06/07/3c5318fe-cedd-11e2-8f6b-67f40e176f03_story.html?hpid=z2


    Additionally, there was a nice NPR on the topic as well. Its interesting that the USDA economist quoted doesn't even try to defend the economics rationale of the program, that being left to the sugar producer lobbyist...

    http://www.npr.org/2013/03/28/175569499/farm-bills-sugar-subsidy-more-taxing-than-sweet-critics-say

    Enjoy!

    - Matthew Jacobs

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