What’s in a (tax) name?
The destination based cash flow tax, or, as it was loving referred to among the large circle of economists who loved it, the DBCFT, was, at least in the minds of it supporters, an amazing tax. But, we don’t have one. One reason, I have heard talked about among tax people, is simply because the marketing of the tax was bad—starting with the name. DBCFT does not roll off the tongue. It does not conjure up favorable images of who will pay, or not pay, the tax. It’s too technical—not named so the every-person can understand it. What we name taxes matters. I call this phenomena optical taxation, where we pick names for taxes that conjure up images that make the tax appealing (if we want to pass it), or, make it look bad (if we want to get rid of it). Why, why the discussion around tax names?
