Lets start with what corporations are paying now. Line rate which is 35 . Top tax rate the on corporations. Theres lots of studies that have said that tax rate is substantially less than that. Were talking federal taxes. Were not talking entire state, and all that. Government accountability a nonpartisanis entity, they looked a the for years, 2008 to 2012, they profitable u. S. Corporation. They said theyre paying 14 tax rate. Thats more than half under what the effective tax rate is. Lots of studies that that essentially youre talking about trickle down. If you give more profits to know will spend the money to invest. That will create more jobs and economy. Academicsll, most dont believe studies dont show that trickle down works. We went through that before. Bang for the buck, you get a lot jobs created if you invest in infrastructure. Three times as much job infrastructure as you do with Corporate Tax breaks. Study. A cbo corporations are very flush with profits. Their profiters are higher as ever been. Massive amountis of investment going on. Not there. Is its much less about tax cuts. For about consumer demand whether people have the money in their pocket. Of our spending is consumers buying things. Depressed, too many people dont have work, thats not going to drive the economy. Businesses arent going to invest in that case. Very high profits for corporations now. Lowestaxes at the. Heyve been in decades theres not companies are not taxed. Amount of that the taxes paid is certainly for u. S. Than the taxless rate of 35 . Also the case not because do with the bait of the tax system. Share of the federal tax is that are paid are paid by u. S. Multinationals. Do their earnings accrue abroad. The way tax system works, the due when that income is either earned in the United States or returned to the United States. Firms are investing in lots of strategies or tax Planning Strategies to minimize their tax liability. Al isir actual tax liability. Ar lower the question is not one that i characterize as trickle down. The question is whats the the tax . He know become we know in public ask who writesn the checker, who sends the money to the i. R. S. You can ask who bears the burden. If you take a tax that we know well, one thats easy to relate cigarette tax, smokers dont write a check to the i. R. S. When pack of cigarettes. Its manufactures that pay the tax. Of the the consequence cigarette taxes, cigarette taxes are higher. Design and for good reason. When we think about income taxes difficult to trace through. We know who writes the check. The corporations write the check. Its more difficult to trace through to find out who wears the burden. The burden was born by the corporations. The tax fell on capital. Fall on a it can number of places or in combination. It can fall on workers and lower wages. It can fall on the owners of the firms in terms of lower stock praises. Or it could pass through into consumers. Es for for a long time, the assumption therganizations like Congressional Budget Office, was byhare of that owners of capital. Shareholder. We gotten new evidence, half or so, Research Articles that started to question that finding. Can not the argument, it fall anywhere what have been learning. Of that burden is being born by wages. The types of studies that are conductedded conducted are the following. Look at countries around the world, we look at how tax policy those countries and how wages change. Relationship between Corporate Tax payments and wages. Find reallystudies huge effects. Unbelievable. Like a dollar change in Corporate Taxes. Something that result are less than that a dollar increase in be 50centaxes might or 75 cents. Do those measure wages overall . Are they paying the ceo more so where the dollartor dollar comes in . Up bys not being picked the 20 people at the top. Enough moneyarning to be capturing all than benefit themselves. At this point in time, the Congressional Budget Office contributes 80 of the corporate the owners of by the corporation. And only 20 by the workers. That. To clarify vast majority of the tacks paid corporations are attributed owners of the corpse. Most are well to do folks. True. Thats what cbo is saying is true, we should think about Corporate Tax in one way thats a tax born by rich people. Own the people who corporations. We can make decisions about how we want to tax them. Thats not true, the newer evidence is right and a lot of the burden of tax fall on workers, might think about tax policy differently. It. Might not agree with thats what the latest evidence is suggesting. Your clients would understand its very important what were talking about. Hoot . Y give a if i said to them, were going to cut Corporate Taxes and that great for you mr. On mrs. Smith, because eventually up. Egate wages will go is that going to help them pay for kids child care . Can this translate to them . It will translate to them if get a wage increase. If they dont have the certifications and the training warrant that wage increase just because a breaks and gets tax the entry level workers and middle level workers, if they dont have the skill to be able to earn that higher wage, its to them. To translate lot of times what we see out there with a lot of our investing lotre of dollars into job training and certifications. To