Program:  Cavuto Coast to Coast
Date:  3/24/2021
Station:  Fox Business News
Time:  12:00PM

NEIL CAVUTO:  All right, what is fair share for those of a certain age, I’ll probably be just leaving you out on this one, but it does remind me of a Luke Costello skit with Bud Abbott where he’s trying to explain something or understand something. So, for that audience, I’m just saying, you said FairShare was thirty-nine-point six percent and then we got it.  Then you said it had to go up another few percentage points to forty two percent to pay a Medicare surtax. So, forty two percent was a fair share.  Then it had to go up another three percent to pay for the Affordable Care Act.  That brought it up to forty five percent. Then a number of states like New Jersey, they said, I’m going in and out of this, but they all of a sudden, we’re adding it to bring it over 50 percent and it’s still not a fair share.  So, what is it?  What is it? Let’s go back to two people who cannot remember Abbott and Costello, but they’re smart, nevertheless.  Danielle DiMartino, both Scott Martin.  Scott, what is i.   I really don’t know. I mean, we can kid aside and do the you know, the whole Lou Costello thing about what is fair share, but it keeps changing. I don’t know if it’s going to go over 40 percent. And with all these other things over forty five percent where it stops, where it goes, what do you think?

SCOTT MARTIN:  Yeah, maybe it has to do with the fact that the Treasury Department is receiving record revenues in taxes from the American people, so that may be something. Look, as far as the rich folks go, they don’t pay their fair share. Neil, they actually pay more than their fair share.  And that’s really what worries me about how we treat the folks that are productive in society and create jobs and do the spending. I’m sitting here thinking about how to answer this question. I’m looking at this one point nine trillion exorbitant stimulus package we just passed a couple of weeks ago, the American Recovery Act or something like that plan.  You know, that’s the amount of money that the Treasury Department gets in either income taxes just about to the dime, either in income taxes or payroll taxes. So why don’t we take that spending money? And why don’t we give people like a tax holiday and one of those two buckets? Because that’s where money is going to go. Best spent or best treated, not by taking it away from people to pay for some stimulus package that we didn’t need. That doesn’t go to good places. And I may be way off. I’m glad Daniels here because I might be missing something, but that seems to make a lot of sense to me.

CAVUTO:  Well, I do know this much, Daniel. They’re very creative coming up with ways to get more money into Washington, not not to go to, you know, slowing down the amount of money leaving Washington. And that’s what worries me. I mean, we can talk about the rich and many of them can afford these higher taxes and all. But what is a fair share for them to make it right to stop saying that they’re not doing enough, that they’re hosing the system or whatever else is being argued on the part of those who say that they’re not doing enough when in fact, they’re paying the lion’s share of the taxes.

DANIELLE DIMARTINO BOOTH:  You know, it’s hard to say, Neal, I don’t know that they think that there is necessarily a limit, but I can say this much. You know, the CPAs of across America are licking their chops right now because they’re like, oh, goody, they’re going to make the thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of US tax code even more complicated than they are by putting little things here and there, as you were saying, two percent, three percent. Look, I’ve got this great idea that would actually make it to where the IRS didn’t have to have as many people on their payroll so that we didn’t have to replenish it.  Why don’t we simplify the tax code and make things a lot easier than they were then rather than just try and nickel, dime, nickel, dime, nickel, dime. If you are wealthy and you make the tax code that much more complicated, you’re just going to pay your CPA a little bit more money so that he can get you out of it. And if you really, really, really try and soak the rich, that’d be a that’d be great for other countries. For other countries. Neil.

CAVUTO:  Yeah, everybody’s got a skin in the game, obviously, the rich should be paying more of that skin that I understand that’s the nature of our progressive tax code. But this is all out of whack here. I just have no idea what this moving target means and where it goes. But I have a good sense that neither of you are paying your fair share. So, you’re gonna have to pony up.  Guys, I want to thank you both very, very much. Is the IRS, which, of course, is watching. We have a lot more coming up.