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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (248759)	4/17/2002 3:20:53 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Speaking of big businesses that don't pay their fair share ... Headline: Lawmakers Tackle Corporate Tax Breaks Wed Apr 17, 2:04 PM ET By CURT ANDERSON, AP Tax Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Suggesting Congress can't do the job itself, two lawmakers proposed Wednesday that a separate commission be created to weed out billions of dollars in corporate tax breaks and subsidies. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the commission would be similar to those that successfully tackled the politically sensitive topic of closing military bases. Congressional debate and amendments on its product would be limited. Without such a panel, McCain said, "we know that the influence of special interests will prevent that effort from succeeding. ... We need a credible process to identify corporate pork and eliminate it." Gephardt and McCain said passage of a bill creating the commission would build on the recent success of campaign reform legislation, which among other things will ban donations of unregulated soft money to national political parties after this year's elections. "This is the first real step toward tax reform," Gephardt said. Robert McIntyre, president of the labor-funded Citizens for Tax Justice, estimated that American taxpayers would foot the bill for about $170 billion in each of the next two years for tax provisions and programs that benefit corporations. At the same time, McIntyre said 10 major profitable companies, including Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, Enron, Navistar and Colgate-Palmolive, benefited from a combined $50 billion in tax breaks from 1996 to 2000 — driving their effective U.S. tax rates down to 8.9 percent. The maximum corporate income tax rate is 35 percent. "We now have a tax code that is more loopholes than tax," McIntyre said. The legislation by McCain and Gephardt would authorize a nine-member commission, with members chosen by the president and congressional leaders. The panel would submit its report to the president, who could approve or reject it entirely or resubmit the report to the panel for modifications. Once the recommendations get presidential approval, Congress would have four months to consider it and key committees could make amendments. After that, floor debate would be limited to 30 hours in each house and amendments would be more restrictive. McCain said he was under no illusions that the process would be easy, noting that just about every tax break and government subsidy has its defenders. "It's in the eye of the beholder," McCain said. "That's why we need a commission to separate this out for us."