Presidential Candidates and Taxes
Welcome to Newly Corporate. This is my first post in the blog world. I hope you all find my posts informative. Today, I took a little look at some of the leading Presidential Candidates and their stance on taxes. (Sorry for the links, I am new at all of this and still working on my formatting)
Mitt - www.mittromney.com
• Make Bush’s tax cuts permanent
• Abolish the Death Tax
• Create saving incentives
• Lower Marginal Rates for Individuals
• More Competitive Corporate Tax
• Simplify tax code
Guilliani - http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/22572.html
• Cut taxes and keep taxes low
• Reform tax code (simplify)
• Make Bush’s tax cuts permanent
• Remove inheritance tax
• Eliminate marriage penalty
• Lower corporate tax
HIllary - www.hillaryclinton.com
• Provide affordable health care
• Reward savings
• Tax relief for middle class
• Ending marriage penalty
• Deductions for college tuition
• Refundable child tax credit and adoption credit
• Tax incentives for job creation
• Rollback Bush tax cuts
Obama - http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/18/obama.taxplan/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
• No taxes for seniors
• Universal homeowners credit
• Breaks of $500 to $1000 for 150 million Americans (Eliminates tax for 10 million people)
• Pre-filled tax forms
• Close loopholes
• Simplify tax code
• Increasing capital gains and dividends for wealthy
I could dive into each candidate with more precision but let’s be honest, they are all nearly the same. All of them want to simplify the tax code. Republicans want to lower taxes; democrats want to help the middle class. I will comment on a couple of the points.
Obama wants to simplify the tax code but also says he wants to close the loopholes. Any tax professional will tell you, the mass of the Internal Revenue Code is a majority of closed loopholes. The evolution of the tax code is as follows: businesses find a loop hole, exploit it, Congress catches on, closes loophole, adds 100 more pages, tax professionals make more money. (I’m a tax professional!) I do like the pre-filled tax form idea of Obama’s. In today’s day and age that should be simple, even if the beginning costs would be extravagant. However, it would loosen the burden on the majority of individual filers.
Rudy and Mitt are almost identical on the tax issues. I agree the Bush cuts on capital gains needs to remain. The cuts have done a remarkable job in creating investments and keeping money in the market.
The Dems have a lot they want to do, such as Hillary’s healthcare plan and Obama eliminating taxes for the poor. These are going to put a huge burden on the wealthy, who already pay the majority of the Nation’s tax burden. However, the Republicans want to lower taxes. If the Republicans remain on the same path as Bush and the Iraq War continues, the tax cuts and strategies are close to impossible. As candidates expand on their positions I’ll be sure to post more. As for Thompson and Edwards, I left Edwards out because I don’t think he has a chance to win, and Thompson because there just isn’t enough info on him yet. If I find more info on any of the 6 leaders I’ll be sure to post!
Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe via email. Thanks for visiting!
Tags: Finance, Taxes
Subscriber in a reader
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Nice work Brandon A. Also, nice first name, we’ll see if there is enough room on this blog for two Brandons….
September 24th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
This blog is taking an interesting twist. Do I smell a certain three letter (and one number) influence sneaking through?
September 24th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I don’t really think so, it just lays out tax strategy, there is no endorsing of candidates, it just shows how it will hit your bottom line.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
He is a tax consultant after all….
September 24th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Tad,
For the sake of being open here, Yes I am a conservative. I am trying to keep that out of any post of mine as much as possible. However, it will be impossible for me to completely remove any influence. I also would not extend my conservatism on to other members on this blog. So although my posts may stink of conservative idea, don’t take a preemptive bias toward the others! Thanks for your comment, I look forward to some healthy debate with you. I particularly enjoy your latest post on your blog.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
1. I think Tad would make an outstanding contributor to this blog and welcome his future comments. In fact, a well structured written debate could put this blog on the map.
2. I think Brandon did a good job of keeping this pretty even handed.
3. If I were to dissagree with Brandon on one point it would be this one … “The cuts have done a remarkable job in creating investments and keeping money in the market. ” Although these may be true statements, it glosses over some of the downsides of the cuts. On the macro level, we have the biggest deficit of any country in the world. On the individual level, I personally wasn’t satisfied with the size of the tax refund. I believe the average refund was around $300 per person/family. That is not a significant enough amount to sway me. Would I rather have $300 in my pocket or a balanced budget? I’m willing to sacrifice that little bit to secure America’s future.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
[...] of my first posts was on the presidential candidates and their implications on your tax bill. Although most have remained consistent, it is time for an update. Most importantly, its time to add [...]
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:55 pm
[...] of my first posts was on the presidential candidates and their implications on your tax bill. Although most have remained consistent, it is time for an update. Most importantly, its time to add [...]