James Edward Maule is a professor of tax law at Villonova University School of Law who authors a blog in which he frequently opines on various issues relating to tax policy. Today, the issue is income tax simplification and he is not optimistic about the prospects for reform:
The Democrats are trying to make tax simplification a highlight of their campaign promises. This is an amusing thought, but it?s also frightening because there are people who will believe it.
The Democrats, after all, were the pioneers in modern tax hypercomplexity. Beginning with Kennedy?s investment tax credit and magnified by a huge array of other credits, deductions, and exclusions, the tax law was made even more complicated through the enactment of phaseouts, scalebacks, and other hidden tax increases.
Not to be outdone, it didn?t take the Republicans long to get on the special interest complexity tax train. Absurd capital gain rate structures, a new cluster of credits, and all other sorts of finely tailored specially-directed provisions were crammed into an already bloated code. To use an analog from an astrophysics lecture I attended yesterday, the tax universe is expanding at a constant rate and is moving toward increasing disorder. Just like the cosmos.
Professor Maule then evaluates the Kerry Campaign’s proposals for tax simplification:
John Kerry?s tax proposals are inconsistent with the notion of tax simplification, so it will be interesting to see how the Democrats reconcile the party?s ?tax simplification? message and Kerry?s proposals. To be fair, Kerry cannot be blamed for all of the tax complexity in the Code or even all of the complexity bestowed on us by the Democrats in Congress. He isn?t even to blame for some of the stuff enacted while he was in the Congress.
Nonetheless, why is Kerry willing to make his proposals within the confines of a Republican tax design? The tax on dividends is a fine example. The Republicans create complexity by making most dividends (a selection process that is itself complex) subject to lower tax rates essentially the same as the bizarre rate structure applicable to capital gains. As readers of my blog and listserv posts know, this is an approach wholly inconsistent with fairness, implification, and common sense. Kerry proposes to eliminate this rate twist by restricting it to taxpayers with incomes under $200,000. This creates yet another layer of complexity onto the already complex dividend taxation structure.
I?d be far more impressed if Kerry took the following position: ?Look, folks, dividends are just one form of income. A person with a lot of income, no matter its source, ought to pay tax at a higher rate than someone with much less income. A person with interest income from certificates of deposit is no less entitled to a low rate than is a person with dividend income. In other words, the basic tax rate structures ought to reflect this principle, and favoritism of one sort of income over another is wrong, no matter the income level. To tax a retired person who has no pension and lives on social security and $30,000 of dividend income at a lower rate than her neighbor who has no pension income and lives on social security and $30,000 of interest income is flat out wrong and contrary to all principles of fairness.?
So, why doesn’t the Kerry Campaign from addressing this issue in such a common sense manner?:
What stops Kerry (or his advisors) from tackling this head on? Surely it has something to do with trying to make everyone think he or she is better off under Kerry?s proposals (which in fact is not the case). In an election campaign directed pretty much at the 10% of the voters who are ?swing votes? where?s the advantage in Kerry?s existing proposals? It doesn?t make much sense politically. So I?m wondering if in fact the Kerry tax advisors don?t quite know how to cut the Gordian knot of taxation.
Which leads Professor Maule back to where we always seem to be after each election campaign (with the notable exception of the Reagan Administration). Both political parties initially talk about tax simplification, but then promptly ignore the issue while dividing pork to special interests through tax “policy”:
So as far as I?m concerned, with the exception of a few individual members of Congress whose voices of common sense are drowned out in a sea of special interest tax pandering, both major parties and both major Presidential candidates don?t earn any points on the tax question.
So no matter who wins, the tax law will become even more disordered. Will it end as the astrophysicists predict the cosmos will ?end?? Will the system collapse of its own weight, becoming a black hole that swallows all? Does anyone other than a few ?tax mavens? even understand the seriousness of the problem?
Right now, I?m going to go back to looking in 360 degrees at two shades of blue. I?ll let my brain process tax stuff later.
As an independent voter, one of my greatest disappointments with the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress is their failure to address and propose enactment of meaningful tax simplification reform. As with reform of America’s broken health care finance system, the Republicans talk a good game, but then generally buckle to pressure from special interests that lobby to maintain the status quo. Professor Maule makes a good point that a Kerry Administration likely would not be any better in regard to tax simplification reform. Nevertheless, my sense is that the Republican Party badly underestimates the frustration of independent voters with their inaction on the issues of tax simplification and health care finance reform.
Given this Administration’s inaction on these issues, I think it is fair to ask the following question: Are we at a point where only a Democratic Administration initiative on these issues — modified through responsible Republican Congressional opposition — is the only (albeit messy) route to meaningful reform legislation?
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