>>too many people don't understand much about taxes<<
Ain't it the truth? I once helped a politician run for Congress in our rural upstate NY area. He was a very intelligent person, son of a history professor at Cornell, well educated, and quite progressive in his thinking on taxes. But when I suggested he consider changing tax deductions to tax credits, in order to make the value of the deduction as great for the rich as for the poor, he simply didn't understand it. All I was saying was that if you allow deductions for charitable contributions, it would be better to have one uniform credit of, say 35 percent, rather than a deduction whose value to the giver varied according to the tax bracket he or she was in. Thus, low income people would get only 15 percent or so for charitable contributions, property tax deductions, mortgage interest, etc., while rich people would get the government to cover up to 39 percent of those deductions. It seems simple to me, but here was a really very well educated guy who simply didn't understand. He also didn't get elected.
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