Tax deduction for medicinal diet?

http://www.glutenfreespouse.com/tax-deductions-for-gluten-free-food/


<-- An interesting idea, actually. (Beware: slightly spammy looking web page, loaded with useless links, but sometimes you take the good with the bad.) 


The idea reminds me of the old (literally ancient) aphorism "Let your food be your medicine." I'm not a big fan of tax deductions per se, but as deductions go, medicine / equivalent seems like a better place to have them than (say) on expensive, exotic 3d cars for wealthy people.

(It reminds me, too, of  self-righteous calls to specially tax "unhealthy" foods, as if we know exactly what that means, with sufficient specificity that such a tax could be fair and sciency.)   

Tax thought of the day: More checkboxes, smaller checks

Tax thought of the day:

One of the few bright spots I find in the federal income tax form is the checkbox that one can tick to divert some money to a presidential campaign fund. (Short and sweet WP article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Election_Campaign_Fund)

It's not because I like or approve of public funding of political campaigns (talk about adding insult to injury!), but because it gives a very small piece of tax-money decision-making to the people from whom the money is being taken in the first place; essentially it lets the mechanism for collecting taxes function also as a sort of self-executing referendum.

Given that I think publicly funded campaigns (not to mention income taxes per se) are an awful idea, I think there are better uses for such a checkbox, but all the same. Aiming for optimism here!

Thought experiment: How about a tax system that asked in the payment process a forward-looking question like this of anyone paying a net income tax:
"I do not approve an increase in my effective tax rate.[ ]" or
"I do approve an increase in my effective tax rate. [ ]"

That's one that would have to be coupled with spending checks to make sense, though.

Or,
"I want $3 of the amount assessed by means of this form to be used for the reduction of the national debt. [YES/NO]"

That one, too, only works if money OUT is linked strongly to money IN. Otherwise, it just becomes an excuse to spend the money "both ways."

What do you think about using income tax forms (while there's an income tax system) to essentially ask people how the money being collected can / should be spent? What "Money for X / no money for X" questions do you think should be asked? (Or, if you think it's a bad idea to have such taxpayer discretion, Why?)

Sound and fury signifying very close to nothing

I get a kick from Cafe Hayek (and EconTalk) every time I look at it. Today's (well, yesterday's) gem points out just how trivial are the allegedly drastic spending cuts the major parties have cooked up.

As one of the comments points out: "While I’m making silly back-of-the-envelope calculations: the US median income was $44,389 in 2010…so the federal government cutting spending by $352 million is the equivalent to the median income earner cutting his annual spending by $4.09. While he has a credit card balance of $159,149, to which he plans to add $18,597 this year."

Kevin gets out his combat boots

Happy to see that a) R. Paul the younger is brave enough to call for getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction and b) NRO's Kevin Williamson stomps one misinformed (or lying) complainer: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263998/another-brilliant-insight-americans-tax-reform-kevin-d-williamson

p.s. Sorry for the ugly link -- in a rush right now or I'd try to figure out why Blogger doesn't seem to like  conventional hyperlinks.

Can I get the Happy Meal version of civilization, please?

I love paying taxes. With them I buy civilization. As long as by "civilization" you mean mandatory retirement plans, petty micromanagement, wars around the world, trade barriers that would be considered acts of war if imposed by an outside force, and an ever-growing welfare state usurping choice in small domains like education and medicine. Good day, sir.