Free Republic

The Democrats have a new charge against the Republicans: tax code complexity is way up in recent years. House Democrats, led by Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, intend to make rising tax complexity an election year issue. Republicans are devoting floor time to tax simplification in the House this week, but there is no denying that they have dropped the ball on this growing problem. After the GOP assumed power in 1995, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer promised to "rip the income tax out by its roots." In a 1996 report, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich argued: "The current...

Senator Supports Forcing Wealthier Uninsured to Buy High-Deductible Policies Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), in a wide-ranging health policy speech yesterday, said he wants to use the federal tax code to force wealthy uninsured Americans to enroll in high-deductible "catastrophic" plans that would cover the most severe illnesses or injuries. Noting that close to one-third of the 44 million uninsured people in this country live in households with incomes above $50,000, Frist said it is unfair to expect taxpayers to pick up the tab for their care when an unexpected, expensive problem arises. "I believe higher-income Americans today do...

Monday, June 14, 2004 Committee Approves Jobs Bill to Further Fuel StrongEconomic Growth WASHINGTON – Today, Congress moved one step closer to ending escalating European Union trade sanctions against American manufacturers and farmers. "The genius of American politics is accommodation and compromise – and this legislation reflects that mix," said Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA). "Fixing our international tax law is long overdue, and we’ve balanced those changes with tax relief for manufacturing and small corporations to help create new American jobs. I am pleased that we’re building momentum for House action and bipartisan support." The Committee on...

It seems axiomatic in Congress that whenever a bill comes along that both parties agree must be passed, it becomes a magnet for every piece of pork, every political cause, every lobbyist giveaway. The latest example is an urgently needed measure to end a $5 billion annual subsidy for American exporters that has put the nation in violation of international trade practices. Over the last few months, even as Europe began imposing billions in retaliatory tariffs on American industries, lawmakers have contrived to turn this relatively simple vehicle into a $100 billion gravy train. More than 100 amendments throw everyone...

<p>A strange thing happened in the U.S. House of Representatives recently. Republicans and Democrats came together to pass an important piece of legislation by an overwhelming majority -- even though it is an election year.</p> <p>Now, Americans should hope the U.S. Senate will do an equally strange thing -- in the interest of our nation -- and pass the same bill, too.</p>

'It's time to get rid of income taxes' TIM ROHWER , Staff Writer 03/20/2004 It's time to eliminate income taxes and impose a national sales tax, said U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-5th District [Iowa] on Friday. "The cost of enforcing the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) is over $1 trillion a year," King said during a visit to Council Bluffs. "We're consuming 9 percent of our Gross National Product just with the IRS. It's time to get rid of income taxes, implode the entire thing." King's national tax on retail sales and services, also known as the Fair Tax, would mean...

<p>As if U.S. workers didn't have enough going against them. Turns out there really are provisions in the tax code that seem to encourage sending jobs offshore.</p> <p>I have to admit not believing the claim when I first heard Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shout about it. So I thought either Mr. Kerry has trumped this thing up -- in which case there's a good story -- or there's one very wacky part to the tax code -- in which case, there's a better story.</p>

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. - Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim DeMint said Tuesday changes in the tax code - not a moratorium on trade agreements - are the way to keep jobs and companies in the United States. DeMint said better trade agreements are needed, but the best way to continue to increase business is to knock down trade barriers so U.S. companies can sell freely to other countries. "Those who want to close our borders ... you need to know that that's going to kill your job," DeMint told a crowd of about 40 workers at Harsco Track Technologies, a...

Prominent conservatives are warning that the debate over civil marriage could soon move into the religious arena and change the way churches treat marriage. Same-sex couples are already looking ahead to May when they can obtain civil marriage licenses in Massachusetts. And just in the last two weeks, officials in San Francisco have handed out marriage licenses to more than 3,000 homosexual couples - allegedly in violation of the California Constitution and a voter-approved referendum. Religious marriage poses a different set of circumstances since churches and similar institutions are protected by the Constitution. But conservatives of various religious denominations told...

<p>In an annual, less than pleasant ritual, the taxpayers will prepare their 2003 federal income tax returns. The 113,000 employees of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service will process about 200 million tax returns that will have been filed by April 15.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee asked the Treasury Department on Friday for a list of known tax loopholes, pledging to halt abuses and plug one transaction he called "a shell game." The statement from Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles adds tax avoidance to the items under scrutiny as lawmakers work to reduce the federal deficit. "If we can ... discover some other things that are really abuse of the system, we should shut them down earlier rather than later," Nickles told Treasury Secretary John Snow during a committee hearing. Nickles said Congress should look closely at abuse...

