Gail Collins, on tax reform or its absence: she suggests it aint gonna happen. Agreed. The tax code is a dogs breakfast, but every last loophole and deduction has a constituency. I offer Wombats Method for Evaluation of Tax Breaks: Their tax break: a sneaky, greedy manipulation of the system, privileging the few at the expense of the many. A way to avoid just obligations of a citizen/business. Part of why the system sucks. Repeal it. Your tax deduction: a wise use of fiscal policy, giving needed incentive and relief to businesses and consumers, who have acted so as to be reliant on it in the future. A stimulus to the economy, a just and fair equalization of a playing field all too distorted by others. Keep it. ...Everybody agrees we need tax reform. Our current tax policy has about as many fans as that airplane passenger who took a pet pig to her seat as an “emotional support animal.” There is not going to be any major tax reform. There are members of Congress, like Camp and the Senate Finance chairman Ron Wyden who believe there’s got to be a way. If you run into either of them on the street, give him a hearty handshake. But don’t hold your breath. The latest battle over those expired tax breaks began when the House Republicans tried to make some permanent. And, really, they ought to be forever or not at all. But it created a problem for lawmakers who were worried about low-wage workers. There are parts of the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit that expire in 2017, at which point their supporters expected to trade extensions with the business advocates. There was a time when we thought that kind of trading was depressing sausage-making. Now, of course, we regard the era when that stuff worked as Athens in the age of Pericles... nytimes/2014/12/04/opinion/gail-collins-of-taxes-pigs-and-congress.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:30:19 +0000
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