Tax Reform Now!

Image by Flickr user: Enter the STory / Creative Commons

Tax Day has come and gone. But in the House Ways and Means Committee, we are continuing efforts to simplify and reduce taxes, recognizing tax reform as a vital way to jumpstart economic growth and job creation. I am developing my own proposal to revamp business taxes – explained here and here – that would spur companies to invest, expand, and hire more workers.

Why do we need tax reform?

In the past year, you probably paid unreasonably high taxes and then, like most American taxpayers, you had to pay more money for help in filing your tax forms. And of course, if you made a mistake understanding the mammoth 74,000-page tax code, you could get audited and fined.  

There is no reason our tax code has to be this complex and punitive. It frustrates taxpayers, strangles business start-ups, suppresses economic growth, and allows special interests and big business to game the system. But President Obama doesn’t seem worried; he asked for a trillion dollars of new taxes in his latest budget proposal.

The President’s proposal may be disappointing, but it’s no surprise. The Democrats’ vision of big government costs big money, and that means taxpayers are always asked to give more. President Obama tries to have it both ways, promising all kinds of new government treats to the middle class while vowing that someone else – “the wealthy” – will foot the bill.

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The middle class will not be immune to the huge taxes hidden in ObamaCare. They are not exempt from the long economic slump worsened by our indecipherable tax code. And like everyone else, they risk being subjected to huge future tax hikes that will be forced on us to tame our spiraling and unsustainable national debt.

At the risk of putting tax accountants out of business, the Ways and Means Committee aims to bring about a fair, reasonable, and simple code that taxpayers can actually understand – imagine that.