Judging from public statements from the president’s commission on tax reform, the Hues Corporation’s 1974 hit may as well be its theme song. Due to report its recommendations at the end of September, the reform panel was initially thought to be a way to devise a simpler tax code. Options such as a flat income tax or a single consumption tax were supposedly going to be the result of the distinguished panel’s work.
And distinguished it is. With economists, tax law professors and investment professionals, the commission was filled with experts. But as with most expert-filled endeavors, the panel seems to have devolved into a collection of tax code changes at the margins, without any suggestion of radical overhaul. Case in point: The panel’s chairman said in July that abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax would be an issue the panel would be studying carefully.
But as economist Bruce Bartlett has pointed out, a radical overhaul would automatically end the AMT, thus making a specific proposal unnecessary to mention. Mention it they did, however. And in August, the commission’s executive director, Jeffrey Kupfer, told Bloomberg News that the panel was likely to propose changes in the treatment of housing in the tax code.
Again, why be that specific if you are going to propose a whole new system? The panel should take note of several events and reconsider such a piecemeal approach.
One, the presidential candidacy of Steve Forbes in 1996. Forbes ran on pledges to install a flat income tax. His campaign was gathering crowds and momentum, until his Republican rivals – that’s right Republican rivals – started blasting the notion of a flat tax.
And for more recent evidence of the popularity of a simplified system, the panel needs look no further than The New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the nonfiction list is “The Fair Tax Book,” by Neal Boortz and John Linder. Boortz is a widely syndicated talk show host and John Linder is a member of Congress, and they have been getting big enthusiastic crowds at their book signing events.
The public is ready for a simple tax code, why doesn’t the presidential commission seem to be?
Oh that’s right; don’t rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over.