Sunday, March 14, 2010

Congress is long overdue for serious effort at tax reform

"The Wyden-Gregg plan takes the six income brackets currently on the books and compresses them into three (15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent). It gets rid of the alternative minimum tax. It triples the standard deduction available to all taxpayers, which means that people don't need to spend as much time trying to itemize deductions and figuring out ways to game the system. It kills off the existing six corporate rates and eight corporate brackets, and replaces them with a flat corporate tax of 24 percent. And it reduces the task to a one-page form.

The result of all these changes? The average corporation and taxpayer would pay quite a bit less. But the system wouldn't be bringing in less money because fewer people would escape their burden altogether. That last bit is particularly important, says Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. 'If you're getting rid of loopholes and lowering rates, you get winners and losers, not just losers. So all of a sudden it's not only one side that cares. That's especially true on the business side, which is where the real action is in tax reform and lobbying. That's the dynamic that makes tax reform possible."

Congress is long overdue for serious effort at tax reform - washingtonpost.com:

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