Simplify the Tax Code and Balance the Budget
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- Albert Einstein
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
”The Facts
- The current tax code is too complicated, spanning 6,871 pages.
- Corporations can game the system; for instance, General Electric filed a 57,000-page Federal tax return for 2011 and ended up paying zero in taxes on $14 billion in profit.
- The tax code changes frequently; from 2001 through 2012, there were nearly 5,000 alterations, averaging one change per day.
- The current tax code is expensive and eats up the resources of the U.S. government and its people. Americans spend $168 billion a year to hire a professional to do their taxes.
The Solutions
- Simplify the tax code from 6,871 pages down to 10 pages.
- Significantly reduce the number of tax breaks by adopting the Bowles-Simpson tax recommendation.
- Tax capital gains and dividends at normal tax rates.
- Eliminate all corporate tax breaks and leave the rate at 21 percent.
- Have the IRS send you a pre-filled tax return with all the relevant information.
A Bold Plan For America
The importance of an informed citizenship has never been higher than in today’s environment of misinformation. In this book, I’ve broken down America’s 14 biggest problems and provided nonpartisan, fact-based solutions on how we can solve them.