In six short years, small business owners and family farmers will once again be assessed a tax on the value of their property at the time of their death, despite having paid taxes throughout their lifetime.
You know who a complicated tax code kills? The guy or gal trying to start a business out of the spare bedroom of their home. So we've got to simplify our tax code.
Rather than passing a thousand pages of tax reform legislation and restarting the tax code manipulation process, we should change the paradigm. It is time to eliminate the IRS and repeal the 16th Amendment.
Our tax policies, the tax relief and reform we passed in 2003 and 2005, helped get government out of the way of America's entrepreneurs, and our unemployment rate is now lower than it was in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.
It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the growth of the economy would create an overflow of taxes that would fall into the government coffers.
We all want a simpler code, but tax reform is about much more. It is about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share. The tax code is also used to promote behavior that we as a nation support, such as home ownership or charitable contributions.
The precise point at which a tax deduction becomes a 'loophole' or a tax incentive becomes a 'subsidy for special interests' is one of the great mysteries of politics.
Elections have to have at least a little meaning. Obama ran on income tax hikes for the wealthy. People knew they were voting for that. They 'want' that. And it's good policy.
In the European context tax rates are high and government expenditure is focused on current expenditure. A 'good' consolidation is one where taxes are lower and the lower government expenditure is on infrastructures and other investments.
Subsidies and mandates are just two of the privileges that government can bestow on politically connected friends. Others include grants, loans, tax credits, favorable regulations, bailouts, loan guarantees, targeted tax breaks and no-bid contracts.
Why is it that half of the households in America pay zero income tax? We need some real tax reform.
I have continuously said that, at the very minimum, the Bush tax cuts for income under $250,000 should be extended.
Tax reductions are usually simpler and less distortive. I'm certainly willing to look at getting rid of tax deductions/credits, and go to dramatically reduced rates.
The real problem in Greece is not cutting taxes, it's making sure that we don't have tax evasion.
Effective tax credits are used to create jobs and grow our economy. But tax credits that aren't delivering for Missourians must be retooled and reformed.
By keeping most tax rates at present levels, Obama and the Democrats will claim that they have championed tax cuts for the middle class.
We're going to look awfully stupid if we give income tax relief to people who do not pay income taxes.
It's not coincidence that the U.S. is in last place in the world in terms of corporate tax rate. It's because our system is set up to block tax reform.
Americans spend much of their adult lives paying taxes in various forms. We should end this practice of paying a tax that is triggered only by debt.
American businesses and upper incomes pay a larger portion of the federal taxes of our national taxes than any country in the world.
Congress has changed the Social Security system over time, and over 20 times in the past Congress has raised taxes on Social Security in payroll taxes into the system.