rise inare trying Career Pathway the workers that the companies to move up. Will companies spend more money ton job training to be able to employees because lot of the entry level workers. Maybe they only have a high school diploma. Lot of times its a skill set for a company to expand. Lot of times job creation is the skilledwe have workers working to be able to expand our business and grow our be able to grow corporations. Does it end up being part of the workers or the born to dictate if that company will be able to expand. And moreing more employers that the wage increases, theyre not giving because, were going to raise everybodys salary. From being talking boots on ground and working with employers. Matters. On the ground to pick up on that point. Im a tax guy. That tax policy matters. Affects the decisions people make. It would be wrong to think that only tax policy matters. So many other things matter. Skills is one of the huge things. Codean have the best tax in the world, whatever that look like, people so many other dont have the and workthey needed ethic and they dont know the basic soft skills and hard times to get to work on and be responsible it will not make a difference. Were just relating a tax issue and taxes on wealthy folks. Analysis that have been done the trump tax plan at House Republican tax plan trump tax plan still a question mark. Tax plan that he put out during the campaign in september. The analysis of that plan is breaks inf the tax afterlan go to the top 1 ten years. The vast majority goes to the top 1 . Taxs because the corporate rate is cut so deeply. Corporate and business tax rates deeply. So largest benefit will go to the percent. The republican tax plan put out by paul ryan, its hard to of the tax breaks attributed to top one percent. That the top tax rates are cut, its because the cut ande tax rate business tax rate cuts. That suggest that it really born by rich people the rate. Ate my job is so hard. Make an excellent point. When i was talking about doing discussionsng with with folks, with the tax code is best way to help middle income people. No. Answer i got, was its only thing people need to talk about. When you talking about job skills training and funding that, the support for low and isdle income families, it such a multivariant problem. Starts with the amount of revenue. Thatch the programs support those families under government spending, its discretionary. What lawmakers want to do in a given year. Fluctuates. Experience inat other areas where youre helping . Absolutely. Believe that the tax reform gives us the opportunity to ways to help the talkage workers when we about the program, we look at and eic. Ing, its a very important component family. Working theres one program that really has encouraged working and can work towards the job skills and growing and its programs that occurred. Make more than the tax credit goinghey get will start down. They see the advantage because theyre making a higher wage. Its very important. We had anida appropriation that was 500,000 that we received last year. Thisda was the only state year that the vita returns were up 9 . Were able to focus and put a lot of vita sites and reach out families. King we partnered with employers in bringing the vita tax return to employers where the workers are working. Lot of times theres a lott think ofthat when you a low wage worker moderate, they have a lot of barriers. Have two jobs. They have families. Bringing the vita returns to the of employment eliminates one thing they dont have to. We open site on saturday. Having a appropriations and we talk about wanting vita to be something permanent that we see the tax code, because its so important and so usesful for families. As job training. One of the things, eic is thing that we want to preserve. Theou think about it in 1990, we had more single moms work because it encourages work over welfare reform. Programs are very important in looking what we put, i really believe that the opportunity for us to look at how do we help our wage workers. Were talking about families with children. Theyre working hard. Theyre not there because they hand out, they want the easy way out. Folks work harder than we do. They trying to support their family and the tax code not help them because they maw pay a lower tax paying salesyre tax. Theyre taxed in other ways that it affects their daily being to support their families. Example. O give you an how much federal government spend on job training. I dont know that. Let me give you a different comparison. We call a tax trade off. We spend the government spends on the earned income tax about 63 billion a year. Income support to help low wage workers. Work. Es them incentive to they get about 3000 in their pocket through this program, get it everyople year. Thats probably about half of for it. Igible why theyre not taking advantage of it . Because they dont understand it . They dont know about it. Apple, we all, know apple, half the people in phones. M have apple they have 235 billion in offshore thatre untaxed. Alex was talking about that. Are taxed offshore. Paying 6 tax rate on profits offshore. Told Securities Exchange commission and report this to the sec, if they bring the money back, they owe 29 taxen money. E that tax on that is 75 billion. That one