Topics in the News: Flat Tax
Andrew Yang on Flat Tax:
(Social Security )
Fund Freedom Dividend payments with 10% VAT
Lifelong assured income would not be funded by payroll taxes; given that its purpose is to supplement labor income, it can't be financed by further taxing it. One potential revenue source is a national value-added tax (VAT). Yang has proposed funding a
$1,000-a-month Freedom Dividend with a 10 percent VAT. Like any consumption tax, a VAT is regressive if it stands by itself but becomes progressive if all its revenue is recycled equally.
Click for Andrew Yang on other issues.
Source: The Nation magazine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Joe Biden on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Oct 15, 2020)
End tax cuts for wealthy and corporations; not all tax cuts
Q: You are going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts. The Trump tax cuts reduces taxes for the majority of workers. BIDEN: About $1.3 trillion of the $2 trillion in his cuts went to the top one-tenth of 1%. That's what I'm talking about eliminating, not
all the tax cuts. You have 91 out of the Fortune 500 companies not paying a single solitary penny. If you raise the corporate tax back to 28%, which is a fair tax, you'd raise one trillion, three hundred billion dollars. If you made sure that people
making over $400 grand paid what they did [under] Bush, 39.6%, you would raise another $92 billion.
TRUMP: Our corporate taxes were the highest in the world, and now they're among the lower taxes. They're not the lowest, but they're among the lowest.
That means jobs. If we get in, we're going to do the middle income tax package. If [Biden] comes along and raises rates, all those companies that are coming in, they will leave the U.S. so fast your head will spin. We can't let that happen.
Click for Joe Biden on other issues.
Source: Second 2020 Presidential Debate/ABC Town Hall Philadelphia
Rocky De La Fuente on Flat Tax:
(Corporations Jun 22, 2020)
Eliminate special interest exemptions & corporate welfare
A fair taxation policy without prejudice or special interest exemptions means the tax code must reviewed and reformed to create a new tax system that will stimulate economic development, is fundamentally fair, eliminates corporate
welfare, excludes loopholes, and would be sufficient to pay for essential federal government operations.
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Source: Reform Party Platform adopted by 2020 presidential hopeful
Cory Booker on Flat Tax:
(Welfare & Poverty Oct 15, 2019)
Level of U.S. child poverty is a moral obscenity
We've had 20 years of presidential debates and we have never talked about the violence in America of child poverty. We have got to begin to talk more eloquently and more persuasively and urgently about doing the things not
just to make sure a fair taxes are paid by people on the top, but that we deal with the moral obscenity of having the highest levels of child poverty in the industrial world.
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Source: October Democratic CNN/NYTimes Primary debate
Donald Trump on Flat Tax:
(Corporations Apr 17, 2018)
Historic tax cuts and reforms for American businesses
This Tax Day, President Donald J. Trump and Members of Congress are highlighting the benefits of historic tax cuts and reforms for American families and businesses. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP said, "Tuesday is a day hardworking Americans may dread
more than any other. Tax Day. A day that individuals and families, small business owners and part-time workers struggle to conquer a burdensome, complex and extremely unfair tax code to determine how much money they owe the government.
But we are changing Tax Day for Americans across the country. This is the last year Americans will fill out outdated, complicated tax forms. In the years ahead, because I signed one of the largest tax cuts in history and the
most sweeping tax reform in a generation, many Americans will complete their taxes on a simple, single sheet of paper."
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: White House press release on 2020 Alaska Senate race
Stacey Abrams on Flat Tax:
(Technology May 2, 2017)
We must invest in public infrastructure
Throughout our history, Democrats have believed in equality of economic opportunity. Our state and our economy are strongest when government is a partner in growth, by providing the infrastructure and the framework to guarantee that everyone has a
shot at success. To achieve this, we must invest in public infrastructure, pay workers a livable wage, spur job growth with smart policies and demand fair tax policies.
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Source: 2018 Georgia governor campaign website StaceyAbrams.com
Stacey Abrams on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Mar 30, 2017)
Keep graduated income tax instead of 5.4% flat tax
HB 329: Would eliminate Georgia's graduated income tax structure and replace it with a 5.4 percent flat tax, regardless of income. Also proposes a modest Earned Income Tax Credit for working families, equal to 10 percent of the federal tax credit.
MY VOTE: NO. While this plan will close important loopholes that penalize low-income married couples, in its current form, the legislation increases taxes on single low-income taxpayers.
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Source: 2018 Georgia governor campaign website StaceyAbrams.com
Donald Trump on Flat Tax:
(Free Trade Sep 27, 2016)
FactCheck: No, VATs are not tariffs against US exports
Trump said, "Mexico has a VAT tax. When we sell into Mexico, there's a tax, automatic, 16 percent. When they sell into us, there's no tax." Trump has never mentioned VATs before. Yesterday an economist at UC Irvine released a report analyzing Trump's
economic plan and taking aim at VAT taxes. [But that's not how VATs work].When a company in Germany makes goods to sell at home, it has to pay the VAT. But if it makes them to sell in the US, it doesn't--the tax gets waived at the border. If a US
company sells in Germany, it does have to pay the VAT. [The UC Irvine] interpretation is that] border adjustability turns the VAT into an "implicit export subsidy" for foreign companies and an "implicit tariff" on US exporters. This is just dead wrong.