Tax laws grown far too complex By THOMAS C. MORRISON - IR Your Turn - 02/05/04 I have spent more than 40 years working with the federal tax code, first as a tax law student, then as an I.R.S. tax attorney, and then as a tax lawyer in the private sector. As we approach a new tax season, I am compelled to reflect on the obscene complexity of our federal tax code. Over time, most taxpayers have become fatalistically conditioned to accept this hopeless quagmire, watching the federal tax code along with explanatory I.R.S. pamphlets grow not by the number...

OPINION -- As our good friend Alan Greenspan has stated recently in testimony before Congress, "Capital does not pay taxes." People do. Under the FairTax Bill HR 25/S1493, we terminate the sham of corporate taxes. Most people believe we instituted corporate income taxes to reduce the tax burden elsewhere - particularly on low-income/fixed-income Americans - and to ensure that our corporate citizens pay their fair share for the economic opportunities our great country offers. Unfortunately even a modest study of the history of taxation will quickly demonstrate that no corporation (or other similar corporate structure) in the recorded history of...

By: William W. Lawrence 01/27/2004Arlen Specter is now going around telling how he is trying to simplify the federal income tax. That hypocrite hasn't mentioned his postcard-sized plan since he ran for president in 1996He is now bragging about the goodies he is getting for Pennsylvania. Having a pig at the pork barrel is not my idea of good government. If Specter, who is now in life's late innings suddenly succumbed to old age, you could safely bet the farm that Fat Eddie would appoint someone even more objectionable,Vote for Pat Toomey. *** Former Vice President Al Gore's speech on...

mid all the heated discussion on both sides of the gay marriage debate, a broader point has somehow gotten lost: why should formally committed couples, straight or gay, enjoy special privileges in the first place? Married couples can receive thousands of dollars in benefits and discounts unavailable to single Americans, including extra tax breaks, bankruptcy protections and better insurance rates. Why, for example, should a married poet whose wife pays the bills get tax breaks that are unavailable to a single poet who struggles to write between telemarketing jobs? Why should all workers be required to make the same Social...

We can do better than this 8 million-word mess By HERMAN CAIN Our tax code is an 8 million-word mess. It's beyond any type of reform and is unfair to every American. We are reminded of this every time we receive a paycheck. But change may be coming since President Bush suggested in his annual economic report to Congress that it may finally be time to replace the income tax with a consumption tax. By eliminating the complexity and the thousands of arcane preferences in today's tax code, the report says, a consumption tax would not only increase efficiency but...

The study by the Joint Committee on Taxation said Enron's management viewed its tax department as a profit center and was assisted by outside advisers that included major accounting firms, investment banks and lawyers. Now-bankrupt Enron also paid just $325 million in federal income taxes for the period 1990 to 1995 and $63 million for the 2000 to 2001 period. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee which requested the report, said the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) was "kept in the dark and out maneuvered." "Enron not only engaged in accounting...

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS By: William A. Shields Like the blood-thirsty, problem solving house plant in the musical play The Little Shop of Horrors, our own federal government is devouring lives, careers, businesses and reputations at a phenomenal rate. The "fearful master" that George Washington warned us about is here, and this monster's favorite food is whistleblowers, constitutionalists, and anyone who would suggest limiting federal power or otherwise impede the steady march toward One World Government. Let there be no mistake about this. Our federal government has become the largest, most powerful and prolific crime syndicate the world has...

During a rebroadcast of a Clark Howard show (WSB-AM in Atlanta), Clark spent some time describing yet ANOTHER bit of insanity in the tax code. For those not familiar with this document, it is so named as it is written in some sort of indecipherable “code” understood ONLY by a hunch-backed creature kept chained in the basement of the Capitol Building in Washington. The creature is brought forth during periodic tax legislation “mark-up” sessions to translate already virtually incomprehensible “lawyerese” into this totally incomprehensible “code.” Howard – apparently having retained the services of the creature for purposes of translation –...

Neil Cavuto just interviewed Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., the director of the OMB, and Neil let it be known that he's hearing rumblings that Pres. Bush is considering a total re-write of the tax code and that SecTreas O'Neill is strongly pushing a national retail sales tax!