Reagan, In His Own Hand by Kiron K. Skinner

Author:Kiron K. Skinner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: All rights reserved
Published: 2001-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tax Loopholes

May 1975

Hang on to your pocketbooks in Wash., they’re talking tax reform again. I’ll be right back.

From time to time I’m going to talk about loopholes in the tax laws and this is one of those times. Pol’s. dearly love to make the people believe they have some magic way of extracting taxes from some mysterious “they” who are not now paying their fair share. Under the all embracing subject of tax reform they would have us believe that we’ll all be home free—or partly so just as soon as they close the loopholes and catch up with that mysterious “they” and make them cough up.

Cong. Corman * of Calif. introduced a bill in Cong. H.R. 1040. He had 43 co-sponsors. The bill states; “Our taxing system is riddled with loopholes that deprive the treasury of bil’s. of $ each yr, weakening our competitive, free enterprise syst. & undermining the th morale of the hard working wage earner and small businessman to whom tax loopholes are not available. In 1970 more than 100 Am’s. with incomes of $200,000 paid no inc. tax.”

That’s a pretty strong statement & if it’s true we all should be pretty darn mad. Of course Now the Cong mn is right there in Wash. where he has access to all the facts— therefore he should know although which makes you wonder why he didn’t mention it that in 1970 there were 15,306 individuals who earned $200,000 a year and 15,200 of them (99.6%) pd. an average tax of $177,000 each for a total of $2.7 Bil. The treasury dept. which collects the tax says the 106 who didn’t pay had various losses & deductions which amounted to more than their gross inc. but all were being audited.

Now it seems that if those deductions were “loopholes”—gimmicks by which they could slip by through somewhat dishonestly avoid paying taxes the other 15,200 were pretty silly stupid for for not finding them also.

Now it does seem strange that 15,200 people smart enough to make $200,000 a year were too stupid to find the loopholes the other 106 found. Unless, of course, those supposed loopholes are all in the Congressman’s mind.

Why is it that so many loophole closing pol’s start out by proclaiming they want to lighten the workers load and wind up telling us how much more money govt. will get if the loopholes are closed. Just once I’d like to hear one specify the loophole he’ll he wants closed and then how much of the citizens tax burden will be released.

Take the 1st one they go after—you might say the showcase loophole, the oil depletion allowance. If it were eliminated totally the govt. would get $1 Bil. or less and that w is what the govt. spends that much every single day.

The truth is most of what our politicians call loopholes are the legit. deductions the working people depend on to keep their inc. tax from being more intolerable than it is. And ending eliminating those deductions would vastly increase govt.

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