1. Since they're taxed NOW...it would be possible to make people who are 65 or older exempt from taxes on unearned income. As for the Social Security thing, that was one of Reagan's tax increases and it should die a swift death, with our legislators informing America who invented that shit every day until it's gone.
2. Since 50 percent was the top rate in the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut, we can probably sell it easier than a 70 percent cut on the theory If 50 Percent Was Good Enough For Ronald Reagan It Is Good Enough For You.
3. There really isn't an advantage, except that it makes the brackets easier to remember.
4. Thanks.
5. The intent is to allow lower-income filers to experience lower tax bills.
6. I could live with allowing retirees to take the standard deduction regardless of income. I do want high-income wage earners to pay more taxes, and this is one way to do it.
7. Obviously this isn't a cast-in-stone proposition...my thinking was, "when it comes to ROUTINE deductions - normal medical stuff, mortgage interest, tax preparation - just chop it down to charitable contributions and call it good." You wouldn't have a house fire, a tornado or some other serious casualty every year and you probably wouldn't have a heart attack every year either.
8. Willard Romney pays 13 percent income tax right now. A flat 25 percent would garner about twice as much as Willie M's money as the current code does. We can sell twenty-five percent.
9. How do you deal with pass-through entities like the corporate raider firm KKR, who had around $9 billion in revenue in 2013 but pays taxes the same way your barber does, unless you just tax by income? If you have less than a million in PROFIT - which means you earned a shitload more in revenue - you pay taxes the way a FTE does now, and if you broke $1MM in profit last year you pay taxes the way a corporation does now. Also, we need to fix the corporate write-down system so you can't pay negative taxes.
10. My intent is to take tax cuts away as a campaign tool. Ho Chi Minh could get elected in this country if he promised to cut taxes deeply enough.
BTW, how much of a transaction tax would you like? I think a 3 cent per share tax would be just perfect for three reasons: it's not crippling to normal investment activity (it's three bucks per block of 100 shares - less than the commission on the transaction in most instances), it would add a nice little chunk of change to the national exchequer, and - most important - it would make high-frequency trading too risky to do. The HFT guys buy a million shares of something, wait till the price goes up a cent and sell it before they get the chance to pay for it. No one stays in a position long enough for it to rise by four cents.
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