yep, they're floating the flat tax again.

[sisyphusshrugged]

Raise your hand if the money that comes into your household comes from a salary.

Lucky ducky. You may just get to pay for the whole entire government if Mr. Bush returns to office.

President Bush reasserted his call Sunday for a simpler tax system, and aides said he is considering pushing for a flat tax, which would set the same income-tax rate for most taxpayers, as a major priority if he were to win a second term.

In arguing for a rewrite of tax laws, Bush said that they are "a complicated mess" and "full of special-interest loopholes."

"Americans spend about 6 billion hours of paperwork and headache every year on the tax code," he said. "In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify and make fair the federal tax code."

A flat tax, which Congress would have to pass, would have fewer -- or no -- deductions and credits. Administration officials, while saying no decision has been made, said the Treasury Department is studying such a system, and White House proponents assert that it would encourage saving and investment.

Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign contends that because many such proposals do not tax investment income like interest, capital gains and dividends, such a move would have the effect of shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the working class. "This is the ultimate embodiment of what they've done the last four years," said Jason Furman, Kerry's economic policy director.

A revision of the tax code was one of the major planks of the second-term agenda Bush announced in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, and the idea is a new applause line in his stump speech.

...

"This Labor Day weekend, it is important for America's workers to know that my opponent wants to tax your jobs," Bush said. "His plan to raise taxes on those at the top end of the income tax scale will raise taxes for the 900,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs who pay at the individual rate and who are creating most of the new jobs in our changing economy."

However, Internal Revenue Service data show that the majority of small businesses report much less than $200,000 in annual income.

A White House fact sheet released in conjunction with the convention speech said Bush will issue an executive order creating a bipartisan panel to advise the Treasury secretary "on options to fundamentally reform the tax code to make it simpler, fairer and pro-growth." But Bush's aides said they did not know when the panel would be appointed, who would be on it or when it would report, other than to say it would be sometime in 2005, and that the Treasury secretary would make recommendations to Bush thereafter.

But, you know, you can certainly trust him to help your household, because all the decisions he's made up to this point have

I mean, he certainly has encouraged

Working people have seen a definite increase in their

At least you won't have to pay for grandma's

Nope. I got nothing.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

*grump*

Too few people nowadays know anything about economics. Or 'diminishing returns'.

I do believe in 'simplifying the tax structure' and removing loopholes... for businesses.

Flat Tax and Small Business

[huff-da.livejournal.com]

I've never seen these "flat tax" folks explain how to tax a small business. Take a Mom and Pop grocery store. They buy groceries and sell them for more than they paid. They also have other expenses, such as rent on the grocery store, electricity, advertising, maybe employee salaries.

If there is a "flat tax" with "no deductions," the IRS would tax that store's GROSS SALES rather than on Gross Sales MINUS EXPENSES. Even if the store operates at a net loss, they might still owe "income tax" under a "flat tax" scheme.

Of course, what they're really talking about is eliminating deductions from EARNED SALARY. People well-off enough to use loopholes will form small corporations which will then contract with that person's former "employer" for the person's services (like forming their own temp agency.) The small corporation's CEO will then write off all that person's formerly deductible expenses and pay a small "salary" to the worker...