company owes us in taxes. N thats more than what is being spent on the eitc. Comparisonsind of that we need to think about. To change ine need order to afford the kind of investments that are going to lives offference and working people. Corporate tax front, what the Corporate Tax rate be . Had a want the we worldwide system which means wherever you are in your dollars, United States tax you on them if its your business. The question is when you bring taxack, thats when they you. Most country have a territorial system, which businesses paid on are earned. Theres a proposal with republicans to change the United States to territorial system. Worldwide ornt territorial . Rate . The top our organization is in favor a position en got now, we want to end the loophole. The firl. D just like we pay our taxes every corporations ought to pay their taxes. They shouldnt be allowed to defer taxes until they bring the money back. Most of the money that they have offshore is not really offshore. Booked offshore in subsidiaries. They cant bring it back to the use it. Ompany and we have not taken a position ratewe think the top tax is. We want to see what it all ends up being. You want to preserve the worldwide system . Our problem with going to system, rightx aboutere losing 100 billion every single year shifting profits offshore through intellectual properties. Its mostly hightech companies and Drug Companies and finance companies. Shift thele to profits offshore and avoid paying these taxes. Inse are profits earned here america. Theyre making it look like they are earned offshore. Close that loophole. Ist the rate is for determined how much money do we haveto raise in order to the kind of economy that will be able to make the investments that we need. Will be able to take care of senior and retirement and etcetera. That number is a little hazy. Depends on what individual will pay. Also it will depend on all gaming the company will do to not pay. Whats your favorite rate . I assume you want to go to territorial . Yes. I think lot of the incomes thats earned in the Current System by corporations is i. R. S. Ble by the we can preserve the income cans being earned and we do that through the sec. Being able to capture that funding, would prove very difficult. The reason is were in a competitive environment. Ago when the United States economy was more close and we were less engaged in markets wereancial less sophisticated. Locately property engagingand they are in new strategies. They will continue to do that. They will continue to optimize their tax. Think of as unfair and unjust and unright. Think about to having a tax system thats operational. To engage in these practices, not saying they dont. With frank. In large, difference between our tax system and the tax system of partners is large. 35 in tax rate around the United States plus state and local tax. Law they pay less and take all the tax breaks . When theyre earning additional dollar, they generally would pay that amount was a tax. Hat dollar sameey engage in the orivity in france, germany portugal or canada or mexico, they would pay for less. Say well, theyre thats not fire or right. Operational for them. Their ox is to their shareholders and not to their country . Theyre complying to the law. They are truly earning money the world and paying taxes and offshore. They are also engaging in thetegies to maximize extent to which they are earning money. I dont think we can capture money. Certainly not by raising the system. E tax the question is is there another way a wouldnt encourage them to play this game. People suggested that there will be less gamesmanship if the was lower. If we had a rate like other 20srys rates in the instead the 30s. Herewould pay their taxes in the United States. Put forward aans quiteal i think is elegant. That will go to the the heart of this issue. The other thing i will note, when we think just to put magnitude on things, about 10 tax receipts come from the Corporate Taxes. Where does the federal money that it the gets . 18 of revenue generally taxes. Dividual income most of the money thats collected today to pay for the have are fromwe the income tax system. Reformingink about the tax code and reform the tax code in a way to raise more would seem we would want to do that, we would go where the money is. The tax base and collect more none from more money from individuals. Lot ofof business taxes it is coming toth individual code. To become a company business. Businesses profits get passed through to you and you pay the tax under individual return. Over the last 30 or 40 years, a hasof business income tax transferred to the individual income tax system. Of theart because inefficiency of the corporate system. Two quick points. So folks understand. Most of the money thats offshore 75 of it is owned or 50 conferences. 40 is held by 10 corporations. A small number of a vastorporations that has amount of these profits. , microsoft, g. E. And pfizer. Were talking about a very small number of companies. Lot of Companies Paying 31 and 32 . Are domestic companies. The tail wagging the dog here, thathese multinationals arent paying close to their fair share. The second closing point i would make, most of the money is not or germany or britain. Companies are two competitors of ours. Offshore profits are booked in tax havens. With that. Er compete if you create aerstorial tax the tax rateans that theyre going to pay is where they book their profit. Going to make the world a tax haven. Firl and paythe tax right now to the United States government. What are you going to do . Corporation. [laughter] would you do . 