Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.
He opines:
... You’ve got to hand it to President Obama: He can take one of
the most prosaic, albeit important, topics in the country — tax reform — and
turn it into a rip-roaring class-warfare attack designed to do nothing more
than get him re-elected.
... Obama & Co. say the reform would
make American businesses more competitive, since it aims to bring the top
tax rate for corporations down to 28 percent from the current 35 percent
... they talk about as “closing loopholes†to pay for the lower rates is
something else: They’re actually ending so many deductions, exemptions and
the like that tax receipts would actually shoot up.
2-4-8 Response:
Obama Corporate Tax Reform
Mr. Romney wants to switch to a “territorial†based tax system and Mr. Obama
calls for “a minimum tax on overseas profitsâ€. Mr. Gasparino is
concerned, “such a tax would probably tank the stock market, since so many
big corporations make profits outside the United States.†Shall we do
nothing as jobs are lost and US corporations create foreign subsidiaries to
transfer contractual and intellectual property assets overseas in order to
shift or defer the accounting of income?
It
is apparent that income is fungible to many. Both wealthy individuals and
multinational corporations can pay taxes when and if they are good and ready
(i.e. after their demise). This multi-year accounting must stop and taxes
must be based on net wealth which is not so easy to hide.
The 2-4-8 Tax Blend broadens the tax base by taxing individual and
foreign-owned net wealth at 2% (above a $15,000 exemption), retail sales at
4% and income at 8%. It would yield $2.6 trillion – ($400 billion more than
FY 2010 federal revenue). The tax blend is progressive even though rich and
poor would pay the same tax rate. Diverse individuals and groups from Bill
O’Reilly (a/k/a the Factor) to Herman Cane and the Bipartisan Policy Center
support a national sales tax (between 3 and 9%) as a necessary component of
tax reform. Periodic (event-based) wealth taxes from capital gains, estate
and gift taxes would not be necessary because of the wealth tax. The
concurrent elimination of payroll taxes and a significant reduction of the
corporate income tax rate to 8% should merit near universal support from
social liberals and business conservatives alike. The winners and losers (if
there be any) do not follow any traditional partisan or political spectrum.
Please think outside the box before you react. Try to contrast a 30% income
tax with an 8% income tax joined with a 2% wealth tax for each of the next
11 years. The latter combined income-wealth tax would permit an individual
to save and keep at least 22% more salary each year. Now that’s real
economic mobility-especially for young people starting out.
Corporations would feel less of a need to influence politicians once tax
incentives are off the table. How would an 8% corporate income tax affect
jobs and the economy? Those answers are better left to your talents and
dreams for a brighter future.
Eugene Patrick Devany, JD, MPA
www.TaxNetWealth.com
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