9/14/2004

Bush Moving Toward a Flat Tax?

During the election, President Bush and John Kerry have very different views on the current tax system in the United States. For this election neither one of the candidates have specified how they were going to change the tax system, but they have said they will change something on the tax code. Kerry does not agree with the tax cuts that Bush has given the upper class, even though the upper class is the ones who pay for the taxes. Kerry wants to increase the tax to the top 2% of the income earners and drop the tax cuts that Bush has given over his four years in office.

Bush, on the other hand, wants to achieve a flat tax. Most of the tax provisions he made will expire in the near future. Bush is proposing a flat tax on the sales tax of merchandise and trying to eventually eliminate the current federal income tax and payroll tax. The amount of tax proposed will be close to 30% on sales. This will help the individual on their tax returns because it is much simpler. The current tax code is 60,000 pages long and this new tax will help individuals by making it less confusion to file taxes. A flat tax will make sure that each individual will pay their fair share to this great country. The current tax code is constructed to tax the top income earners but there are many deductions and lope-holes that they can use to lower their taxes. Can a flat tax help the tax system in the United State? I believe that it could.

2 comments:

Dr. Tufte said...

One misspelling.

I want to see a lot more microeconomics in your next post!

Something like: what will a manager do about all the accountants they employ if the tax code is simplified.

Ernie said...

I think that making the tax code easier would acutally have a negative effect on many things in society with two major things being, (1) saying goodbye to many good accounting jobs and (2) making it easier for people to deceive the IRS even more. Politicians love to promise tax reform, but often neglect to pledge any answers that would limit federal spending. I think the United States needs to stop giving handouts to so many foreign interests.