U.S. Economic Indicators
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No Simple Solutions for Property Taxes
by Michael J. Hicks
The complexity of the tax system reflects the complexity of economic life.
There have been a lot of Op-Ed pieces about Indiana’s tax system these past few weeks. A common theme is that our tax system is hard to understand and full of unnecessary complexities. There was a time when I too worried excessively about the intricacy of the tax system. But that was when I was younger, knew less about the world and expected simple answers to all the world’s problems. Now that I am a bit older, know a bit more about tax and spending and have come to expect that simple answers are usually only helpful for simple problems, my concern for state taxes has abated. Here’s why.
The real angst about taxes (which has appeared in papers statewide over the past few weeks) is about the difficulty in understanding how the system works and how different taxes do different things. This is mostly misplaced worry.
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Data Releases
Indiana Household Employment, June 2008
Indiana Establishment
Employment, June 2008
Total Employment
Manufacturing Employment
U.S. Index of Leading
Economic Indicators, June 2008
The Conference
Board announced today that the U.S. Leading Index
decreased 0.1 percent,
the coincident index increased 0.1 percent and the lagging index
decreased 0.3 percent in June.
U.S. Durable Goods Orders, June 2008
U.S. New Home Sales, June 2008