Simply categorizing on-demand
workers as full-time employees is almost certainly too blunt an approach, and
wouldn’t accurately reflect how the government should regulate the
employer-employee relationship. For instance, a recent poll found that while most
on-demand workers (72 percent) believe companies should be doing more to
provide benefits, respondents were split on whether the government should regulate
the sector.[i] Forcing
businesses to treat all workers like full-time employees could severely impact
businesses as well. One estimate put the additional costs of awarding employee
benefits for Uber alone at $4.1 billion, an amount that could scuttle the
company.[ii]
[ii] Stephen Gandel, “Uber-nomics: Here's
what it would cost Uber to pay its drivers as employees”, Fortune, September
17, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/09/17/ubernomics/.
Restore Estate Tax
The estate tax
taxes wealthy individuals’ as they pass assets, including cash, real estate,
and stocks, to their family members when they die. The estate tax is the most
direct intervention at the federal government’s disposal to address the growing
divide between the haves and have-nots explored above. The tax will generate
about $246 billion over 2016-2025 under current law, according to Congressional
Budget Office.[i]
During the Bush
administration, the estate tax was dismantled, gradually increasing the
exemption level until 2010 when the tax was virtually eliminated.[ii]
These changes were scheduled to expire, but through a series of compromises
between the Obama administration and Congress, were largely made permanent,
with higher exemptions and lower top marginal rates.[iii]
The estate tax
exemption should be returned to $1,500,000 per spouse (down from $5,430,000)
with a top marginal rate of 50 percent (up from 40 percent), the same rate
before the Bush tax cuts of the early 2000’s. A similar proposal by Rep. Jim McDermott,
raising the top rate to 55 percent and a $1 million exemption, would generate
an additional $269 billion in revenue and still only impact fewer than 2
percent of American households.[iv]These
changes would simultaneously level the playing field for future generations, as
well as provide revenue for other programs like education, health care, and
infrastructure projects.
[ii] Darien Jacobson, Brain Raub, & Barry
Jonhosn, The State Tax: Ninety Years and Counting,
(Washington, D.C.: IRS, 2006), 123-124,
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/ninetyestate.pdf.
[iii] Joint Committee on Taxation, “History,
Present Law, and Analysis of Federal Wealth Transfer Tax System”, March 18,
2015, Table 1. 12,
https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4744.
[iv] Americans for Tax Fairness, “Fact Sheet:
The Estate Tax (Inheritance Tax”, accessed July 5, 2016,
http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-the-estate-inheritance-tax/.