25 rate. Wants tohat the house do. Lower from 35 to 25 . Propose 20 . For corporations oh wait. Okay, 20 . I dont know. Issome point when the rate low enough, its important to diminish it. The same with the whole spectrum provisions. Be depreciation or this credit or that credit. When the rate gets low, the getsrtion in the code. Mall thelso matters lot less in policy. Whether we have the it or not, the rate 15, it doesnt matter much when we had it or not. Lets talk specific tax rates for individuals. To resolveoing corporation taxation. Earned income tax credit. Think needs to be done to improve on that credit so it has better target to the need it to most . We need better awareness so everyone who should be getting it is getting it. We also have a problem with payments. Lot of people who are not eligible for program are benefits. Ly gets the we need to figure out how to tackle that problem. Two thingsare the that lawmakers should focus on. Advertising. D first of all, lets preserve it. Lets not lose what we have. Also have where a woman athout children, they get smaller credit. 25 or overis under 65, theyre not eligible. Thate a lot of seniors have to work. Its not that theyre just working a little bit because extra money. Theyre over 65, theyre not eligible to get a credit. Looking at how can we expand that. About it worker maybe 23r 25, they years old and theyre not getting a credit, they still poverty. In maybe theyre only 16 or 17,000 a year. That applies to single under 25. They dont get the earned income tax credit. Theyre under 25 or over. Those and both of being able to expanding eligibility. Not increasing the value of it. So changing, expanding it people under 25 if their parent and people under 65 if theyre low income. Eic is one of the best mechanisms we have to encourage work. Corporations that need to have the demand, family receiving the usingfunds that theyre to pay down their debt, theyre using it to put a down payment a car, they are using it during times that maybe theyre not getting a paycheck that saving the money. We have to look at it. Economic impact. Theyre spending the money back in the economy that stimulates increases demand. Its a very powerful mechanism that we could have to encourage workers. We want more workers when we and theut income tax way were raising money to be able to pay for programs or pay things, we have to have workers working. If theyve not working because they cannot afford to go to work, we will not do what youre about. Believe for individuals, they are eligible above 15,000 a year. If they do not get for kids you mean . Singles. Not married. Single with kids. Saying that you might get some help with minimum wage but beyond than youre not going to get any help now. Lot ofes you cant liv cities you cant live on minimum wage. Expand eligibility to people with no children. Without kids generally and people over 65. Thing,grand scheme of wheres when you look at lawmakers investment, this is an important place to make investments. Toefully we got more money invest and this might be one of places. Child care costs are big in the news. Weve gotten a lot of suggestions that the Trump Administration is interested in helping people pay their child care costs. Its done makes a difference. , even though you may have the best tax break in the world, it doesnt come to who has to pay tear day care costs this month. It will not come for 12 months or more. Is there a way to make them more to them . Same with the subsidy that the Affordable Care act offers. Way to do that with child care . That low. Dit cant be it can be. Out on a come or monthlyasis basis. Theres an issue rectify that. You dont really know what the be. Al income is going to you think youre eligible for a program for the First Six Months and youre drawing on that benefit, if it turns out you earned a lot within the last six and youre not eligible, how youre going to recoup the costs. If thats important, that could program. Ed in the are you happy with the child care tax credit as they are today . Improvements you need to happen . There could be improvements to everything. Thats one of the Biggest Challenges for workers. Families are paying as for as a mortgage or rent child care. When theyre making 12 or then 13 has been hour and its costing them close to 2000. The biggest reason employers have high turnover. Some employers are working at the place cares of work because its such a challenge. Have toomething that we think about. President obama had made a to expand the grants. Re assistance over 10 80 billion years. That would have helped two. Illion families i cant remember how much each family would have gotten. It much more made work. For them to tax reform discussion weve you mostat makes hopeful do manage to get it over the finish line. Have you heard anything from out of washington that makes you say, oh good . [laughter] not a fairts question. Hopeful that theyre talking about tax reform. Theres an opportunity with tax reform