> 1. Tariffs are bringing in real money.
> The U.S. collected $195 billion in customs duties, more than double the prior year. That doesn’t capture the full jump because tariff rates only ramped up in April, halfway through the year.
That's actually more than I expected.
> President Trump seeks to shift the government’s reliance on income taxes toward taxes on imported goods. Still, tariffs contribute a relatively small 3.7% of overall federal revenue, compared with 51% for the individual income tax.
We really need to close large ccorporate tax dodges as well. Too many smaller companies pay 35% rates while the Apples and NVIDIAs pay a fraction of that rate. There's apparently plenty enough corporation money sloshing around to spend trillions on GPUs for AI in the US.
The tariffs don't actually bring in money, they just move money from one place (US taxpayers, who'd otherwise use it productively) and put it elsewhere (the treasury).
Now normally this might be put to some sensible use, perhaps building infrastructure, but since this revenue is being used to offset huge tax cuts for a tiny group of people determined to turn around and use the capital for (let's be real here) speculation it's a net negative.
In the end we're going to look back at this chapter of 'Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation' and say "Well obviously those idiots should've see that coming."
To say that tariffs don't actually bring in money is simply wrong. We are talking about income to the government. Yes, tariffs take actual money and give it to the government. It doesn't matter where it came from, inside or outside the US.
If your definitions are used, then literally nothing actually brings in money. It just moves it from one place to another.
Not true, issuing a loan brings in money (albeit mirrored by an equal amount of debt). So the federal deficit brings in a substantial amount of money. In the same vein, paying down the national debt completely, an oft-cited goal of some national leaders, destroys all money.
Setting aside the issue of generating money, which is not under discussion, and which loans can help with, do you really still claim that "The tariffs don't actually bring in money"? 51% of the government income is from income taxes, which you would say "doesn't actually bring in money." So what exactly is the point of talking the way you are talking?
Our current leadership and their populist supporters are super gung-ho on converting the US into a mercantile economy like China. That's what these tariffs are about: creating an environment of protectionism from which the US will emerge as an export powerhouse, with massive trade imbalances in the US' favor.
So in their own language, these tariffs are merely domestic transfers of capital and do not 'bring in money.'
The language under discussion is the national debt and deficit.
You’re trying to make a political point by changing the definition of words.
I may agree with your point, but pretending like tariffs don’t generate income that bring down the deficit is not the way to argue it. It just convinces people you aren’t arguing in good faith, or don’t understand simple math.
The last legal ruling on the matter found that they are mostly being enacted illegally by using emergency powers[1] and may end up being refunded entirely. So until they are actually able to be booked, we can't say they are impacting the budget one way or another. If they aren't legalized then the work it took to collect and then refund them all is money that may as well have been incinerated.
> The tariffs don't actually bring in money, they just move money from one place (US taxpayers, who'd otherwise use it productively) and put it elsewhere (the treasury).
So your argument seems to be “We have yet to see whether these new tariffs are legal and therefore whether the income will be able to be kept.”
That’s a far cry from saying tariffs don’t generate income for the government, which is what I understood you to be saying.
It's going to be the biggest heist in American history. That tariff revenue is as good as gone. It's not about whether the money can actually be brought in, but more about the reality that crooks have access to the pot. It's really all about that. These are not fiscal conservatives generating revenue to pay down debt, these are actual crooks that will gift it to each other.
With the global minimum tax rules in place, weighted by GDP and by revenue, corporate tax rates are actually fairly consistent across the world - roughly 25% worldwide. It's a myth that companies are not paying taxes, and also a myth that the largest sectors in the US are not paying taxes. It's a great talking point, though.
You also seem to be conflating investment for profit (GPUs for AI, for example) with income. Capital outlays of this type are almost always financed (see recently Nvidia, OpenAI + AMD, etc. deals). None of the large players are self-funding AI on that scale right now. This is why OpenAI's burn rate is so catastrophically high.
Perhaps for most companies, which was part of my point. But it's interesting to consider. I haven't read up too much on it in recent years.
The largest, most profitable international mega-corps always seem to pay much less because they can afford to game the system more.
It does look like my data is out of date concerning US corporate tax rates, which looks to be a flat 21% now from Trump's first term. Guess I'd only heard about the personal income tax breaks.
Spot checking Alphabet, it seems big corps might still be getting big tax breaks. A quick Google search on Alphabet Inc's effective tax rate AI summary of [1] gives:
> Alphabet's most recent effective tax rate was 16.91% for the quarter ending June 30, 2025, and 16.44% for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024. The company's effective tax rate has varied, hitting a recent low of 13.9% in 2023 before increasing again in 2024.