Everybody has to pay Germany's VAT when they're selling goods in Germany. Nobody has to pay Germany's VAT when they're selling goods outside of Germany.
You can't really blame Trump for this one: a guy with a PhD in economics fed this stuff to him.
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: Mother Jones Fact-check on First 2016 Presidential Debate
Bill Weld on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Jun 22, 2016)
Cut taxes without abolishing the IRS
Q: You support the FairTax [a flat-rate consumption tax]?JOHNSON: Imagine life in this country without the IRS. Greatly simplified. The more money you make, the more things you consume.
WELD: You know, I don't think you have to go so far as to
abolishing the IRS. I think if you give the people the sense that taxes are only going to go down--they may not go down a lot, but they're not going to go up. And that's something both Gary and I did. He cut taxes 14 times, never raised them.
I cut taxes 21 times, never raised them. The result was, in my case that when I took office, it was a recession, 1991. We had the highest unemployment rate of all 11 industrialized states. At the end of my first term, we had the lowest because businesses
have the confidence to build that plant next door. So, you know, in terms of industrial policy, in my case, biotech, telecom, software: We grew those industries in Massachusetts by paying attention to them. And the same could happen at the federal level.
Click for Bill Weld on other issues.
Source: CNN Libertarian Town Hall: joint interview of Johnson & Weld
John Kasich on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Oct 28, 2015)
My plan is no fantasy; I moved Ohio from $8B to $2B surplus
Q [to Ben Carson]: Your 15% flat tax plan leaves you with a $1.1 trillion hole.CARSON: You also have to get rid of all the deductions and all the loopholes. You also have to do some strategic cutting in several places. Remember, we have 645 federal
agencies and subagencies. Anybody who tells me that we need every penny in every one of those is in a fantasy world.
Gov. KASICH: We're going to have a 10% tithe, and just fix everything with waste, fraud, and abuse? Folks, we've got to wake up! These
plans would put us trillions of dollars in debt. I actually have a plan. Why don't we just give a chicken in every pot while we're coming up with these fantasy tax gains? You have to deal with entitlements. You have to control discretionary spending. I
went into Ohio where we had an $8 billion hole, and now we have a $2 billion surplus. We are up 347,000 jobs. In Washington, I fought to get the budget balanced. I was the architect. We cut taxes, and we have a $5 trillion projected surplus when I left.
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Source: GOP `Your Money/Your Vote` 2015 CNBC 1st-tier debate
Lincoln Chafee on Flat Tax:
(Jobs Oct 13, 2015)
Minimum wage of $10.10/hr.; $15 would hurt small business
Chafee wants a $10.10 minimum wage. (The $15 favored by Martin O'Malley, Chafee explains, "could have a significant adverse effect on small businesses.") He also wants to spend more money on Head Start and Pell grants, to expand paid medical leave,
to fight gender-based wage discrimination with a Paycheck Fairness Act, and to "work for a fair tax structure that removes excessive loopholes and tax cuts for wealthy citizens and corporations."
Click for Lincoln Chafee on other issues.
Source: Reason magazine on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Lincoln Chafee on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Oct 13, 2015)
End excessive loopholes; tax cuts for wealthy & corporations
Chafee wants a $10.10 minimum wage. (The $15 favored by Martin O'Malley, Chafee explains, "could have a significant adverse effect on small businesses.") He also wants to spend more money on Head Start and Pell grants, to expand paid medical leave,
to fight gender-based wage discrimination with a Paycheck Fairness Act, and to "work for a fair tax structure that removes excessive loopholes and tax cuts for wealthy citizens and corporations."
Click for Lincoln Chafee on other issues.
Source: Reason magazine on 2016 presidential hopefuls
Donald Trump on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Sep 16, 2015)
Raise graduated taxes on hedge fund managers
Q: Donald Trump says that the hedge fund guys are getting away with murder by paying a lower tax rate. He wants to raise the taxes of hedge fund managers, as does Governor Bush. Do you agree? CARSON: The people who [oppose flat taxes]--that's called
socialism.
Q: What about the FairTax?
TRUMP: What I don't like about the FairTax is that if you make $200 million a year, you pay 10%, you're paying very little relatively to somebody that's making $50,000 a year, and has to hire H&R Block because
the middle class. The hedge fund guys won't like me as much as they like me right now. I know them all, but they'll pay more. I know people that are making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually no tax, and I think it's unfair.
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: 2015 Republican two-tiered primary debate on CNN
Amy Klobuchar on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Oct 20, 2012)
Extend Bush tax cuts except for those earning over $250K
Klobuchar calls for extending tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush on the middle class, but eliminating cuts for those earning more than $250,000 annually. Klobuchar ties tax reform to fixing the debt problem, and both need to be done in the
next year, she said. "We have to find a path where we really send a message to the country and the world that we are serious."For Bills, what to do about taxes is simple: a flat tax. He favors a solution that would tax every person and business
17.1 percent of their income, with just one or two deductions. That would allow tax returns to shrink to postcard size, and he said it may force some wealthy Americans to pay more.
