2016 presidential campaign . TAXES .

Tax policy is shaping up to be one of the major issues of the 2016 presidential campaign. I am always curious . The nation’s tax policy has been a divisive issue in recent elections and 2016 has been no exception. Democrats, including (1)>> Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, see the current tax code as the primary theater of battle over income inequality and reforming it as the best way to have the wealthiest pay more, while easing the burden on the middle class and less fortunate. Billionaire businessman (2)>> Donald Trump took to the lobby of his famed Trump Tower on Monday morning and pledged to slap himself with a huge tax hike."It’s going to cost me a fortune, which is actually true," the Republican presidential front-runner candidate told reporters, as he unveiled a bold — and fairly detailed — tax plan, under which half of Americans would pay no federal income tax and the rich would face closed loopholes and slashed deductions.The audacious statement, like many of Trump's proclamations, was hard to fact check. Not only has nearly everyone in the GOP field already detailed their position on taxes, their plans are surprisingly bold, some even featuring ideas previously taboo to the party.Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are backing proposals for a European-style value-added tax, long a nonstarter in Republican circles, though both men are careful not to label it as such.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wants to greatly increase child tax credits, and retired surgeon Ben Carson supports scrapping the sacred mortgage-interest deduction.Most of the tax-cut plans would add to the deficit, but some, like Donald Trump's, are so large that even conservatives’ jaws drop. but what front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have said indicates they would boost taxes for top earners.Clinton, for example, has talked about upping the capital gains tax and Sanders would raise the investment income surtax and establish a financial transaction tax for corporations, said Kyle Pomerleau, director of federal projects at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in Washington. Hence, Democratic ideas on taxes will draw a sharp contrast with their GOP opponents' and, judging by the latest polls, could give them an edge in a general contest.Nearly two-thirds of voters favored "increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and large corporations in order to help reduce income inequality in the U.S.," according to a New York Times/CBS News survey that was  released

. On the Republican side, it is tax cuts, irrespective of level of income, that will get the economy going, as would a cut in the corporate tax rate. Jeb Bush’s tax plan does both. In order to lower the personal income tax, including for high-earners, the plan would reduce the number of tax brackets to three from the current seven. Bush’s plan would end certain tax breaks, such as carried interest, which allows some Wall Street fund managers to pay a lower tax rate. Donald Trump has also come out against the carried interest tax break. Others, including Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum are bringing back a version of the flat tax. Jeb Bush published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on September 8, 2015 briefly outlining the tax plan he released on September 9, 2015. Bush laid out three main goals in his article: to make the tax code simpler and clearer with three tax brackets of 28, 25 and 10 percent and ditching the existing seven brackets, including the 39.6 percent top rate; to eliminate lobbyist-created loopholes in the tax code; to ensure the tax code does not hinder America’s international competitiveness.^[45] [46] Bush argued in the article that his plan would "unleash increased investment, higher wages and sustained 4% economic growth, while reducing the deficit." Chris Christie discussed his position on taxes. He said, "And, let's be clear, if we do not change course, if we follow the President's lead, and that's exactly what Secretary Clinton will do, we're going to be in the same circumstance -- with government picking the winners and losers. So, let me be clear about what we'll do. First, make the tax code fairer, flatter, and simplier [sic]. Get rid of all the special interest deductions. You know, the American people feel like the tax code is rigged for the rich, and you know why they feel that way? Because it is. We'll get rid of all those special interest deductions except for the home mortgage interest deduction, and the charitable contribution deduction. Everyone will get lower rates, keep more of their own money, be able to file their tax returns in 15 minutes, and, by the way, the good thing, I'll be able to fire a whole bunch of IRS agents once we do that."  Ted Cruz unveiled his tax plan. He proposed a 10 percent flat tax on all individual income from wages. He also proposed elimination of the payroll tax and the corporate income tax, to be replaced by a 16 percent Business flat tax. Cruz said that social security and medicare will remain fully funded, despite elimination of the payroll tax, which funds those programs. Cruz's plan also included a Universal Savings Account, which would allow every American to save up to $25,000 annually on a tax-deferred basis for any purpose. Cruz also promised no estate tax, alternative minimum tax or ObamaCare taxes, and would do away with taxes on profits earned abroad.^[64] An analysis by the Tax Foundation, a group that supports lower tax rates, said the senator's reforms would "represent a significant shift from the current tax code." The group estimated Cruz’s proposals would increase the deficit by as much as $3.6 trillion over the next 10 years, but that figure drops to a $768 billion deficit when including possible economic growth.^[65] The libertarian Cato Institute said Cruz's corporate business activity tax is essentially a value-added tax. The proposal is similar to a sales tax, since it's assumed that businesses will pass the cost of paying it onto consumers. "He says he wants a 'business flat tax,' but what he’s really proposing is a value-added tax, Carly Fiorina’s campaign posted her comments about simplifying the tax code to three pages on her Facebook page and linked to an example of a three page tax plan. The post stated, “We need to radically simplify the tax code so that we can re-start the real engine of growth in our economy. That means our tax code needs to go from 73,000 pages down to about three pages. We also need to move from revenue-neutral to revenue-reducing tax reform, because the federal government spends far too much money. In order to do both of those things, we need to lower every rate and close every loophole. I will support a low, flat tax for businesses and individuals so that we fix the tax base and grow the economy. The Hoover Institution and Congressman Michael Burgess, M.D. both developed tax plans that do exactly this. Under their plans, both businesses and individuals can file their taxes on a simple form. They won’t need armies of accountants, lawyers, and lobbyists to figure out how to take advantage of loopholes and game the system because there will be no system to game.”--According to Carly Fiorina's 2010 "Economic Growth Plan," she supported extending the Bush tax cuts, eliminating the "capital gains tax on small-business investments" and eliminating the estate tax.