That looks to be about 25% cut off their taxes.
Interesting tidbit: Averaging Alphabet's Q1&Q2 revenue and taxes and then calculating what they would pay at a 25%, 35%, or 21% corporate tax rate I get:
> est_annum_lost_vs_21 => $ 6,057 millions
> est_annum_lost_vs_25 => $12,115 millions
> est_annum_lost_vs_35 => $27,259 millions
So Google alone could be paying about 3.10% (or 6.21-13.97% with 25/35% rates) worth of the proceeds from tariffs just by itself.
Is that a big amount or not isn't clear to me. But it's an interesting perspective to consider.
> You also seem to be conflating investment for profit (GPUs for AI, for example) with income. Capital outlays of this type are almost always financed
True, and my comment over-simplifies all of that. Nevertheless those finance deals effect the debt markets raising the US government's interest rates. It also effects regular home buyers as well who will likely continue seeing higher mortgage rates.
Perhaps, if they were paying more of their fair share of taxes Nvidia, OpenAI + AMD, etc would have both less expected profits in the future and therefore less ability to finance such large amounts.
They're not shelling out the cash now. Given their general profitability and large cash reserves they can leverage even larger amounts of debt than they'd be able to otherwise.
Why should Nvidia pay any taxes except payroll for their local headcount? They could easily book all revenue overseas in tax heavens. They should pay more taxes to the places where chips are made, not to the US government.
The 2010s and Obama called - they want their foreign policy back.
Most countries (including the US) have signed global minimum tax rates at this point. Effective tax rates (either directly or via clawbacks) are theoretically 25%.
Of course, I am not enough of an expert to know if that is happening in China. I somewhat doubt it.
Actually, the US has joined. Although it has not joined Pillar II, the effective tax rate, according to third-party economists, shows adherence to the 25% number.
>We really need to close large ccorporate tax dodges as well. [...] There's apparently plenty enough corporation money sloshing around to spend trillions on GPUs for AI in the US.
This does not follow. The figures for "trillions" come from estimates for what will be spent in the next few years, not amount actually spent. Moreover while tech companies have initially funded their AI investments from their cash piles, they're now tapping debt markets to fund that growth, so the fact they're spending "trillions" doesn't imply they're evading taxes.
Corporations take their revenue to pay people as either employees or shareholders. I am not sure why we need to tax corporations at all. Take employees as income perhaps, tax dividends, tax shares being sold, but allow companies to use their money productively.
Though I would prefer a 0% income and capital tax, and we move to a pure land value tax and rent tax system.
There's a lot of ways to siphon money out of firms. People declare their car as a "work vehicle", CEOs fly to the beach on the company's jet, etc.
So I guess you want some level of corporate tax? (it's the same for why there are large sales tax in developing countries; sure they are less efficient than income taxes, but lots of people evade those)
>There's a lot of ways to siphon money out of firms. People declare their car as a "work vehicle", CEOs fly to the beach on the company's jet, etc.
That's why there are specific IRS regulations for this[1]. "Company cars" basically disappeared as a result. Moreover contrary to what you imply, corporate taxes don't really solve this issue either. Corporate taxes are paid on profit, not revenue, and expenses like "work vehicles" or private jets aren't taxed either way.
> Corporations take their revenue to pay people as either employees or shareholders. I am not sure why we need to tax corporations at all. Take employees as income perhaps, tax dividends, tax shares being sold, but allow companies to use their money productively.
I believe almost the opposite. We should tax corporations more and individuals less. As long as we keep estate taxes to curtail dynasties.
We have far too much concentration in towards ever larger, more powerful corporations. By their nature corporations lack ethics and morals of normal people. Even when operated by well meaning people the system anonymizes individuals and increases group think, etc. That's not purely a bad thing as it also enables large scalable systems which profit humanity as a whole. However there should also be curtails on corporate power and control.
>> President Trump seeks to shift the government’s reliance on income taxes toward taxes on imported goods. Still, tariffs contribute a relatively small 3.7% of overall federal revenue, compared with 51% for the individual income tax.
Doesn't he also say tariffs are going to cause manufacturing to move to the US? That seems at odds with tariffs as a replacement for income taxes.
That's actually more than I expected.
> President Trump seeks to shift the government’s reliance on income taxes toward taxes on imported goods. Still, tariffs contribute a relatively small 3.7% of overall federal revenue, compared with 51% for the individual income tax.
We really need to close large ccorporate tax dodges as well. Too many smaller companies pay 35% rates while the Apples and NVIDIAs pay a fraction of that rate. There's apparently plenty enough corporation money sloshing around to spend trillions on GPUs for AI in the US.