Raise revenues and reform the Tax Code? Easy — just eliminate all the tax loopholes, right?
Good luck with that.
“Eliminating loopholes” sounds a lot better than “raising rates”: The tax rate is what I pay, and a loophole is what the other guy gets.
But the biggest loopholes in the U.S. Tax Code — generally referred to as tax expenditures — aren’t just the tricks of the trade for millionaires with offshore bank accounts. For the vast majority of Americans, they’re just how things work: You don’t pay taxes on your health insurance or Medicare benefits; you contribute tax-free to your 401(k); and your mortgage interest pushes down your tax bill each year.
And even if you dump the biggest of the set, these tax perks don’t even come close to closing the deficit. At best, the top 10 would pull in an extra $834 billion a year, according to Joint Committee on Taxation figures. Considering the hole lawmakers are trying to fill is several trillion dollars large, it’s clear they wouldn’t even come close.
Tucker Carlson, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Caller and Fox News contributor Kevin Kookogey, founder of Linchpins of Liberty Bill O'Reilly, political commentator, author, and host of The O'Reilly Factor
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Fark
Furl
Google
Newsvine
Reddit
Yahoo
