Home › Opinion › Editorials Dems should tackle tax code Public craves simplicity S... Dems should tackle tax cod

Home › Opinion › Editorials Dems should tackle tax code Public craves simplicity STORY TOOLS Email this story Print December 3, 2006 As Democrats prepare to take charge in both the U.S. House and Senate, there's a glimmer of hope that party leaders will push one initiative that has appeal across the political spectrum: tax reform.

We're all for moves to streamline the baffling tax laws. Compliance with the code, which forces taxpayers or their accountants to spend an average of 31 hours to fill out a return, imposes a senseless dead-weight loss on the economy.

But there's a limit to how much reform the public is willing to stomach. Americans enjoy and expect to benefit from many big-ticket tax exemptions - and frankly, some of them, such as the mortgage interest write-off (at least for a primary residence), support sound policy goals.

So long as reformers have modest expectations, and make it difficult to morph the next tax code into a full-employment program for lobbyists, pushing for simpler taxation is a worthy crusade.

To their credit, powerful Democrats seem to have cooled on the notion of immediately repealing President Bush's tax cuts, which would amount to a whopping tax increase. Instead, they are mulling moves that could close some loopholes and reduce the number of marginal tax rates.

One promising idea, from Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, would collapse the current regime of six personal income tax rates to three - 15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent (they currently range from 10 to 35 percent).

Supply-siders concerned with economic growth might consider these changes minimal, since the top rate would remain the same. The Tax Foundation recently calculated that the types of deductions Wyden would keep make up close to 50 percent of the personal income that's now exempted from taxation.

But Wyden swears his plan would allow taxpayers to file a one-page return. The tax code could also shrink from 1.4 million words to perhaps a few thousand.

Legislation that requires new tax breaks to be published online 72 hours before they're voted on, for instance, would give the public time to react to them before passage. It should make it tougher to muck up a streamlined tax code.

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