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State of the Union -- taxed!

January 27, 2011

The President called for corporate tax rate reduction -- without losing revenue -- and made a nod to individual tax reform, but didn't sound like he will lead the charge for tax simplification. He also got on the bandwagon for repealing the hated 1099 expansion enacted for 2012 in his own health care bill. Howard Gleckman at TaxVox pretty much covers it here:

What he said: We need a competitive corporate tax system with low rates and fewer tax preferences that raises the same amount of money as the current corporate tax system.
What he didn’t say: How we’d get there and–except for a passing reference to ending oil subsidies–which business tax breaks he’d repeal. What role business must play in helping reduce the deficit.

What he said: We should simplify the individual tax code.

What he didn’t say: That’d he’d take the lead in such an initiative. Instead he said merely that he would be “prepared to join” a congressional effort to restructure the individual code. This moves the nation about six inches in the direction of a serious rewrite of the tax law.

So -- just words. Dean Zerbe at Forbes says it will be at least two years before the words turn into action.

Robert D. Flach notices that the President's call for tax simplification was almost in the same breath as a call for complication -- a permanent college tuition tax credit.

The Tax Foundation agrees that tax reform is needed, but doesn't think that it's just a matter of beating up oil companies and closing loopholes.

The TaxProf has a roundup and TaxGrrrl has a poll. Kay Bell and Janet Novack ponder what it all means. And Christopher Bergin at Tax.com is just bummed.

Tags: Christopher Bergin.Howard Gleckman.Janet Novack.Kay Bell.Obama tax policy.Robert D. Flach.tax reform.Tax.com.TaxProf.TaxVox.