Eh???????
It's TRUE that the TWO rate 'modified flat tax system' that CATO proposed is not a ONE rate system such as Forbes has proposed.
The CATO folks justify that, no doubt, under the 'political expediency' rubric... I'm sure they believe that such an adjustment is necessary to get ANY effective reform of our corrupted, sorry mess of a tax system. (They might, or might not, be correct in that political accessment....)
Still, there ARE some very fine points in the CATO proposal:
The vast majority of citizens (most individual citizens and ALL corporate citizens) would pay only a 15% tax rate. (This would be tremendously stimulative for business formation, and national economic growth.)
The standard deduction, personal exemption, and EIC would be retained... and interest payments would be made non-deductible, thus restoring equality between the various capital financing methods: debt issuance, retained earnings, and equity issuance.
As far as 'double taxation', as I've explained several times, corporations ARE individuals under US law, and have been since the Supreme Court ruled on the matter nearly a century ago.
You do not even attempt to deny this truth.
All in all, although I prefer Forbe's proposal, I believe CATO has come up with a very much improved tax system... compared to the mess we currently suffer under.
Too bad that Bush is so gutless on the matter of real tax reform --- so much so that we are likely to see nothing much out of his bunch (as evidenced by the wimpy, loophole-retaining, risk nothing talk coming out of his 'tax reform commission, not to mention his wimpy nixing of the proposal to let corporations deduct paid-out dividends from earnings. And as evidenced by his deliberate delay of reform talk --- pushing it off into an election year where it is guaranteed to serve as fodder for political campaigns, while permitting no effective action at all to actually happen.)
In all this back and forth we have had on the issue of taxes, I have indicated my preferences (in detail) several times... but I've *yet* to see you get behind ANY comprehensive reform plan.
Not made your mind up, or do you really like the mess that we have now... all while many of our foreign competitors are rolling out effective and simplified flat rate systems?
Where do you stand? |
