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> The surplus last month was the first since the $83 billion reported in September 2019 and the largest since the $160 billion in April 2019. April and Septembe
by tablespoon 5y ago
> The surplus last month was the first since the $83 billion reported in September 2019 and the largest since the $160 billion in April 2019. April and September are traditionally months with high tax collections....
> The surplus for the month also was helped by the recognition of $70 billion in proceeds from a wireless spectrum auction, a U.S. Treasury official said.
It seems like this is a month to month number that fluctuates widely based on one-off events and things like when people typically pay their taxes.
- supernova87a 5y ago.
- arcticbull 5y agoSpectrum licenses are hardly the furnace. No more so than the DMV recognizing the revenue from car registrations or drivers license renewals.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- foota 5y agoSpectrum auctions are one time, aren't they?
- arcticbull 5y agoLooks like they last about 10-15 years. [1, 2] [1] https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2020/2020-08-06-fcc-rules-5g-spectrum-auction-bidding-start-december-8 https://www.cooley.com/news/insight/2020/2020-08-06-fcc-rule... [2] https://www.dwt.com/insights/2018/10/fcc-adopts-final-licensing-rules-for-35-ghz-cbrs-s https://www.dwt.com/insights/2018/10/fcc-adopts-final-licens...
- manquer 5y agoOne time as in not recurring revenue for every year. If it has to be recognised annually then roughly $70B/10-15 years is the annual value.
- adam_arthur 5y agoInteresting thing about the Trump tax cuts was that government tax revenue never declined. The year after they went into effect, Federal tax revenues were higher. Was pretty shocked when I saw this because the corporate rate cut was huge. Perhaps offset by SALT changes
- Day1 5y agoLookup ‘laffer curve’ for the explanation. Essentially, decreasing the tax rate incentivized more participants into the market and incentivized existing participants too
- adam_arthur 5y agoFor sure, I'm familiar with the concept, but wouldn't expect that effect alone to close the gap. But maybe companies actually chose to realize more gains once the rate was lowered. Need to find a good post hoc analysis of how revenue ended up higher. Also weird side note, Arthur Laffer is in his 80s but sounds/looks in his 60s in his interviews. Kind of amazing!
- scsilver 5y agoIt allowed a cash out of pent up wealth that was waiting for a tax favorable environments to realize.
- adam_arthur 5y agoThat likely explains part of it, but if you look at total revenues per year looks like it basically just subtracted one year of annual growth from trend. If it was primarily due to one time realizations, you would expect a spurt shortly afterwards, followed by decline.
- scsilver 5y agoAny chance you have some some charts I can dig through, at hand?
- 5y ago
- keneda7 5y agoYou got a source for this? I looked on google but wasn't able to find anything about selling our strategic helium reserve?
- ineptech 5y ago> It seems like this is a month to month number that fluctuates widely based on one-off events and things like when people typically pay their taxes. Even if it varies a lot over the short-term, reaching positive numbers after a long period in the negatives would suggest an upward trend that isn't just noise.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoHow do you figure?
- PaywallBuster 5y agoe.g. tax receipts increasing over time so this years was bigger than the two years before (hence the biggest) which would suggest a positive/growing trend
- epivosism 5y agoimagine if the number were -X billion. As I increase X, your estimate should respond. Surely there is an X such that you would notice, even though it is admitted the number varies, right? i.e. even a one-time -100000 billion month would be noticeable in your framework? From there we show that -100 is not quite as bad, and +100 is better. If a new employee is an hour late the first day on the job, it doesn't prove they're not committed but it sure points that way. Every observation is evidence, raising or lowering your estimates of reality behind the observations.
- ineptech 5y agoYou can measure a long term trend, even if it's overwhelmed in the short term by much larger changes, by tracking local maxima/minima. Suppose that a circuit's voltage is either increasing or decreasing by 1V per hour, and your measurements ranging from 90V-110V. To determine the trend, you ignore the increase/decrease from one measurement to the next, and wait for it to hit 111 or 89.
- quickthrower2 5y agoMaybe a good thing. You can’t fake cashflow! You can sure fake “profit”.
- akg_67 5y ago$49B surplus excluding wireless spectrum auction.
- lakeeffect 5y agoAgreed, this is why periodicity is fundamental to accounting.