Posted on 10/15/2005 12:45:23 AM PDT by beyond the sea
When President Bush formed his President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform he charged that panel with developing a tax reform proposal that would achieve three principal objectives:
1. The proposal should simplify the Federal tax code so as to reduce the costs of tax compliance.
2. The proposal should promote home ownership and charitable giving.
3. The proposal should promote economic growth, job creation and encourage individual saving and investment while strengthening the competitiveness of the US in the global economy.
We now have a clear indication of the proposals that will come from the president’s tax reform panel, and it’s fair to say that not one of the above objectives will be realized, much less addressed. The tax reform panel, having failed to follow its mandate, should be dissolved immediately and the panel members sent off to create mischief elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
The panel seems to be moving opposite the way it should: tax simplification.
Flat or fair tax now!
This panel is an outright abomination.
Who sits on this "panel" in addtion to Breaux and Connie Mack?
Get pols (even ex-pols) involved and the whole thang gets complicated.
Panel Members
Connie Mack III (Chairman) Senior Advisor, King & Spalding LLP, and former U.S. Senator. Senator Mack served as Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and was a member of the Finance and Banking committees.
John Breaux (Vice-Chairman), former U.S. Senator. Senator Breaux served on the Finance Committee and the sub-committee on Taxation and IRS Oversight.
William Eldridge Frenzel, former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Frenzel served on the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Frenzel is a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Elizabeth Garrett, Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science, University of Southern California. Ms. Garrett served as Legislative Director and Tax and Budget Counsel to former U.S. Senator David L. Boren.
Edward P. Lazear, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Professor of Human Resources, Management and Economics, Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Mr. Lazear is the founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics.
Timothy J. Muris, Foundation Professor, George Mason School of Law and Of Counsel, O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Mr. Muris served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2001 to 2004.
James Michael Poterba, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Poterba serves as Associate Department Head. He has taught at MIT since 1982.
Charles O. Rossotti, Senior Advisor, The Carlyle Group. Mr. Rossotti served from 1997 to 2002 as Commissioner of Internal Revenue. He formerly served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of American Management Systems.
Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist, Charles Schwab. Ms. Sonders joined U.S. Trust, a division of Charles Schwab, in 1999 as a Managing Director and member of its Investment Policy Committees.
It's not just this panel - it's the whole Big Stupid Government. The damn thing has gone completely off the rails and exists to perpetuate itself and the Republican/'Rat parties.
Just like a cancer.
What is not mentioned in the article is that the deductibility of home mortgage interest is incorporated into the value of the assets. As such, elimination of the deduction will cause the effected segment of the housing market to collapse. This is essentially what happened in the late 1980's.
Panel formed by the President, members nominated by the President, given objectives by the President, yet we're being asked to dismiss the results? Is Boortz just being sexist because Connie Mack co-chairs the panel, or is he a Beltway elitist because of the school John Breaux attended? Isn't the panel made up of "accomplished" people, and aren't we supposed to "trust" them?
My understanding of their recommendation was that the deduction was to be reduced from $1 million to a non-arbitrary number based on the value of properties in each area.
While I have misgivings (serious misgivings about their non-arbitrary number) I don't see any problem with the reduction of the maximum deduction that can be made based on the interest on a mortgage.
This means that aside from people in the top economic stratosphere, this won't affect most Americans. What it will probably do is depress the development and sale of ultra expensive vacation homes and large investments in expensive properties by wealthy people looking for an investment that comes with a tax break.
Everyone else with properties whose interest on their mortgages won't exceed the maximum deductible, which is pretty much everyone but the really wealthy few, won't feel a thing.
Of course - a flat tax system with no deductions would be much, much nicer.
I dislike the "fair tax" system for the same reason that I dislike the idea of a calculation for determining a person's maximum deductible on a mortgage. I don't like the idea of combining government and complexity. It always seems to spawn bureaucrats and eventually the invisible corruption we only find out about after millions or billions have been wasted, stolen, or lost. And this doesn't just happen in government.
Connie Mack is a guy.
Proves the joke that a camel is a horse designed by gubmit committee.
Well, there's yer problem right there - not one person on the committee with street smarts. Is it any wonder they can't figure out what's wrong with taxes?
As Boortz pointed out in his radio commentary, not ONE of the members of this tax reform panel is a businessman. The vast majority are university professors...yes, ivory tower denizens of a cocoon provided by someone else's money. What in the world was the President thinking when this goofy bunch was selected? I truly think he has lost it. Every House and Senate member ought to be buried in negative correspondence when the panel's recommendations to raise taxes appears next week, and their report needs to die a swift and sure death.
Connie Mack is atually Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III.
Sometimes I think his detractors are right...... he's a fool.
When the "leak" came out earlier in the week of what the commission was proposing, I was as freaked as anyone.
But the commission has not released anything official yet. They are not even done meeting yet...check the site: http://www.taxreformpanel.gov/
Let's cool it until the report is done. Bortz: go suck an egg until you have something substantive to bitch about.
Ping!
As it was with the so-called "Luxury Tax" a few years back. This "tax on the rich" nearly collapsed the pleasure boat industry, among others.....
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