that maybe we can look at when were looking at whether the vita or the eic or charitablethe ductions fo deductions for families. Cant say right now. Im hopeful. They are talking tax reform. If that happens, thats hope. The thing we talked thet, i hope they keep charitable deductions. Wanted to repeal the estate tax. The reason lot of people give to charities is because they want their estate to avoid the estate tax. Going to workat for you . I talked to some financial they brought that up as a concern. Charities might suffer. That . Agree with why its so important when and our majorback the work that we do in familieses to help with Financial Stability and raise families out of poverty. Fall on the burden not for profit to provide a lot services. We keep hearing programs that be cut and we start think, that means were going to have profit up and not more to do more work to help families. We want communities to be cut a. We care about everybody that our community. If the charitable destructions reduced, its almost like were getting double whammy how hit. Getting the program cut and federal funding wont come down to us. Charitable deduction. At this time, we start thinking what are we going to do. Very important to us. However it falls or how it happens, its something that were watching closely. Its very important to everyone in our community. I would add, when we think dollarse charitable come from, some of them come from the state. Overwhelmingly they come from individuals making contributions. Many people make charitable contributions and dont get a deduction. Itemized. They dont they take a standard deduction. A lot of high income earners that donate money that cuts. G large federal tax that encourages them. They do respond. Individuals do give more because the charitable deduction. If it were to be clear, that an adversehave effect. Going back to what trump said campaign, he did have deductions. Temized effect. Have adverse my suspicion it would have less effect on the vita program. It would certainly have an effect. Quite frankly, the proposal to the deduction would make fewer people itemize and limit incentive from the charitable. Even if they didnt repeal estate tax, preserve the claritiable deduction just by pushing more people on to the deduction, you think negative . Have a with respect to what speaker ryan has said in their blueprint, they were clear on of charitable giving. The first question about whether we want tax reform, is this something to look forward to . Organization that thinks the system we need to raise more revenue for the system, the proposals that are out there are going in complete opposite directions in our point of view. Toare much better off trying stop tax reform at this stage of the game. With President Trump in the congressse and the controlled by the Republican Party on both sides, we will not get what i would call a progressive tax reform that will benefit most americans. I have one last question and then i will turn it over to the audience. Theave often talked about socalled benefits cliff meeting if i earn above a certain amount, i lose benefits from social welfare programs that i need to sustain my family. Is there something they can do in the tax code to appease that affect . Wont itaybe i wont work. Will is the benefit if i earn that much. Answer is though this can be mitigated, its expensive to mitigate those issues. You can mitigate the cliffs by phasing out the benefits for people as their incomes rise. You can medicate the effect of making those programs available for people at higher levels of income. Doing so expands the cost of those program so there is a tension between targeting the benefits to people who are most in need of the assistance and to providing these programs high income individuals. At some point, you have to flip from being able to get it to being able to not get it. As you relax the rules and make it more generous and give it to more people, you can take away some of the sting. Anyone want to weigh in . Yes, we talked about training employees and career edge is one of our programs that we raised in the funding to invest low to mid level workers to provide training dollars to the companies to be able to up skilled or workers and lift them up so they can make higher wages. We have also run into the employers saying to us, help us because our turnover rates are 90 with a lowwage worker. They ask where do we need to get them too so they dont quit . They do. Reportppens is they now they are making say 12 an hour and three month later, they have to report for child care assistance they are receiving or food stamps and they get cut. They just get cut off and at that point, that parent has to make the decision, i cannot afford to go to work. This is why i think we really believe in the eic because thats more of a curve. As employees earn more, the tax credit is lower but they see their wages going up and we can have that conversation but now youre making this much money and you dont need those services. That is the true economic power of lifting people up. Real and i is very believe employers suffer a lot from the benefits because of employees quitting because they cannot afford to go to work. Its something i think we talked about where on the state level we have to look at how you have