Does anyone out there have any idea how much it costs to do the accounting necessary to complete a corporate return? That is, not the cost of preparing the return per se, but the costs of collecting and maintaining all of the needed data. Does having a corporate income tax impose additional costs on running a corporation that wouldn’t exist in its absence (that is, are some data tracked that the corporation wouldn’t care about in the absence of the need to file a return)? Also, how much do things like depreciation schedules skew capital purchase decisions?
Category Archives: Business
Obama’s Culture Of Dependence
…versus the Tea Partiers’ culture of independence. It’s not (just) about the taxes. It’s about the spending, and the perverse incentives built into the system. And as Michael Barone points out, the Susan Roesgens of the world don’t understand that.
Want A VAT?
Sure thing. Right after you repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. I personally consider that a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient condition.
More Space Access Conference Coverage
I didn’t notice Doug Isbell there, but apparently he was, because he has a report on the conference at Space News. And I haven’t seen much from Leonard David, who I know was there.
Time To Get Serious
It’s really the end of the Shuttle program, Florida. You’ve had six years to prepare. Deal with it.
IBD Weighs In On Space
Cluelessly, as with many:
Some would argue that in times of budget problems a robust space program is an unnecessary expense and that if we can’t cut there, where can we cut?
We aren’t cutting. The budget is increasing, and in particular it is increasing for things that we actually need to get beyond low earth orbit, which Mike Griffin’s NASA had eliminated funding for to pay for his expensive and unneeded new rocket.
“We’ve got to do it in a smart way,” Obama said, apparently preferring to pay the Russians $56 million a pop to send Americans to fix toilets on the International Space Station.
No, that’s not what he was referring to. That was the George Bush plan, in case you’ve been asleep for the past six years. It’s too late to fix that in the near term, but at least we now have hope of fixing it a lot sooner, for a lot less money, than Ares would have provided.
Why do all of these supposed free marketeers bash private enterprise when it comes to space?
[Update a couple minutes later]
Speaking of which, Falcon 9 is almost ready to launch.
Why A Lifeboat?
Eric Berger is scratching his head.
I can think of several reasons, though I consider the lifeboat requirements absurd. I’m working on a piece long those lines right now.
John Tierney
…on the new space policy. And he graciously cites my piece in The New Atlantis from last summer. He also has a report from the Cape today. It’s interesting that no one has mentioned yesterday’s Gagarin and Shuttle anniversaries. I actually worked them into my Popular Mechanics piece, but they were edited out, presumably because they seemed a little tangential. I imagine that next April 12th, on the fiftieth and thirtieth anniversaries, respectively, people will make a much bigger deal of them. And I hope by then we’re seeing some real progress in the new direction.
[Both Tierney links via Clark Lindsey]
Space On PRI
Marketplace has a brief story this morning on the new policy, with sound bites from Jim Bennett of Anglosphere Challenge
The Challenge For Commercial Spaceflight
My thoughts on the past weekend’s Space Access conference, and other current space events, are up over at Popular Mechanics.