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100 Million Unnecessary
Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for
the United States
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To
most Americans, the United States tax code has become
a vast and confounding puzzle. In 1940, the instructions
to the form 1040 were about four pages long. Today they
have ballooned to more than a hundred pages, and the
form itself contains more than ten schedules and twenty
worksheets. The complete tax code totals about 2.8 million
words—about four times the length of War and Peace.
In this intriguing book, Michael Graetz maintains that
our tax code has become a tangle of loopholes, paperwork,
and inconsistencies—a massive social program that fails
tests of simplicity and fairness. More important, our
tax system has failed to keep pace with the changing
economy, creating burdens and wastes of resources that
weigh our nation down.
Graetz
offers a solution. Imagine a world in which most Americans
pay no income tax at all, and those who do enjoy a far
simpler tax process—all this without decreasing government
revenues or removing key incentives for employer-sponsored
health care plans and pensions. As Graetz adeptly and
clearly describes, this world is within our grasp. |
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In
1972 Americans considered the progressive federal income
tax the fairest of all the taxes used by the various levels
of government. Over the past twenty-five years, dissatisfaction
with the income tax has grown to the point that attacks
on it, and proposals to reform it often out of existence-have
become the chief source of political noise in the system.
How has it happened that ordinary Americans have come
to regard the federal income tax as unfair, and tax protesters
as heroes rather than deadbeats? This
trenchant and timely book locates the answers in both
the substance of the Internal Revenue Code and the political
process that created and feeds this monstrous law. It
shows plainly how the income tax has been a political
football in the battle over every major social problem
or government program; how government allowed its complexities-and
its inflationary bite-to grow with no thought of their
impact on taxpayers; and, most of all, how a Congress
dependent on PAC funds has become incapable of fashioning
a tax system that does not end tax breaks for special
interests. The book also looks closely at the various
flat-tax and consumption-tax proposals now being considered,
and reveals that these taxes are neither as fair nor
as simple as their advocates claim.
Discussing
the income-tax system in rich, anecdotal context, this
book also points the way to tax reforms that are simple,
sensible, and fair. It is a book for everyone concerned
with where our tax dollars go, and with what America
gets for them.
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“On
this magical tax tour amply illustrated with real life
examples, Yale Professor Michael Gratez unlocks the idiocies
and paradoxes of America’s tax code. Graetz then exposes
the ‘flat tax’ (and other recent ideas) to the harsh reality
of how they would actually. As this tour comes to an end.
Graetz settles comfortably onto a pragmatic and important
solution that accomplishes the two most needed objectives:
simplicity for the vast majority of taxpayers and a fair,
progressive burden for the rest”
–Philip K. Howard, author of The Death of Common Sense
“While one may not agree entirely with his characterization
of the two leading alternatives, the flat tax and the
Nunn-Domenici USA Tax-one rarely does when it comes
to tax reform- Professor Graetz has captured the essence
of why tax reform must not be removed from the public
agenda. As Graetz so aptly argues, the decline in public’s
confidence in government institutions is in no small
part related to a maddeningly complex tax code that
encourages divorce and investment in chinchilla farms,
takes an increasing share of inflated dollars, discourages
savings and rewards powerful lobbyists. The Decline
(and Fall?) Of the Income Tax is a must read for all
who talk taxes and tax reform, and who enact and enforce
tax law.”
–Senator Pete V. Domenici, Chairman of the U.S. Senate
Committee on the Budget
“ Michael Graetz applies common sense,
uncommon logic, and unusual experience to the political
and ideological babble of debates on tax reform. Deflating
current claims and counterclaims ,he points the way
to a federal tax system that can be economically sound,
administratively practical, and politically viable.”
–James Tobin Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor
Emeritus of Economics , Yale University
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Praise
for The U.S. Income Tax "Graetz's
common sense ... is a breath of fresh air.... Well worth
reading." -Kirkus Reviews
"An
insightful, anecdote-filled account of our tax system."
-Nicholas F Brady, former Secretary of the Treasury
"Graetz
[proposes a tax plan] that accomplishes the two most
needed objectives: simplicity for the vast majority
of taxpayers and a fair, progressive burden for the
rest."
-Philip K Howard, author of The Death of Common Sense
"Mr.
Graetz brings a dry subject to life with funny anecdotes
and clear examples.... A good handbook for congressional
activists who aspire to do more than nibble around the
edges of the income tax."-Steve
Charnowitz, Journal of Commerce
A
`must read' for all students of taxation."
-Thomas R. Pope, Journal of the American Taxation Assocation
"Enjoyable
and even entertaining.... [I] t explains, in always
understandable and often amusing style, what went wrong
with our present income tax." -Leonard Podolin,
The Tax Advisor |
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2005 Yale Law School. All rights reserved. |
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