Congress has three choices to reduce the debt,
Bills said: grow the economy, reduce government or raise taxes. He said that cutting government would help the economy grow and could end up bringing in more taxes, even without a tax rate increase.
Click for Amy Klobuchar on other issues.
Source: West Central Tribune on 2012 MN Senate debate
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Energy & Oil Apr 22, 2008)
Institute a tax on oil
Gravel supports the following principles regarding energy:- Support international mandatory emission targets to limit global warming.
- Encourage further development and use of alternative fuels.
- When elected president, I would work with
Congress to enact a tax on oil to get Americans off carbon-based fuels.
- I would eliminate the income tax and replace it with a progressive fair tax, which would be set at 23%.
- Support the permanent repeal of the federal estate tax.
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Source: Presidential Election 2008 Political Courage Test
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Aug 1, 2007)
I advocate a FairTax: pay as you spend
On the Fair Tax: "The biggest problem we have domestically is our tax system. Under the current system, if you're poor and have no income, you get nothing. Average people carry the load, and the poor are unattended. So, I advocate a Fair Tax.
What we'll do under this plan is send you a check every month for the sales tax that you will pay on the essentials of life. This will protect the poor.
It will cover their basic expenses. The rest of us will pay as we spend. The more you spend, the more you pay. If you don't want to pay, don't spend.
So, this will create a cash flow to the poor, not only to the average citizen."
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Source: National Review magazine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Environment Jul 23, 2007)
To get Americans to conserve, change the tax structure
Q: How do you get Americans to conserve?A: Very simple, change our tax structure. Have a fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn. And our tax system is totally corrupt right now.
And so if we now have a retail sales tax, you’ll take this nation of ours from a consuming nation to a savings nation. And that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change.
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Source: 2007 YouTube Democratic Primary debate, Charleston SC
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Feb 21, 2007)
National sales tax; no exceptions; prebates for essentials
The income tax has been gamed by the wealthy people. I for the Fair Tax [national sales tax]. The essentials of life that we have -- food, lodging, medicine, what have you -- we can deal with that. We can’t provide an exception.
When you go to the grocery store, you’ll pay the tax on it. Because if you start giving an exception, then Katy bar the door, the wealthy will game the system again. But what we can do is create a prebate.
Determine what the average cost of essential is to average American, and then turn it around and multiply that by the tax, take the amount of tax, divide it by 12, and send every single registered American a check at the beginning of the month to
cover what he would pay in the way of taxes on the essentials of life. Now that creates a cash flow, and then you go get your paycheck, and there’s no tax deductions at the federal level.
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Source: 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Dec 25, 2006)
Repeal the income tax and close down the IRS
The Gravel Agenda: When elected President by the American people, I will:- Repeal the income tax and closing down the IRS replacing it with a Fair Tax (a national sales tax with a pre-bate for necessities)
that will reverse the flight of jobs and capital abroad while balancing the budget;
- Fund education as the top priority it must be in a democracy.
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Source: 2008 Presidential campaign website, gravel2008.us, “Issues”
Mike Gravel on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Apr 17, 2006)
Tax system unfairness only superceded by incomprehensibility
The Fair Tax: Describing the current tax system as one whose “unfairness is only superceded by its incomprehensibility” the senator promised
to place before the people “a straightforward national sales tax with proper consideration for the necessities of life through a pre-bate.”
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Source: Press release “Announces Run for President”
Jesse Ventura on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Dec 10, 2000)
Modernize, simplify, & clarify tax system
- A better tax system will be more understandable and predictable for taxpayers, so they know how much tax they’re paying & why, and what government is doing with those dollars.
- A better tax system will be more fair, balancing citizens’ ability
to pay and the cost and benefits of the government services they consume, and building confidence that the tax laws are being applied evenhandedly to all.
- A fair tax system will eliminate unfunded mandates by assigning tax responsibility to the same
level of government that defines what levels of service will be provided.
- A better tax system will be modern, reflecting the economy, technology, and society of the 21st century so we can raise sufficient revenue to meet future needs, be competitive
with other states and countries and incorporate new technology and ways of doing business.
- And finally, a better tax system will just make sense, with tax laws that don’t undermine citizens and communities from doing the right things.
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Source: The Big Plan: Service, not Systems
Donald Trump on Flat Tax:
(Tax Reform Jul 2, 2000)
Opposes flat tax; benefits wealthy too much
I object to the flat tax:- It is unfair to the poor; eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit [hurts] taxpayers at the lowest rungs of the ladder.
- It is unfair to workers by taxing them for health insurance and other benefits.
- Only the
wealthy would reap a windfall, because a flat tax would allow them to cash in interest payments and capital gains without paying personal income taxes.
- I don’t believe that a flat tax could raise enough revenue to keep the government operating.
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: The America We Deserve, by Donald Trump, p.186
Page last updated: Dec 08, 2020