Obama Proposes Tax Increases For Rich, Tax Cuts For The Middle And Poor
Barack Obama unveiled his tax plan today, combining his proposal to roll back some of President Bush's tax cuts on the top earners with tax cuts for middle and lower-income workers. The tax cuts would cost up to $85 billion per year. Obama would also raise the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, and close the carried interest loophole. The overall effect would be to increase the progressiveness of the tax code.
One interesting proposal is to simplify tax preparation by creating the option of the IRS sending people pre-completed forms for them to verify, based on data already given to the government by employers and banks. On the one hand it could save up to 200 million work hours in tax preparation. But on the other hand, would people trust the government to do their taxes for them?
Comments (9)
MS wrote on September 18, 2007 5:34 PM:Would we trust the Government to pre-fill a tax return that we could correct? Why not? It's not as if we're accepting their tally of taxes due.
Please don't feed the Republican line that "Government is corrupt and cannot be trusted." The people I know in Government are hard-working and well-intentioned individuals. As in any enterprise there are some bad eggs, but that does not prove that Government (as opposed to Big Business) is bad or un-trustworthy.
(Did you think that the privately-run Enron Corporation could be trusted? Or did you think that better Government oversight of this private enterprise would have been a good idea?)
gqmartinez wrote on September 18, 2007 6:21 PM:Not much different from the oft-repeated "partial roll back" of Bush's tax cuts.
Not sure what Edwards will do, but I'd look for Clinton to have a proposal similar to what Wes Clark proposed in '04. It was a strong, easy to understand (read sellable) proposal and I think some of the same folks who were with Clark in '04 are now with H-dawg! But I guess we'll see.
Mark F. wrote on September 18, 2007 6:35 PM:Several years ago, I hired an accountant to do my taxes for me. All very professional, and it appeared he'd done a great job. A month or two after I filed, I got a letter from the IRS informing me that he'd made a mistake and that I had 800 bucks coming to me that he'd missed due to a math error. Would I trust the IRS to do my taxes for me? Oh, you betcha I would.
bob wrote on September 18, 2007 7:02 PM:That makes a lot of sense. I would love to have the IRS just take my W-2 from my employer, fill in the forms, and add in the $.12 in interest from my savings account. Would save me a huge amount of hassle.
DaveW wrote on September 18, 2007 7:16 PM:Since the right-0f-center party, the Democrats, are not going to propose bringing tax brackets back to New Deal levels or be as radical as Nixon, I guess Obama's proposal is as good as we can expect and more substantial than anything we heard 4 years ago.
The pre-filled tax form thing sounds like what Edwards proposed many weeks ago, however. Not that there's anything wrong with getting on board with a good idea. But it's nice to give credit where it's due.
NCSteve wrote on September 18, 2007 11:25 PM:Since none of the regular Hillarista Obama Bashers seem to be on duty tonight, let me go ahead and fill in for them:
Blah blah O-Bomb-A insert juvenile insult here blah blah more empty rhetoric yada yada no specifics blah blah his campaign's tanking blah blah desparation move blah blah blah only Hillary has the Strength and Experience to do whatever it is Obama said he would do if he is elected.
Oh, and some group with a website says that while he was a member of the Illinois Senate, Illinois had taxes so this must be some kind of big lie or trick or something.
Alex F wrote on September 18, 2007 11:35 PM:DaveW -- when Edwards proposed the pre-filled tax form, the idea was widely cited back to Austin Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Business School. Goolsbee has been a friend and advisor to Obama dating back to their U of C days, and is the Obama campaign's official point man on economics today. Edwards may have publicly announced the details of a proposal first, but Obama didn't steal the idea from him.
AJ wrote on September 19, 2007 9:58 AM:As with most interesting ideas, Edwards got their first with the tax preparation plan.
Michael Caine wrote on September 19, 2007 11:20 AM:I suppose Edwards supporters are going to claim that Edwards invented the internet too.
