The current U.S. presidential administration and congressional leadership have spent months talking about tax reform. The next several months will determine whether such a reform will materialize and what it might include. Unfortunately, the prospects for reform are not promising. Instead of reform, we may see a tax cut — and that is not the same thing.
The U.S. Needs Tax Reform, Not Tax Cuts
Reform is about fairness, efficiency, and simplicity — and it should be bipartisan.
August 22, 2017
Summary.
The two central questions in tax policy are how much revenue to raise and how to allocate the tax burden among income groups. The idea of tax reform is to try to avoid these broader political and philosophical conflicts. Tax reform advocates start with a framework in which the amount of tax revenue raised and the distribution of tax burdens are held roughly constant. They seek reforms that satisfy the objectives of fairness, efficiency, and simplicity. Sadly, the combination of political polarization and one-party control of Congress by a narrow margin makes it very hard to get tax reform today. The Republican majority may try to enact reform without seeking bipartisan buy-in. But the consequent thin support for reform will make it virtually impossible to overcome the opposition of special interest groups who stand to lose from reform.