asradual staving off process workers are training so they can make the higher wages so they are out of bed benefit cliff situation. Out of that benefit cliff situation. I think raising the minimum wage is critical to keep people up there. They are getting a little wage and thats more potent than anything we can do on taxes. Then the question becomes, if folks are 15 per hour, is there cliff. Oing to be that it depends on the region of the country and whether its urban or rural but is that cliff will be there . Then we have to change the Eligibility Criteria for food c but thed the it important thing is to get a solid minimum wage first. That gives people so much more dignity. They are making a living so they can afford to survive with their family. Its up to you guys. You will pass out a microphone, yes sir. Thank you very much. This may sound like an offtopic question but i am wondering has anybody done any studies on the impact of promoting Birth Control on the budget . For example, what we are looking total estimation of planned parenthood. I think this has an impact on all the budgetary stuff we talked about, child care, people having kids they dont want and having to lose their jobs, job training it goes on and on. There is a ripple effect. Is anybody doing any investigation of that . I dont know. Is it worth doing . Yes, sir . I have started a project called the center on capital and social equity to include everybody in our economy. I noticed in the background material there was a lot of emphasis on tax exclusions and , and equity for Retirement Savings account. This mostly goes to high income people. On retirement accounts, more than 100 billion is for gone on taxes because its included its excluded as income. What if we rearrange those a little bit so half the people have no retirement account now . Tax advantage of the top and you provide a tax credit at the bottom for everybody. Everybody would be a capitalist, everybody would have some andtal under their control you could save 40 or 50 billion per year or get a from somewhere else by raising Corporate Tax. There is stuff like that that needs discussion. There is Home Mortgage save 100 i get 100 tax break from the government . No, it would be a once and for all gift. Every year, the government would put two or 300 in everyones account. You dont have to keep it. Small amounts to establish an account so they have somewhere to go if they go to a job, they have an account. The challenge is you focused on retirement there is acause crisis around retirement security. What you are referring to is tax expenditures. Tax expenditures are spending by another name. , there is tax breaks for money put aside in pensions and there is tax breaks for money put aside in your 401 k if you are lucky enough to have enough income. Combined costs are about 150 billion per year so its a lot of money. We thinktion helping people save for retirement is quite important. The problem with the way the tax isenditures are designed now what you are raising which is most of the benefits are able to be taken by folks at the top of the income scale because they are the ones who actually have the disposable income and can put it in a 401 k or theyve got a great job or the employers doing that for them. Whats happening is folks at the bottom are not able to save for retirement. First of all, because they dont make enough money. Would 300 per year, it be a help but it probably is not enough money to do what you need to have that nest egg to supplement Social Security. I agree we need to revise how these programs are structured so a lot more than if it will go to folks lower down the scale. The problem with the retirement , peoplesrea is disposable income, 50,000 per year is probably not that much money to save every year. Youre just living. There is a policy called the savers credit which is going in the direction of the program to describe. Encourages saving. There is Social Security where people are paying in at low income levels but they are getting a relatively high return. That program is not unstable ground going forward. Programonents of that provide income replacement. Its reasonable relative to peoples tree retirement income. I dont make enough money to save so even if theres a savers credit, i cannot take advantage because i pay for daycare and i paper dinner do you have any response of the idea of the government in fusing a few hundred dollars of cash . Quick toliberals are attack proposals a decade or two ago about privatizing Social Security. Yes, sir . Brown, i was wondering if anyone could talk about some of the discussions about the universal child credit and the proposals from senator rubio and others to raise the amount and refund ability of the Child Tax Credit and the benefits and drawbacks from that . Increasing the Child Tax Credit . I think there are few proposals if any at the moment that are popular in congress. The policy was created in 1997 for a 500 credit. To 1000y was doubled 2001hild in the administration with president bush. Thisepublicans push through. The eligibility of that credit has been expanded somewhat over time and is refundable partially. About 45 billion per year, i think. It phases out for moderate income households. The only thing i would say is if you were to increase that credit , you would also be increasing the disparity in tax liabilities among low and moderate income households. A tax relief that only goes to a parent. Im a parent so i get it. There are a lot of low to moderate income households that are ineligible. We want to think about what the distant vision of those benefits are among the low and moderate income classes. Yes, sir . I am will rice and i work with frank at atf but i have been a volunteer for several years and i was always impressed by people even with very low incomes were very concerned about making sure they paid their taxes. I was very impressed by the. I want to go back to the first discussion and ask alex not only are corporate profits at record highs but corporate cash, just the amount of cash not only offshore but onshore are at record levels and borrowing is very cheap. If companies have access to all of this money, why arent they investing that and why are they instead spending over half their profits on stock buybacks and dividends which just helps their shareholders and executives rather than opening factories and hiring people and making more profit . Works,supplyside theory why isnt working when corporations have all this money . Thats a great question. I dont know why at any moment in time people hold cash. There are firms that are holding cash and could be anticipating a tax reform. To relieve their tax burden. A decade ago or so, a temporary tax break was provided to encourage firms to bring cash back. At the time it was 1 trillion offshore. Bring them back in the next six month, you get a tax break. The window closed after that. Everyone thought they would do it again. Thats encouraging firms to holder cash offshore. Firms may be returning may be cash onshore for various reasons. Loweray be hoping for a tax chains that means they could pay a dividend at a lower break. I think its important to in the moment in time analysis and the longterm analysis. In the long run, firms must return their cash to their shareholders. Thats the really long run. This lady in the back i lost my voice this weekend. Im from the tax policy center. In your opening remarks and later when you said the big problem with the etic is a low pickup and you tossed out 50 . My son says thats wrong and of low, itsp is that only among people eligible for very low credits, primarily workers without qualifying children. Im wondering if maybe the answer to your problem is when your copanelists suggest increasing the childless eitc so its similar to what families of children already get in the 3000 5,000 range. If i said that i was only profiting someone else. I did not come with the stats. I may have repeated franks comments. I think the fix is an interesting idea. Yes, sir. There, im a student at the university of michigan. I was wondering, you mentioned possible solution of judgment tax, the gamesmanship we see corporations engaging in to have profits offshore. My question was about the border adjustment tax on the way you speak of it, it sounds like an import tariff. Can you explain the difference . Yeah, thats a great question. It may be an academic question. It does fill in many regards like an import tariff. Is way the proposal works two pieces to the border adjustment task in a one is to disallow the ability to deduct and expense of a firms imports. In that sense, its a tax to be paid on the import. Whats critically important to understand is the economics of the policy. It is not that alone. This also seems to bother some people but this is the way these two factors were together. The other part of the border adjustment tax is an exclusion for the revenues associated with exports. It is an import tax and export subsidy. Its in equal and uniform measure. That offers ator symmetry to this policy. You thatuys will tell the effect is a wash. Because the change on both sides of the ledger will result an adjustment on the value of the dollar. There is an argument among economist whether that Exchange Rate effect will occur immediately and perfectly. The theory is simple and elegant that it will adjust. There is some reason to think it might not adjust perfectly but thats the idea. As a result, if you buy that theory and that response, imports become cheaper so they are taxed on a yes, but they are also cheaper and you are back to where you started in the net cost. Some people dont buy that theory. They dont think the market works that way. They dont think there is a liquid or perfect market for currencies and they are concerned that it will result in higher prices for goods. Yes, sir . There is an issue with people in america living with income volatility which is a big issue. , peoplet i have heard fall for that in many cases by going into their retirement accounts and taking on a hefty penalty for taking that money out. Im wondering if there has been any talk about relieving some of that pain for people with maybe getting rid of that or having an or maybesed penalty what the effect of that penalty is for people based on their income . Maybe there is a way to help people with that issue. It seems like it is an issue of not making enough money and they are trying to do the right thing and things that are tax encouraging but it makes it really hard to do that. Is there a study or analysis on that . You are talking about the 10 penalty plus income tax . Its a hardship tax. Its a hardship withdrawal. Are you aware of that . 