The Best Stimulus: 0% Income Tax

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  The Best Stimulus: 0% Income Tax, by Stephen Moore:

Instead of spending the money, why not cut out the government middleman and not collect the taxes? In 2020 the personal income tax was expected to raise $1.81 trillion and the corporate income tax $260 billion, for a total of $2.07 trillion. For a little more than $2 trillion, Congress could suspend the personal and corporate income tax for a year.

Instead of spending the money, why not cut out the government middleman and not collect the taxes? In 2020 the personal income tax was expected to raise $1.81 trillion and the corporate income tax $260 billion, for a total of $2.07 trillion. For a little more than $2 trillion, Congress could suspend the personal and corporate income tax for a year.

Some 100,000 American corporations would see their tax rate fall from 21% to zero. For 12 months the U.S. would have the world’s lowest corporate tax in the world, boosting profits and stock values and attracting capital. ...

Liberals will complain that the benefit would disproportionately go to the wealthy. But the people who pay the most income tax are those who own and operate the businesses that employ tens of millions of Americans.

Income-tax reductions have always had positive repercussions for the economy. That was true in the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s and 2010s. Suspending the income tax altogether would give the economy a far stronger shot in the arm than another borrow-and-spend stimulus.