^[77]  Mike Huckabee said he opposed a one-cent increase to the federal gas tax to help fund military efforts against terrorism. “Why do we need to raise taxes? You always want to raise taxes. Why don't we have the exploration of our energy, sell it, take away the marketplaces [and] we've become the supplier to Europe, Asia and Africa,” Huckabee said. Rand Paul rejected the idea that his plan to create a “flat and fair tax” would increase income inequality. “It's a fallacious notion to say, 'Oh, rich people get more money back in a tax cut.’ If you cut taxes 10 percent, 10 percent of a million is more than 10 percent of a thousand dollars. So, obviously, people who pay more in taxes will get more back. We all end up working for people who are more successful than us and that's a good thing, that more money will be back in the economy,” Paul said. Marco Rubio responded to a report from the Tax Foundation, a think tank that advocates for lower taxes, that found his tax plan would “decrease government revenues by $6 trillion over 10 years.” Rubio said, "The argument about the debt, which is the question that he's raising, you cannot simply solve that through a tax plan alone. It has to be a combination of things. You have to have the spending discipline on the mandatory spending programs and you need to sustain significant economic growth. The tax plan is part of the economic growth part of that equation...in conjunction with that, we must deal with the mandatory spending programs. Medicare and Social Security must be reformed for future beneficiaries, people like me, who are 25 years away from retirement. You have to do both. And it's that combination of sustained growth and fiscal discipline that will bring the national debt to a responsible level as a percentage of the overall size of our economy. But without the growth you can't get there. You can't get there from cuts alone. But you need the growth component. And that's what the tax plan is designed to do."

Epilogue 

Bush cut taxes on the rich, thinking revenues would grow. They did not. The rich speculated with their cash, created bubbles and crashed the economy. By the end, we were hemoraging jobs at the rate of 800,000 a month.Reagan cut taxes on the rich, but he realized it wasn[t working and raised them. The economy expanded.Brownbeck in Kansas (Koch headquarters) slashed taxes on the wealthy and destroyed his economy. They are now gutting schools, because he is too chickensh*t to admit his mistake and make the Kochs pay.

Can we learn anything from our past?

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 (1)>> Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  Mrs. Clinton so far has said this :At the center of my campaign is how we're going to raise wages. Yes, of course, raise the minimum wage, but we have to do so much more. We have to figure out how we're going to make the tax system a fairer one. Right now, the wealthy pay too little and the middle class pays too much. So I have specific recommendations about how we're going to close those loopholes, make it clear that the wealthy will have to pay their fair share, and have tax cuts for middle-class families. Source: 2015 CNN Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas , Oct 13, 2015. Among the various policy ideas and position papers put out by Hillary Clinton so far in the Democratic primary, one stands out for its bumper-sticker simplicity: If your family makes less than $250,000 a year, your taxes won’t go up.The no-new-taxes pledge is emblematic of the broader concerns about a Clinton presidency raised by the progressive side of the party. Critics say it is a crafty political move that would limit the ambition of proposals on everything from expanding Social Security to healthcare reform. It reinforces a long-running Republican argument that some would prefer to defeat head on. And, to put it simply, it makes it hard to pay for things Democrats want. In July 2015, Sanders said that he would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations if he were elected. Sanders said, "Yes, we have to raise individual tax rates substantially higher than they are today because almost all of the new income is going to the top 1%. And yes, those folks and large corporations will have to pay under a Sanders administration more in taxes so that we can use that revenue to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, create the jobs we need, make sure that every kid who has the ability is able to get a college education in America because public colleges and public universities will be tuition-free." (2)>> Donald Trump. Trump unveiled his tax policy on September 28, 2015. According

to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s platform would remove the federal income tax for individuals earning less than $25,000 and couples earning less than $50,000, reduce the highest individual income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent and cut corporate taxes to no higher than 15 percent. Trump's tax plan will significantly cut corporate tax, removing the incentive for US corporations like APPLE to keep their corporations outside the USA. and removed penalty for bringing their wealth back into America! That means more jobs and around $2 trillion coming back to USA.also Trump has removed the tremendous deduction loophole no one uses anymore except the special interest groups and lobyists. of course this will affect Rubio and all other puppet candidates who are running on special interest groups and lobyist money. a brilliant tax plan, just it alone will wipe out the lobbyist and special interest groups from swaying elections from the American people.