Tax advice for Mr. Bush: Consider the VAT

摘要

President bush has pushed through some delightful changes in the tax code over the past four years: lower income tax rates, rebates, and increased business depreciation allowances, to name a few. It's been great. Except for one thing; When you consider those measures as a whole, they don't make much sense. Bush's tax policy―although "policy" may be stretching the meaning of the word―is a haphazard mess. What's scary is that the President has never spelled out anything resembling a guiding philosophy of taxation. Is it more important to the President that we fundamentally restructure the tax system into something coherent and efficient? Or does he simply believe that taxes must be lower, period, and damn the consequences? Who knows? Without a principled view of tax reform the White House and Congress are too easily led astray into ad hoc policies. And that's how we find ourselves with the kind of unholy hairball of a tax code that we so enjoy today.