A good in-depth article...
Why Democrats should support radically simpler taxes
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...s-tax-plan-return-free-filing-trump-ambitious
Some pertinent text from the article...
"Democrats could run on tax simplification. They could run as the party that will liberate middle- and upper-middle-class people from ever having to deal with a 1040 form again in their lives. But they largely don’t — in part because Democrats and Republicans approach taxes differently.
Republicans and conservatives, in government and in think tanks, have no shortage of big, ambitious plans that reflect a vision for the role taxes should play in society. I don’t agree with that vision, but it lets them position themselves as enemies of a much-loathed, overcomplicated tax code.
Democrats, though, are far less likely to think about the tax code holistically. More typically, they propose spending plans — for free college or health care or family leave — and then come up with a tax plan to pay for it. Or they use the tax code itself to create new programs through new tax credits. The result is that taxes get more complicated, and that Democratic politicians end up talking about taxes mostly when they want to raise them (at least on the rich).
But there is a Democratic plan to make taxes simpler and lower for middle-class people. Designed by former Obama chief economist Austan Goolsbee, it would do more to simplify taxes for Americans than anything else the federal government can do. If enacted in its broadest form, it would eliminate the need for the large majority of Americans to ever file another income tax return. These are the kind of big ideas on taxes that Democrats need — not just to claim political turf from Republicans but to address the big concerns most Americans actually have about their own taxes."
Why Democrats should support radically simpler taxes
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...s-tax-plan-return-free-filing-trump-ambitious
Some pertinent text from the article...
"Democrats could run on tax simplification. They could run as the party that will liberate middle- and upper-middle-class people from ever having to deal with a 1040 form again in their lives. But they largely don’t — in part because Democrats and Republicans approach taxes differently.
Republicans and conservatives, in government and in think tanks, have no shortage of big, ambitious plans that reflect a vision for the role taxes should play in society. I don’t agree with that vision, but it lets them position themselves as enemies of a much-loathed, overcomplicated tax code.
Democrats, though, are far less likely to think about the tax code holistically. More typically, they propose spending plans — for free college or health care or family leave — and then come up with a tax plan to pay for it. Or they use the tax code itself to create new programs through new tax credits. The result is that taxes get more complicated, and that Democratic politicians end up talking about taxes mostly when they want to raise them (at least on the rich).
But there is a Democratic plan to make taxes simpler and lower for middle-class people. Designed by former Obama chief economist Austan Goolsbee, it would do more to simplify taxes for Americans than anything else the federal government can do. If enacted in its broadest form, it would eliminate the need for the large majority of Americans to ever file another income tax return. These are the kind of big ideas on taxes that Democrats need — not just to claim political turf from Republicans but to address the big concerns most Americans actually have about their own taxes."
