Posted on 11/09/2011 7:08:21 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Done right, a flat tax can make the U.S. more competitive and help working people. So let's stop making it so partisan.
Here's the bottom line on the hottest issue in the presidential campaign: A flat tax, done right, is a good idea. Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan is definitely not a good idea. Rick Perry's plan is better but murky.
We'll be hearing much more about such plans, and since some kind of tax reform is vital to America's future, it's worth taking two steps back from the campaign sound bites to see what's really on the table.
Today's thinking on a flat tax originated 30 years ago when Stanford professors Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka proposed a detailed plan. The basics were simple: Individuals would pay a 19% rate on wages, salaries, and pension income above a generous tax-free allowance; no deductions. Businesses would pay a 19% rate with deductions only for what they paid in wages, salaries, pension contributions, goods, services, and investments, which could be fully expensed in the year made. The system is progressive and efficient, and it offers incentives for the right behavior.
They designed their plan to be revenue-neutral, even without assuming it would increase economic growth, though they believed it would do so.
Cain's plan at first included no tax-free allowance for individuals, making it hugely regressive; he has since promised to fix that, but the plan on his campaign website is unchanged. In any case, the plan's 9% sales tax still makes it regressive. It's thus a nonstarter, one indication among many that Cain is just not ready for primetime. Perry's plan with a flat 20% rate, a big tax-free allowance, and no sales tax is closer to the real deal. But it skews incentives by retaining deductions for mortgage interest,
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.fortune.cnn.com ...
There is no flat tax that Democrats will love. Democrats are enemies of equal protection. Always have been.
I would agree with that and have it in place so that it can be implemented within 2 years, to give the IRS enough time to understand the changes.
Now, that’s what I call brilliant. Hopefully it passes legal muster. I personally like that thinking.
I think that money was earned!
Perry's staff desperately googled "tax plan" and flat tax came up---but they didn't notice it was dated 1985.....and that the source was the Smithsonian archives (/snix).
A flat tax progressives can love is one where their constituent base pays nothing and the wealth creators pay an ever increasing amount. What do you call that kind of flat tax? Oh, I forgot.. a progressive tax.
I called it the 'Everyone gets a tax cut not-so-flat flat tax'.
Maybe Perry should have proposed a tax where we just fill in the amount we want to pay like a charity. Then he can declare it revenue neutral due to increased economic growth.
Imagine well all pay zero taxes AND it pays for itself too. OPPPS, where did those deficits come from again?? Must be those sneaky spending trolls...that spent it all.
Heh-—nice take.
I learned those excuses from the Bush-bots still claiming it wasnt Bush's fault because Democrats wanted him to support amnesty, give Home loans to illegals with bad credit....etc. It's OK for a Republican POTUS to do it as long as Dems want him to, they still say,.
How about Social Security?
no they play lip service to the concept of equal protection, but they don’t like what it truly means, except when it suits their secular progressive agenda. democrats have been the party of immorality from the beginning, they were the party of rum, romanism, and rebellion, they are the party of crack, atheism, and rebellion. just change the drug and the string pullers and everything else is the same.
(Dems love taxes, Repubs don't. Win. Win.)
: )
Perry plagiarized his tax plan from 1985? LOL
At the very least, your basis should be indexed for inflation.
Oh, horse manure.
If the scumbag Democrats love it, it can’t be good for productive citizens.
Yes. The Democrat Party is the party of the KKK.
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