Tax hell

A tax hell is pejorative term used in politics to criticize a country's rate of taxation,^[1]^[2] or its onerous tax bureaucracy.^[3]^[4]^[5] The term has been used by fiscal conservatives and right-wing libertarians to criticize what they regard as oppressive tax policies of countries including Argentina, Belarus, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Haiti, and France.^[6]^[7]^[8] In some cases, the effective tax pressure is difficult to measure for a comparison.^[9]

References

[1]
Miller, Jay (15 December 2015). "Why Wisconsin remains a tax hell". Badger Institute. Retrieved 11 January 2019. Wisconsin is still a tax hell. Here's why. To begin with, even accepting the findings above — and I have great respect for the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance — ranking 15th out of 50 states in tax burden gives us no reason to brag. It still means that 35 states are more competitive than Wisconsin.
[2]
Hansen, Nico A.; Kessler, Anke (2001). "The Political Geography of Tax H(e)avens and Tax Hells". American Economic Review. 91 (4): 1103–1115. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.540.558. doi:10.1257/aer.91.4.1103. Ceteris paribus, they prefer to reside in countries with large welfare programs financed by substantial taxation which we call tax hells for obvious reasons.
[3]
Franklin, Mary Beth (28 February 2007). "The Beginning of the End of Tax Hell". Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Archived from the original on 29 August 2022. Retrieved 11 January 2019. Six years ago, June and Ron Speltz got caught by the alternative minimum tax, which triggered a tax bill of more than $260,000 on income they'd never see. Their fight to change the law finally paid off.
[4]
Blakely, Lindsay (16 February 2011). "Tax Hell: I Fought the IRS -- and Won". CBS News. Retrieved 11 January 2019. Even though the IRS validated that I had done everything correctly, the experience completely changed how I look at buying things I need for my business. I always ask myself: Will this be questioned? I have a heightened sense of the IRS being involved in my business.
[5]
Fishman, Stephen (January 2018). Home Business Tax Deductions: Keep What You Earn. Berkeley, California: Nolo. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-4133-2415-0. Your home-based activity can be a business for tax purposes only if you can show that you are engaged in it to earn a profit, not simply to have fun or pursue a personal interest. If you can't prove a profit motive for the activity, you will be considered a hobbyist and forced to enter tax hell. The IRS has established two tests to determine whether someone has a profit motive. One is a simple mechanical test that looks whether you have earned a profit in three of the last five years. The other is a more complex test designed to determine whether you act like you want to earn a profit.
[6]
"Haiti in the TOP 10 «tax hells» and last in the Caribbean". www.haitilibre.com. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
[7]
"La France reste un enfer fiscal". Les Echos (in French). 7 November 2019. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
[8]
Goudron, Claude (5 June 2022). "Les paradis fiscaux existent car la France est un enfer fiscal". Contrepoints (in French). Retrieved 6 November 2022.
[9]
Barciela, Fernando (28 February 2017). "A tax hell in sight? Europe cuts taxes while Spain opts for hikes". The Corner. Retrieved 11 January 2019. Another hellish idea, which serves to justify-legitimise these tax hikes, is that tax pressure in Spain is low compared with other countries in Europe. Something which is true, only apparently. Spain's fiscal pressure is 34.6% while in Germany it's 40%, 48% in France and 43.5% in Italy. But the problem is that while the fiscal pressure in northern European countries is more less evenly distributed, this is not the case here.

See also

References

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