Free Republic

House is voting on fix to the AMT for 2008. Vote just started, live on CSPAN. Senate passed a similar bill about two weeks ago..

This tax season is shaping up as a banner one for the federal government. The strong stock markets have produced a gusher of capital gains taxes. Corporations are continuing to reap massive profits, and so they're paying more in corporate income taxes. Lehman Brothers economist Drew Matus told Barron's that he expects "a 17 percent jump in tax receipts this season (not including regular withholding), and just a 5 percent increase in refunds." The upshot: Tax-season payments could be $59 billion higher than last year. Should these projections materialize, Republicans will trumpet them as a validation of the supply-side tax-cutting...

...President Bush is beginning to promote the cause of tax reform. In his New York convention speech, Mr. Bush laid down the broad principles that tax reform must satisfy. With a friendly nod toward the desirability of home ownership (read the mortgage deduction) and charitable giving, he called for "a simpler, fairer, pro-growth system." And he's promised to appoint a bipartisan advisory panel to generate specific ideas.... Consider: Simplicity. The current system with its deductions, exemptions and credits -- many of which phase-in and then phase-out at different income levels -- piles complexity on complexity.... Fairness. Right now, the tax...

Here's an idea: Let's devise a politically inept income tax policy. We'll begin by eliminating tax breaks people have been accustomed to for decades, such as those for qualified retirement accounts, and state and local taxes. Next, we'll negate the child tax credit so that families with young children will be hit especially hard. Then, we won't adjust for inflation, so that our tax will affect more people each year as their incomes grow along with the economy and inflation. We'll tell people that they must calculate their taxes twice, using two different formulas -- and finally we'll add insult...