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

To: FastC6 who wrote (501502)	12/1/2003 1:17:01 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

my preference would be flat tax across all income including passive with social security (which I consider to be a tax) added in. So in other words take the federal income tax total and the fica total, add it up and decide what the flat tax would be if you taxed all income types equally including investment income. This will help the labor market and is a fair system. We might wind up with a 3% tax or thereabouts.

To: FastC6 who wrote (501502)	12/1/2003 1:22:41 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

"progressive or flat tax? which one is fair lizzie?" >>> Whichever one (assuming 'modest' progressivity in your model) eliminates the most loopholes and 'special tax preference items' that distort economic performance and incentives... and corrupt the entire system. IMO, the corruption of 'national industrial policy' and crony capitalist loopholes is a greater black mark against 'fairness' than modest levels of progressivity. PS - I'm a flat tax supporter... but when loopholes reduce the effective tax rate of US-based multinationals on the money they repatriate to the US to well below 3% (from the top nominal marginal rate of 35%)... it's hard to argue that modest progressivity is a greater blow to 'fairness' than the loopholes are.