10 butw the penalty is i dont know if there are any waivers. There may be if its true hardship. I will go yes. [laughter] to your point, people should have access to your savings at all time without penalty . Yes, [indiscernible] if your income drops more than x percent, you should tax your savings, and adjusting idea. Its not an area im knowledgeable about. I wish i could help. I understand peoples circumstances change year to year it would be helpful to smooth that out. Do your clients have Retirement Savings and theyve used them that way question mark im not aware of any but im sure they have. Tot is why we are trying work with Financial Institutions to help build assets and open up accounts that then they have to fall back on. One thing i think we are finding most acceptable is helping our clients build credit. Not really sure about that. They need money and we have some employers that are setting up accounts with Credit Unions that if they have an emergency, they can go in get a shortterm loan and it will be deducted out of back paystub to pay that while at the same time, they are building credit because we record it. They are trying to find different alternatives to help families because it does happen and they are trying to keep them away from places where they may have to pay some high interest to use their own money. Yes, sir, in the back. I am an entrepreneur. If we take the budget of the becausencome tax credit you get the credit at the end of the year, there is the incentive to work but you dont see it immediately versus the minimum wage went up or Something Like that. Im curious if the panelists could answer that if you have that pot of money and you want to create an incentive to work and the other benefits, might you invested in a different program, say topping up a lowwage or Something Like that where you could create a stronger incentive to work . Maybe it would have an effect that would be larger than what it is now . Do you mean transferring some of the money that would go to the etic like raising the minimum wage . Yes, Something Like that. Billion,you have 60 if i have a minimum wage job and i get the money at the end of the year, i dont see that money immediately versus im looking for a job and i see a seven dollar wage versus a 10 wage, the incentive is much stronger and immediate i would think. Consumer iswwage sophisticated enough to say i will see the money down the road and thats incentive enough. Answer butknow the just thinking through that, when we are thinking about eight dollars an hour or 10 per hour, you have to think about that. That is barely making it, being able to afford things so you are still within that wage where the earned income credit, we look at it also as a savings account. You can look at it as putting money into a savings you will get at a certain point and you will say for it. Instant gratification i think is one of the things that gets a lot of people in trouble. You are absolutely right, the Main Objective is want to get people trained and skilled with a certification so they can make higher wages. Andaring our work force skilled workers that we are talking about, we are talking about companies that hire folks, a lot of it is that we have a lot of job openings that we dont have the skilled workers to place in those jobs. We have that issue. Its a matter of we have to train our individuals so they can make the higher wages because if we dont get that, the wages are higher. You also have to look at it are the employers willing to pay higher wages . We know the eic is a credit. You have a great point because you needed every month and you want to have that money. But i dont point know how we do that. I think the most important thing is to raise the wage. That will give the immediate gratification. That will give people the incentive, the additional and pute to be working more money in their pocket than they are getting now. I would not want to erode the eitc. Its such a successful program. Its helping 6. 5 million people. Its taking people out of poverty right now. Is at think there percentage or advantage to reducing the funding their. Its leveraging. The key question is how can we raise peoples wages across the board . Any other questions . Thank you so much to each of the panelists. You did a great job. [applause] i just want to thank you all. This is been a great session and i learned a lot and i hope you all did, too so thank you for being here. Managing the conversation. Please come join us again for our next conversation in our working america series. Thank you again. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] we joined the discussion for tax policy while he was under way but you can watch it in its entirety in the cspan video library. Go to www. Cspan. Org and type in aspen. Cbss reporting the u. S. Is likely to fall short of the Trump Administrations goal of 3 growth this year. Thats a corny to a survey of businesses. Forecasts are coming in lower with a 2. 2 growth rate expected this year and two point 4 next year. Those of the forecasts are down after a survey in march. You can read more at cbs. Com. A look at the hill, a group of economists expressed support for trumps